Thursday, November 13, 2008

Movies opening this week

(Hear me chat about all things Bond, plus a couple of other topics, with my Las Vegas Weekly co-worker T.R. Witcher in this week's Josh Bell Hates Everything podcast.)

Quantum of Solace (Daniel Craig, Olga Kurylenko, Mathieu Amalric, Judi Dench, dir. Marc Forster)
As I say on the podcast, I'm not much of a Bond aficionado. Before seeing Casino Royale, I'd only seen a single Bond movie (Pierce Brosnan in Tomorrow Never Dies), and I found Royale to be a little disappointing, since my idea of a Bond movie involved lots of one-liners and gadgets. I liked a lot of the action in Royale, but it seemed a little bloated and meandering, so I really appreciated the streamlined, full-speed-ahead approach of this movie. Forster isn't known as an action guy (and can be kind of a hack, really), but he pulls off a number of strong action sequences and chases here, while making sure to pay attention to the emotional core of the story (Bond's fruitless search for closure via vengeance). I wasn't expecting jokes and gadgets this time around, so I wasn't disappointed on that front, but I would have liked a little more time with the two Bond girls (especially Gemma Arterton, who's only in a handful of scenes). Overall, this is a solid, well-made action movie, one that could fairly easily have been a non-Bond outing. That may be a negative for some, but I think once you get past expectations, you'll be very satisfied. Wide release

No comments: