Review: Quantum of Solace

I read several reviews before seeing this movie that equated this Bond with a sad attempt to imitate the Bourne movies. Gone were the gadgets, the women, the sophistication. Instead, insisted the reviews, the new movie was non-stop fighting, with a thin plot surrounding what was essentially an action film.

Well, I have seen this movie, and this is the best Bond movie to date, period. The reboot of the Bond franchise in Casino Royale was interesting and necessary to keep Bond relevant, but far more important is that it has led to this movie, Quantum of Solace, which opens up the path to a truly revolutionary type of Bond film. For the first time ever, a Bond film has put social and environmental issues front and center. For the first time, the machinations that Bond's villains perform have an impact on average people and the filmmakers have chosen to make that a central part of the film, not just a throw-away.

One of the staples of any Bond film is the numerous foreign locales that Bond travels through during his missions. This movie is no different, with stops in Italy, Haiti, Bolivia, Austria, and of course London, England. But for the first time, each place is not filmed to show the exotic-ness of the locale, not photographed to make a nice tourist pitch on behalf of the nation. Instead, in places where there is suffering, the movie shows that suffering. In Haiti and Bolivia, the constant turnover in governments has resulted in poverty for much of the population, and the movie does not attempt to hide any of it, but instead points it out visually, time and time again. The photography does not make the walls colorful and the hanging linens cheerful, but instead makes them drab and dingy.

Without giving too much away, the plot of Quantum of Solace is about how both private and government entities manipulate power in order to gain more resources and money. Quantum of Solace is hardly the first Bond movie in which this occurs, but it is the first one to actually depict the suffering of people who ultimately pay the price for this power grab. Perhaps it is done with a slightly heavy hand, but what Bond film has ever attempted more than a half-hearted attempt to show how the actions of villains cause suffering on the innocent? In this way, Quantum of Solace has shown the way to a new type of Bond film, one with an actual social message, less concerned with the cat-and-mouse game between government spies than with how this game ends up hurting the very people whose governments ostensibly protect.

The fact that so many reviewers have come out of this Bond film thinking that it is nothing but non-stop action when in reality it is the first one with a real social message is a testament to the deft hand of the filmmakers in embedding this message as a subtle undertone to the movie. This achievement was accomplished through the use of visual cues to accomplish the social message, rather than heavy bouts of dialogue and exposition.

Another milestone achieved by the filmmakers in this Bond film is their use of external elements to add artistic touches to the film in way that no other Bond film has really attempted. The first is most obvious, when a woman ends up dead, naked on a bed, covered in black oil. The reference back to Goldfinger is clear, but the deeper message hidden in that reference is quite astonishing for a Bond film. In Goldfinger, the woman who ends up dead is covered in gold, not oil. The plot of Goldfinger involves an attempt to corner the market on gold, because in the late 50's and early 60's, the most precious commodity in the world was gold. But in today's world, oil has replaced gold as the most precious commodity. Wars are no longer started over control of gold, instead it is oil that is driving greed, aggression, and ultimately suffering (in the immediate sense for the dead woman, but in the more metaphysical sense for all of humanity).

The second is far less likely to be noticed by anyone who is not a fan of opera, but an entire fight sequence is choreographed to the scene in Puccini's Tosca where Tosca kills Scarpia. The visuals of the Bond fight are interspersed with images of Tosca stabbing Scarpia. While it's debatable whether the scene works (for those who even understood it), for the filmmakers to try something like that in a Bond film is quite astonishing. As sophisticated as previous films have portrayed Bond, the films themselves have rarely been made with such sophistication.

So while many might bemoan the lack of sophistication evinced by Bond, and others might decry the dearth of fun gadgets for Bond to play with, I am quite happy to see that this film has pushed Bond in quite a new and interesting direction. Many considered Casino Royale's reboot of the Bond franchise to reflect a more "throw-back" Bond, one less reliant on gadgets and more brute force. How ironic then that Quantum of Solace gives us perhaps the most modern Bond of all, one who is concerned with society and humanity, who fights villains not just because his government tells him to, but because it is the right thing to do. That is far more than Jason Bourne ever did.

Rashomon

Holy sh*t! That last tracking shot, starting with the square within a square, the outer being the film frame (yes, Academy ratio is not exactly square, bear with me!), the inner being the doorway of the gate with the sky filling the door, blown out almost pure white, the priest and the woodchopper standing there silhouetted against that white sky in the doorway, perfectly positioned at corners of the rule-of-thirds within that inner square, turning to each other, bowing to each other one more time, the woodsman walking towards the camera and the camera pulling back to follow, with the baby, that symbol of hope and faith, in the woodsman's arms, and the priest staying behind still silhouetted clearly against the white sky within the doorway, always visible as the woodsman continues walking, never disappearing behind the woodsman so the eye always seems him subconsciously, even as the focus is on the woodsman's hopeful smile as he walks further away from the gate, then the realization that the entire gate is entering the frame, the priest, becoming ever-smaller as the camera pulls back, slowly moving into position at the bottom right rule-of-thirds position as the camera moves, the gate entering from the top left, the woodsman continuing his walk, until he dominates the entire top left of the frame, the bright white square of the silhouetted priest perfectly placed at the lower right rule-of-thirds position, then the camera stops and the woodsman walks out of the frame, revealing a perfect composition of gate and priest, symbolizing hope and faith for a new day, a rebirth, as the priest looks on.

Un-f*cking-believable shot! I don't know if Kurosawa was responsible for that, or Miyagawa, or a little of both, but it was envisioned beautifully and executed perfectly. That is how a movie with that type of message should end!!

Review: You, Me and Dupree

This movie is probably worth a rental, but nothing more. It features a few funny laughs, but probably only about half of the comedic scenes work. The problem with the movie is that it works mostly as a situational comedy, but it doesn't set up the situations properly to generate the right laughs. The biggest reason for this is that the movie doesn't know who the main character is. Is the movie about Matt Dillon's character? It seems like it in the beginning. But then towards the middle it seems that Owen Wilson's character becomes the protagonist. But then the movie starts describing Kate Hudson's character a bit more. It's all done rather clumsily, and the net effect is that none of the characters is well fleshed-out, none of them seem real, and it is very unclear whom the audience is supposed to identify with most. Perhaps the intended answer is "all three", but the movie fails to pull that off. The net result is that the developments between the characters have neither the comedic nor emotional impact that is required to really hook in the audience. A few scattered scenes work, but overall it falls flat.

The other disappointment is that Owen Wilson does not get to do as many zany things as he normally does. He's actually rather reserved, considering that the premise would seem to allow him to go way over the top. Again, I think this is because the movie wanted to approach the plot as if it were a situational comedy, rather than a farce. Unfortunately the filmmakers couldn't really pull that off, so it just feels like Owen Wilson is being artificially restrained. Perhaps he just needs Ben Stiller or Vince Vaughn in order to fully let loose.

Review: Eragon

I did not read the novel that this movie is based on, so I cannot comment on the accuracy of the translation of the novel to the big screen (apparently numerous liberties have been taken, or so I am told). I can only approach the movie for what it is. And unfortunately for the most part it is a mess. The problem is that the director does not know what he is doing, coupled with a few actors who are either not very good or were not well-directed.

The biggest problem is that the movie suffers from scenes that do not flow together to provide a coherent story. The combination of camera angles, musical cues, and character actions do not combine to create the proper mood for a movie such as this. A story of this type has clear precedents to follow. It features a young boy who is coming of age and trying to find his destiny. It features oppressed people waiting for a leader to emerge to lead them out of their misery. It features evil bad guys who are faced with prophecies that predict their demise and are trying to kill the savior before he can topple them. One might think that in making a film with all these elements, it would be a good idea to study these films to see how to move a film from scene to scene. But instead the movie steals scenes outright from these other films, and then hastily glues together those scenes with filler scenes that are clumsily executed. There are also too many times where a character looks off to the side pensively and the scene ends in anticipation of the character learning something or doing something, but instead the next scene is unrelated to what just happened. It all feels like a film student's project rather than a polished movie.

There are also a few points where the actors deliver their lines quite poorly. The lines themselves are not inherently bad, so either the actors are not very good, or the director did not do a good job helping them to deliver their lines better. In defense of the actors, most of them appear to be quite young and are probably starring in their first major movie.

Having said that, the movie has several good points. The CG animation of the dragon is quite amazing, with very fluid motions, tons of detail, and even some expressive facial movements. The scenes of the dragon flying are extremely well-done, providing an exhilarating view from the skies. And more than that, after the halfway point of the movie there is a certain earnestness to the movie, an unpolished sincerity, that starts to make sense. The movie seems targeted towards children younger than those who would be interested in Lord of the Rings, and displays a certain naivete that has a charm on its own. Instead of being at all cynical with regards to its subject matter, and instead of injecting adult concerns and logic into the plot, the movie seems content to keep matters strictly in the realm of childlike fantasy. And on that level, the second half of the movie works.

So, while the movie's shortcomings keep it from being compared favorably to such epics as Lord of the Rings or Star Wars in terms of execution, plot coherence, and originality, on the other hand there is a certain innocence and naive charm that could easily work for younger audiences. It is probably worth a rental, especially if you have tween-aged boys in your household.

Review: Deja Vu

Honestly, I watched this movie because I wanted to watch stuff blow up in a mindless fashion. Going by that criteria, the movie succeeds and can be recommended. However, the movie is otherwise not terribly good. It begins very promising, but then a "secret" is revealed, a secret that is explained in a very clumsy fashion, and which is used and abused poorly for the rest of the movie, building from a minor implausibility to a complete collapse of the suspension of disbelief. At that point, it's all just running around and gunshots and explosions. Also, the ending chickens out from making an interesting statement and is instead 100% Hollywood, which was disappointing as it defies the internal logic of the movie itself and makes everything completely arbitrary. As per a Tony Scott, the look of the film is interesting in and of itself, with a very high contrast look and yellow-amber filters. It's a very well-photographed film, and quite interesting to look at from a purely aesthetic perspective. Otherwise, I can't recommend this film.