Skyfall is out! What better way to celebrate than to look back…
Kev Sutherland is a comedian and comic strip creator.
I have stolen his review of Quantum Of Solace. Enjoy, and arrest me later.
“Just saw Quantum Of Solace and, though it’s a diverting two hours, it’s surprising shallow and disappointing. No characters that were in any way surprising or original, no twists in the plot to make you go “oh I never saw that coming” while realising you should have seen it coming, no sudden moments that made you gape with awe or smile at being second-guessed by a snappy writer and director. The ending anticlimactic and drawn out. And as for the misogynistic treatment of women, it was patronising, dismissive, fantasistic and quite unbelievable for any film made later than 1967.
Also frustrating is the cinema screen. Nice and big, with great sound, but it’s harder to see what’s happening than it is on your TV screen at home (for example the scene where they fall through that glass dome, shown on the TV trailers – looks fab on TV, it’s a blur on the big screen). Added to which it’s a Panavision film so, in the cinema, the tops and bottoms of the picture are missing (see the conversation scenes where Daniel’s Craig’s head goes off the top of the picture, then in 6 months time see how much better composed it is on DVD).
A very very disappointing film, all the more so because of the incredible hype Bond films get.
I’m old enough and ugly enough to know better. I remember seeing my first Bond film (Live & Let Die) and not having the faintest idea what it was all about. And I think every subsequent one has left me just as cold. Maybe these films are designed for over-testosteroned balding macho blokeys like your Johnny Vaughns, Tim Lovejoys and Alan Partridges, and not for the likes of me.
(For the record, my favourite films are Reservoir Dogs and Spinal Tap, make of that what you will).”
