John Barry really gets the chance to let rip with his compositions, and Q’s theme is one of the best tracks on here.

We’ve currently running a series in the Bond sountracks at the James Bond Dossier, which you can find here:
http://www.tjbd.co.uk/content/james-bond-soundtracks

All the best,

M

I like the movie, it was good, but not great.

I think the action at the beginning was confusing, too jerky, dialog not clear. I watched it on DVD & I had to go back & replay parts with the sound turned up and/or in slow motion to understand what they were saying & doing. During that scene in Sienna where Mr White was sitting in the chair talking, after the shooting started, it just jumped & jerked & went haywire a while. It took several viewings for me to figure out the plot.

The scene in Port-au-Prince in the car with Camille (Olga Kurylenko) was the same problem, I had to rewind & listen closely & then go back & slowly forward.

Is it just me, or do a lot of productions nowadays neglect the sound portion of production? Used to be they would dub in lines in the studio if they weren’t clear in the original shooting. Seems they’re skimping on sound now.

Actors used to be taught to clearly articulate each word so as to be understood. Now, they’re mumbling.

But, I think the comments about Quantum of Solace being a sequel to Casino Royale are right on. If I hadn’t seen CR first, this movie wouldn’t have made a lot of sense. Plotwise, I could’ve followed it, but emotionally, Bond’s dilemma wouldn’t have made as much sense. I do wish they had gotten Craig to emote more. Some closeups would’ve been nice, in the right places. I couldn’t tell what he was supposed to be feeling. And the scene where Mathis died in his arms – I wanted more. Mathis was like his father-confessor, he was the soul of the movie, of the plot.

Another thing; I am confused about the parachuting scene. They hit the ground extremely hard, I mean, I’ve seen parachuters hit hard in real life & they don’t get up, not any time soon after. I saw one guy in an elite US military parachuting unit hit so hard he took a half hour to get up on his feet. You don’t just recover fast from that. So I don’t understand this part. How is it that both of them, Bond & Camille, came down hard using one parachute that wasn’t opened early enough & literally crashed into the ground hard enough to do some extreme damage, yet the next scene with them had them just there, talking? Isn’t something missing here? Did they cut out some scenes due to Craig’s injuries?

I was really looking forward to this movie, & it’s good, but I wish they’d reshot some of the scenes to make it clearer. It could – and should – have had more production time.