Monday, June 13, 2011

Casino Royale Director Martin Campbell Didn't Like Quantum Of Solace Either


From cinemablend, Director Martin Campbell deserves a lot of credit for the way he re-launched the Bond franchise with Casino Royale. Unfortunately the follow-up, directed by Marc Forster, did a pretty good job of erasing at least some of the good will he earned with his redo. Now that Campbell has a new movie set to hit theaters, in Green Lantern, he’s talking to the press about what Forster did with his franchise on Quantum of Solace, and he doesn’t sound any happier about the results than Bond fans were.

Talking to Crave about the film he says of Quantum of Solace, “Oh, I thought it was lousy.” When asked to explain he added, “I just thought the story was pretty uninteresting. I didn’t think the action was related to the characters. I just thought overall it was a bit of a mess really.”

Yeah, it was kind of a mess. But that’s in the rear view mirror and now Sam Mendes is hard at work on the next James Bond movie. And since we know Campbell is willing to talk straight with us about the nature of these films, his view on what Mendes is up to with the next one is instantly a lot more valid than the usual backslapping, Hollywood doublespeak. Of the next film he says, “hopefully this next one will be terrific. Sam Mendes is directing it and I’m sure it’ll be terrific.”

4 comments:

Jordan said...

I will never understand this. Quantum of Solace is one of my favorite James Bond movies. In many ways I prefer it to Casino Royale (largely because I can get behind Olga Kurylenko's story so much more than I could get behind Eva Green's story). And QofS had a great song (a duet! With Alicia Keys and Jack White!) and spectacular photography. And the Daniel Craig/Judi Densch relationship was explored beautifully. I just don't understand why it's considered to be so bad.

Octopunk said...

The fact that you like it makes me want to take another look, but aside from the opening chase scene I found it really tepid. And the setting for the finale seemed like an Austin Powers joke. Instead of someone's lair they just go to a hotel designed for supervillains, with no other guests, located in the middle of nowhere, complete with a self-destruct device.

Jordan said...

I'm watching it right now. More good points:

1) Much better cars/suits/drinks/locales than Casino Royale

2) He DOESN'T SLEEP WITH the Bond Girl! That's got to be a first. Very interesting.

3) The water-based plot is like Chinatown

Jordan said...

Also, it's the one where the Bond "world" seems closest to reality, which is maybe the main reason I like it so much.

Malevolent

 2018  ***1/2 It's 1986 for some reason, and a team of paranormal investigators are making a big name for themselves all over Scotland. ...