Quantum of Solace

Being a rather geeky James Bond fan I was very much looking forward to the Quantum of Solace.

After the re-incarnation of James Bond in Casino Royale, which kept pretty much authentic to the original plot and character in Ian Fleming's novel, I had high hopes for QoS.

What a disappointment.

Unlike the edgy, exhilarating and well-shot action scenes in Casino Royale, the action scenes in QoS were a bit far fetched at best, and for most parts, completely unwatchable at worst. Unfortunately, it seems the Director and Editor had taken the comparison with the Jason Bourne films to heart and decided to follow this latest ridiculous trend of shooting scenes with a shaky hand-held camera and over-editing the scenes so much that the angle of shot changes with nearly every frame. The result is you can't make out what's going on.

I can imagine that in 10 years time we'll look back at this period in film-making and think 'what was that all about? Who on earth thought it was a good idea to shoot big blockbuster action scenes with a hand-held camera and switch between cameras angles so fast that it gives the viewer motion sickness?'. I think Paul Greengrass is a good British directory, and both the last 2 Bourne films which he directed and United 93 are great films, but they'd be even better if we could actually make out what's going on in the action scenes! Please, please, stop it. There's a time and a place. For instance, it kind of works in films like Cloverfield. In Cloverfield there's a reason it's shot with a hand-held camera. It's part of the plot, and, it does add something to the reality of the scenes.

Besides the bad editing, QoS also suffers from a rather thin plot. The film is based on a short story written by Fleming, and fleshing a short story out into a feature movie was always going to be difficult. But this just feels like treading water. Bond travels from one exotic location to another with very little rationale for why he's going there, except to chase down baddies. It was as if the producers picked a few nice locations they wanted to visit in advance of making the film, and then wrote the script to fit around the locations.

One of the best things for me in Casino Royale was the quick and witty dialogue, especially between Bond and the love interest - Vesper Lynd. There's hardly any of that in QoS. The non-stop action leaves very little time for character building. There's not much of a love interest either - not a classic one for bond girls! Bond does get his end away with one civil servant, who incidentally meets a sticky end covered in oil, reminiscent of that famous scene in Goldfinger. Her death is obviously a reference to Goldfinger where the character 'Jill Masterson' is killed and covered in gold paint. The bond franchise seems to be trying to send a message - the currency of power in the early Bonds was gold and diamonds, whereas in 2008 the currency of power is oil. QoS is that un-memorable that I can't even remember if he kisses the bond girl who survives to the end.

Don't get me wrong. It's not a complete disaster. QoS is still better than the average action film. Daniel Craig makes a great James Bond and Judie Dench continues to do a good job as 'M'. The action scenes where the camera stays still for a few seconds are really good. It's certainly better than the later Pierce Brosnan bond films where some of the action got preposterously far-fetched. Mind you, surviving a fall out of an airplane where his parachute only opened 10 metres off the ground, and running through a building engulfed in flames without getting even his eyebrows singed, was pushing it a little in QoS.

In summary, watchable, but not a classic.

Rambo

I've just returned from watching Rambo at our local flicks.

Growing up with the Rambo films I was looking forward to seeing this final revisit, particularly after seeing, and enjoying, Rocky Balboa, Sly's other throw back to the eighties.

Whereas Rocky Balboa worked well as mainly a character drama; taking a nostalgic trip down memory lane yet at the same time re-generating the excitement of the early Rocky franchise; disappointingly, I found Rambo to be just an over-the-top gore fest with absolutely nothing interesting to say.

Like Rocky Balboa, this film did have a flash-back sequence to try and help explain why Rambo is who he is and why he hasn't returned to America. But any attempt to delve into the character of John Rambo was entirely superficial.

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't expecting Citizen Kane. You know what you're going to get when you see a Rambo film. However, if I hadn't have already known that Sly himself had directed this I may have thought that Quentin Tarantino had got his hands on the film, such was the level of sad-masochistic violence. Was there really any need for the camera to linger on scenes of beheadings and mutilation? Funnily enough, I've just had a look on IMDB.com and it actually says if you liked this film you may also enjoy Kill Bill: Vol 1.

The main thing you expect to see in a Rambo film is Rambo himself killing lots of baddies in a hundred different inventive ways - utilising his special forces training. While the body count that he racks up his large, a good proportion of this is down to him spraying the baddies with a large calibre machine gun. Boring! I was hoping to see a lot more hand-to-hand combat and the use of special techniques.

At 91 minutes the film is short. Even though I didn't particularly enjoy it I did feel the film was missing a good 30 minutes of plot. Everything seemed really rushed. When the final credits came up it was a case of 'is that it?'.

If you want to see Rambo my advice is don't. Rent out Tears of the Sun with Bruce Willis instead. It's basically the same film except Tears of the Sun is much better.

Who killed the electric car

In 1996 Electric cars began to appear on roads all over California. They were quiet and fast, produced no exhaust, and ran without gasoline. 10 years later these futuristic cars were almost entirely gone. What happened?

This is the question that is addressed in the award winning documentary 'Who Killed the Electric Car' recently released on DVD in the UK.

The website for the film makes interesting reading so I'll definitely be checking out the DVD. It seems the technology is there, has been for a long time, and is fit for purpose, contrary to what the motor industry tells us.

The charge is made that the motor industry, in cahoots with the US federal government and the big oil companies (mainly Exxon Mobil) launched a successful campaign to kill off the electric car. But why?

The oil companies interests were obvious: they wanted to kill off anything that may reduce the need for fossil fuels. As for the US federal government, there links to the oil companies are well documented. But what about the car manufacturers? It seems most of the profit generated by the car manufacturers actually comes from maintaining and replacing the internal combustion engine. A transition to batteries would have been a disaster for the profit/loss sheet.

Yet again another documentary which shows how the world is being killed by the greed of big companies. I personally believe this is systematic of the market capitalist economy we rely on. Some people argue that it's exactly the market capitalist economy which will save the world. As climate change affects us more, the market will act to correct prices which will reduce demand for fossil fuels and put more pressure on companies to develop alternatives, which will in turn lead to a reduction in CO2 emissions.

This is a dangerous assumption. Yesterday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released it's second report of the year which yet again gave a unanimous declaration by the world's leading climatologists that global warming is happening, and is a result of human activity. Scientists also agree that we are quickly approaching the point of no return. Can we afford to wait for market corrections to kick in? I doubt it.