Quantum of Solace: Bond’s Revenge

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.