Review Detail

8.9 22 10
FanFix July 07, 2012 7367
(Updated: September 12, 2012)
Overall rating
 
8.3
Audio/Video Quality
 
9.0
Visual Editing
 
9.0
Enjoyment
 
7.0
Review by Aztek463 — May 26, 2011 @ 11:09 pm

I’ve been iffy on Quantum of Solace. I didn’t really care for it that much when it was released to theaters, although my opinion changed a bit on subsequent viewings. I actually did my own edit of this a few years ago, but I never released it. I was interested to see Last Survivor’s edit of this because, well, it sorta reminded me of mine. So without further ado, let’s see how it was, shall we?

VIDEO:
This is a nice looking edit. No combing, no pixelation, no digital artifacts. There was a slight quality drop from the commercial DVD, but that’s to be expected, and it wasn’t distracting save for when there were subtitles present (hard coded as part of the original picture. Yellow is an awful color). These were few and far in between, and not the editor’s fault in the slightest.
8/10

AUDIO:
No complaints here.
10/10

EDITING:
Last Survivor did a great job on the editing. The opening was great…while the Licence to Kill gun barrel theme didn’t quite feel right at first, as the opening shots of the film played out, it was a better fit than I thought it would be. The “previously on James Bond…” opening was very well edited, and with the music he used, it was suspenseful as well.

The new title song was great as well, it definitely fit, and I liked the inclusion of the credit for it. Good job!

The opera shootout and the fight at the end were done very well as…well, I guess. There was more emotion in both of them, especially the final confrontation between Camille and Medrano/Bond and Greene. The pace was great, and it didn’t seem “out of place” when the scene slowed down, in both cases.

I did feel that the opening flashback to Casino Royale went on a bit too long, and it probably could have been trimmed down a bit. Also, some of the scenes that were slowed down (the blood on the gun barrel, the car chase) were slowed down *too* much, to the point the video was a bit jerky. Not the worst thing in the world, but just for future reference, be careful slowing stuff down.
9/10

DVD:
Simple, but effective. It was quite pleased to see a scene selection menu (with different music on each page!) Extras include a trailer and info on the edit. No complaints.
10/10

I do have on major complaint for this edit, and it’s a doozy. In some scenes, particularly the flashbacks to Casino Royale, a good chunk of the Haiti sequence, and a little bit at the end, the video seems like it’s going a bit fast. The audio is not out of sync, but it appears as if perhaps the original source for this edit was PAL and not properly converted to NTSC. It also reminded me of how some HDTVs are configured improperly on the showroom floor of electronics stores, and the demos being shown appear to move too fast. What the cause of this was, I’m not sure, but it was distracting at times. I tested the edit on a few different players, the same result each time.

Don’t get me wrong…I really enjoyed this edit. It’s pretty damn close to my preferred version of the film. However, the aforementioned video issues are a distraction and take away from the experience, and prevents me from giving it a higher score. Maybe Last Survivor could look into fixing this or figuring the issue out and release a corrected version?

TOTAL: 7/10
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