You may have noticed that the title of this blog is a little different to the title of the film. And those less educated of you may think that the title implies I enjoyed the film.
Sadly not, i’ll explain!
Definition of Quantam: The smallest discrete amount of any quantity (plural: quanta).
So yes, you guessed it. I didn’t enjoy the film.
I am what you may call a James Bond fan. Having seen all the films at least 3 times. I am by no means an expert but I believe I do have a good understanding of what’s what in the world of Bond.
I found it hard to pin point the exact reason for my lack of enjoyment but i’ve narrowed it down to 2 main causes.
1) James Bond. Now, I should start by saying i’m not with the now some what redundant brigade of anti Daniel Craig as Bond cliche. I think Craig is a brilliant Bond. He’s gritty, swarve, and arrogant. Everything a good Bond needs to be. What he is though which is ultimately his downfall is deep. Deep?! I hear you cry? What does that mean?…. Well what I mean is never before have we seen an emotionally effected Bond in such a way. True we’ve seen him upset at the ongoing losses of his loves but never to a point where the actual storyline revolves around it.
2) Location, location, location. We’ve always been spoiled with great backdrops of exotic, extreme, and unusual locations with any James Bond. TQoS was no different however again this I believe lead to a downfall of enjoyment. You never quite knew exactly where Bond was, or exactly why he was there. By the time you’d got close to understanding where he was, and what he was doing there he’d moved to another location where your understanding process started again!
Aswell as those being the 2 main reasons I believe I personally didn’t enjoy the film here are also another few reasons I felt short changed!
No comedy: Ok I know Bond isn’t about Comedy. But, I don’t ever remember seeing a Bond film without at least 2 or 3 one liners. Maybe Bond was too far into his broken heart depression to muster any kind of comedy?!
No battles with the bad guy: We normally get to know the bad guy in Bond films quite well. Maybe even liking them a little! but TQoS was different. Through the first 30 minutes of the film you were unsure of who the main villain was! In the end when we had identified Mr Greene as the bad guy you had lost respect for him as a guy who lost his women to a man he seemed to grovel to (The General). You also expect the villain to be a little tougher. And have at least 1 scuffle with Bond before his final demise (usually resulting in him winning the first time around, or narrowly escaping). Instead he ran away, after a weak fight scene, and was left to die in the desert.
The story line: Water? oh c’mon Water surrounds us! There is certainly no lack of it. I understand in certain locations it maybe on short supply, but seriously!!! do you really expect a evil villain to make his first step at taking over the world to be cutting water supply to some 3rd world countries? I know they’ve played the oil card lots, and battled with Russians, and Arabs over it. But i’d rather see another beleiveable oil orientated storyline than to see a water fight (yes it’s as lame as it sounds).
One of the classic Bond film aspects is the gadgets! there were no gadgets in this film other than a fancy mobile phone that had a clever camera. There was no Q, no “please do bring it back in one piece 007″ quote.
Put all those pieces of dissapointment together and you’re left with why I didn’t enjoy the film, and why I won’t be buying it on Blu Ray. The storyline wasn’t strong, and the revenge side of things made Bond look weak.
My final thought to summ this up was done for me without me knowing. When the film finished and there was that few seconds pause between the black screen and the credits. As everybody else began to shuffle to leave I thought to myself.. ‘Ahah fools, it’s not over yet.’
It was.
3/10 – The great effect, acting, and backdrops were killed by a storyline more suited to a chick flick than a James Bond. Minus Bond & The £100million budget and replace it with Clive Owen and a £20million budget and you’ve got a mediocre straight to DVD release.
