Quantum of Solace: Bond’s Revenge

Review by WyndorfDave — July 16, 2011 @ 10:58 pm

*This rating was given before reviews were required*

Review by DwightFry78 — May 30, 2011 @ 5:50 am

Quantum of Solace is a problematic movie: it arrived as a followup to one of the best Bond films and it resulted very inferior to that, it seemed a pretty superfluous story as the character is pretty much in the same situation at the end than at the beginning, he only did away with some quite unimportant intermediaries to get to avenge Vesper but no big kahuna, plus the filmmaking style (or lack thereof) is the dreaded shake cam. It seems like there are multiple ways to improve on the movie by fanediting, but not a clear one to completely fix it. And Last Survivor’s effort, while solid, is not completely what I would have done. So let’s see…

What I liked: the fact that we got a prologue to fit with Casino Royale and have Vesper present again. What I didn’t like as much: that it was that long. It suffered from a bit of Superman-II-The-Richard-Donner-Cut-itis by delivering way too much background info that we who have seen CR already know. I think starting the prologue with the building sinking and Vesper underwater would have been enough.

What I liked: the “new” theme song. Miles better than the original, and yes, indeed it has a Bond feel. What I didn’t like as much: moving the credits sequence until this late in the movie (16 minutes), when we had already forgotten about it. I would have put it right at the end of the recap (“Bond, James Bond”, kick the song in). A matter of taste, I guess.

What else did I like? I was REALLY impressed by the way you handled the bodyguard kill. By implying that Bond did indeed shoot him and not just threw him off the roof, the line “I tried my best not to” gets a whole new meaning, and a very cynically in-character one. The slowing-down of the action sequences worked quite well, given the circumstances. And I include the opera house and Camille vs. Medrano modified bits. Not what I’d expect to see in a Bond film, but neither did I expect Forster’s epileptic cam. Maybe Vesper was a bit (just a bit) overused in the opera house sequence, but I never care for the original’s faux-Coppola (or was it faux-Eisenstein?) parallel stuff. I was very glad to see the different fonts for the different cities go, it was just overkill (I would have used no caption for Port-Au-Prince, though – the dialogue inmediately preceeding it already establishes it) Also, thanks for removing that “You and I had a mutual friend” line by Bond to Carlos. What the heck was that?

What else did I not care for? Sorry but I’m with Havok regarding Greene’s fate. What’s made of that in the edit is pretty much anticlimactic. I much prefer the motor oil solution. And I would have toned down much of M’s dialogue, sometimes she overstates everything so the dumbest member of the audience gets it, and also she seems a bit too upset by Bond killing left and right. Well, who gave him the 00 to begin with? I definitely would have removed the reference to the hotel room guy in Russia in the epilogue being still alive. Bond softens himself a bit too much there, methinks.

Technical stuff is, like LS’ previous edit Smallville Destiny, very good. I’m in the PAL zone so I didn’t notice the speed-up, this is the way Bond always plays for me. The cuts are totally invisible.

Is this the edit I would have made? No. Is it a good one? Definitely. Will it replace the original for me? No. Will it be a worthy alternate take and companion to it? You bet.

Overall, 8/10.

Review from 17 June 2011

Watched this last night and thoroughly enjoyed it.

I’ll start off with the negatives:
1. The gun barrel sequence doesn’t work, I’m afraid. It looks strange, the “barrel” needs anti-aliasing, and the shot it opens into is near the end of the movie – and then it suddenly cuts to the intro sequence. If you *must* have the barrel, open directly into the opening shot of the film.
2. A natural place for the credits is “Bond, James Bond”. Where you’ve put it feels off, and it breaks the action.
3. The Opera sequence doesn’t quite work. I see what you’re trying to do, and I REALLY like the Vesper callbacks the whole way through, but the abrupt segue into Vesper was jarring. Perhaps if you put the shot of her in the mirror when he looks up in the bathroom after putting the Quantum earpiece in? I think the callback needs to start in a non-action part – and then maybe carry on into the action. Maybe also put back more of the opera – the opera dealing with death leads nicely into thoughts about Vesper – and revenge, which makes him brutal (which is what I think you were going for, which I really liked).
4. The explanation of the fuel cells (which I also thought was unnecessary at first) is actually required – otherwise the hotel just starts ridiculously blowing up for no reason whatsoever, and becomes an 80′s throwback!
5. The sudden cut to Camille in a Vesper-type dream sequence felt really off. It didn’t work at all, in my opinion. I liked the way you cut the action, but I think putting the Vesper chased/trapped sequence in juxtaposed with Camille’s fight would actually work much better.
6. You need the interaction with Greene saying “I told you all I know” – because that leads to Russia. Otherwise Bond just magically appears in Russia!

If you could address some of the issues above this film would replace the original. It is far stronger than the original!

And now the positives:
1. The opening sequence was FANTASTIC. It was jaw-droppingly good. The concept and execution – brilliant! (And then I read how much work it took! Kudos to you. And it was worth it!)
2. The movie as a whole is really well paced, hangs together nicely. What you’ve removed is hardly noticeable.
3. Technically very, very strong. I could detect once or twice where you’d edited the music, but nothing jarring. Picture was superb.
4. Fonts replacement – yes!!
5. Title song. Hm, original didn’t bother me, but replacement was flawless. Nicely done.
6. I liked the Bourne-type action – but liked yours equally well. The whole idea of revenge flashbacks in the action was great.

Well done, Last Survivor. If the issues mentioned are dealt with, this edit would be a solid 9, 9.5. As it stands I think the edit is a well-earned 7.
Thanks for a great hour and a half!

Quantum of Solace is a bit of a thorny issue when it comes to Bond. It was rushed, there was a writers strike and therefore the plot was extremely thin. The action scenes were done with shaky cam and very fast editing that left the viewer a little confused at times. Still, for a Bond fan it had many great moments, but it needed more of plot to hold the film together.

I didn't know how one could improve on this film without access to the original footage and deleted scenes to make something more cohesive. But then, if there wasn't much in the script in the first place...

This edit opens with the gun-barrell inserted into the beginning rather than the end which is a good thing as it really jars at the end, coming as it does after an emotional pay-off scene. Bizarrely the gun-barrell opens into a flash forward of Bond and Camille in the desert before cutting to the aerial shot over the water that leads to the car chase opening, which didn't really work for me. The car chase is intercut with flash backs from Casino Royale, which is a good idea to re-establish Bond's motivation and anger, but doesn't quite come off. The slowed down shots of the action is most welcome as in the original it's nigh on impossible to follow what's happening. We then have the interrogation scene followed by the roof-top chase BEFORE the opening titles which works so much better - good move!

Not sure about the Pink tune as the title music, I would have gone with Shirley Bassey's theme that was rejected when they heard they could get Jack White (bad move) - hear it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCX4SxhpPwE

I like that the place name titles have been replaced with a sensible font, but I did miss Bond's final scene with Greene, and the slowed down fight scene felt like a bit of an anti-climax.

Good job though - I still enjoyed myself, but I'd probably still reach for the original.

Review by Phlegmbot — November 19, 2011 @ 12:23 am

The opening montage/re-cap was an obvious and necessary addition that, as we all agree, was a bizarre thing to leave out of the original. My problem with your re-cap, however, was that it started off with a linear telling of what happened and moved to a parallel re-telling — which was confusing. Perhaps you were trying to ape some of the techniques used by Forster later in the film? I dunno, but removing that would’ve made it shorter which is a complaint of several others.

I haven’t watched QOS since it first came out on DVD, so I can’t say I fully recall what was changed scene for scene, but this version is FAR more clear in its storytelling. There’s an actual plot for one, and not just random action-scene after action-scene. Whereas the QOS in the theaters felt like just a mish-mash of unnecessary action scenes, this feels like a Bond movie. Which is amazing.

I wasn’t thrilled w/the slow-mo action sequence at the opera. While I liked its creativity — and agree that it was necessary to differentiate it from the other fast-paced action scenes we’d already seen — using different music was jarring and not showing the shot that frustrated M until he was on the phone w/M was, structurally, an error in storytelling. I agree with a critique above which states there were a few too many flashbacks in the scene as well.

However, nearly all of act 1 and act 2 were perfect. You really did a great job of clarifying the action sequences and making it feel like a great spy movie — something sorely missing from the original QOS.

I don’t recall how much slo-mo — if any — was in the actual film, but by the THIRD use of the slo-mo here, I was starting to think I was watching a ’70s B-movie.

In act 3, it completely fell apart when you interrupted the CLIMAX to self-indulge in further slo-mo and sepia-tone and a flashback (in the middle of the climax?!). It seemed like a snub, not just to your audience, but to proper storytelling and story structure. It just didn’t work as those were simply choices that made no sense. To stop the action for an artistic moment, and one that was not related to Bond directly, is just not how a climax works.

Technically, this was a 10. Audio and video, and the great song by Pink, were top-notch. I think there were 3 jarring edits, and it’s possible two of those weren’t even yours (again, I’ve not watched the DVD since it came out, but I do not recall having that reaction to any edits). So kudos on all that! Storytelling/structure issues are a VERY common problem among FanEdits, but this one was closer to getting it right than most others.