Having had one job interview this week, which went pretty well, on wending my way home I stopped off at Sainsbury's and ploughed rather a lot of dosh into their coffers to fill my freezer and fridge. (In times of recession there can be nothing so wasteful as a half-empty freezer.) And before leaving, I spied a copy of the latest Bond DVD, so I treated myself.
On Saturday afternoon, I lay on the sofa for some quality Bond time. After the over-long title intro, it became obvious, almost instantly, that this was not a movie to watch in the horizontal position. It opens with a car chase - involving guns, naturally - on some perilous roads in Italy. For the run time of 100 minutes I am sure my blood pressure was raised. Had I seen this on a big screen in the cinema, I believe medication would have been advised. And it all seemed so real: every punch; every dive; every freefall; every shot.
It's glossy, edge of seat entertainment, with Daniel Craig and Judy Dench delivering yet again.
The music scores from the Bond movies have often made history, defining their times. Who can forget Shirley Bassey's Diamonds are Forever or Goldfinger? Or Carly Simon's Nobody Does it Better? Or Duran Duran's A View to a Kill? Madonna's outing for Die Another Day was a low point, dire in my opinion and Quantum of Solace is at best flaccid. It just doesn't draw you in. But boy oh boy, once the opening credits are over the movie is jam-packed with action, gripping and tense.
People take their Bond outings very seriously. Thus it is interesting to see the review ratings on Amazon, where an overall 3 stars holds the day, at the time of writing. Opinions are divided, with about 16 votes for each and every category from 1 star to 5 stars. I'd give it a 4. It's wonderfully entertaining escapism on the good over evil front as per usual, with the excellently realistic special effects we now expect. So why no 5 stars? Gripped as I was, it didn't quite have the magic realised in the earlier movies. But perhaps that's my age or the music...
I'll probably "watch" this one day, in that someone will be watching it on TV and I will either catch glimpses of it while blogging through the fronds of some rather large plant that has recently been purchased and plonked between the "blogging table" and the TV screen - or I will see bits as I bring people cups of tea and the like. Always worth watching a bit of Daniel C when Viggo M is not about!
Glad to hear about the job interview - hoping it went Very Well Indeed ;-)
Posted by: Maxine | 29 March 2009 at 15:50
Interesting to read your thoughts. I simultaneously quite liked it and was crushingly disappointed by it. After "Casino Royale", with all its moral ambiguity and nods to Eric Ambler I thought the Bond franchise (which, despite the Dalton nadir, I've always loved and in some cases associate with very happy memories) had reinvented itself in a superb way - QoS as such was a disappointment - for me not feeling at all as intelligent and falling back on the old tropes of exotic locations, world shaking plots, and overblown special effects.
Not a catastrophic film, but interesting in that I haven't been in a hurry to watch it again.
Posted by: Ian | 29 March 2009 at 03:01