Time to kick off another hotly-anticipated movie thread.  Quantum of Solace, sequel to 2006's incredible Casino Royale, premiered its first trailer today:

http://www.moviefone.com/movie/quantum- … 26922/main

Release is now set for October 31st in the UK, November 14th for the U.S.

So far, so good.  This by far my most anticipated film of the year, but that's probably not a surprise to any of you. ;-)

I'm definitely looking forward to this one... I have a Casino Royale poster up at work, but I want more than just the Quantum of Solace teaser poster to put it up in it's place... I hope they make that one soon...

Tasty Solace trailer no#2 is out:

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809961074/video/9655524

Looks like we see quite a bit more of villain Dominic Greene, as well as Kurylenko's character Camille.  Gotta admit, that "shot" at 1:13 surprised (and delighted) me.

Very, very nice.

The new Bond theme song, "Another Way To Die", featuring Alicia Keys and Jack White:

http://www.theboombox.com/2008/09/18/al … -new-song/

What do you think?

It doesn't sound much like a Bond song at all, a very uneasy combination of genres. But at least the Madonna song has competition.

If Paul McCartney's "Live and Let Die" and Tina Turner's "GoldenEye" had a baby, this would be it.  Sounds like a bond theme to me (for better or for worse).

I've hated everything Alicia Keys has ever done.
Thus, I hate this already.

I find it pretty obnoxious.  I listened just because of XLord's comparing it to two great Bond themes, both of which are leagues better than this.

Agreed. That was an abomination.

Oh, no doubt.  I'm just saying that this sounds like a Bond theme.  It may or may not be good, but it sounds like a Bond theme to me.

So, it looks like the Quantum of Solace Soundtrack is already available for download on UK iTunes -- and those jolly good folks have converted it for the rest of us to preview.  Check it out here.

I've given the score a once through, and it's an awesome listen even outside of context.  The album clocks in at just over an hour, and yes, it does include the vocal "Another Way To Die" this time around.  The sound is certainly akin to Arnold's work in Casino Royale: a strong mixing of frenetically dynamic action cues and low key "spy-like" mood pieces -- but this time there's a far more versatile mix of ethnic and stylistic instrument choices thrown in for good measure.  I've counted African percussion, Spanish flamenco acoustics, a pan flute (which seems to be a key motif for Camille) and rock guitar & percussion.

The Palio appears to supplant CR's African Rundown as the exciting new first big action set piece.  Tracks 7, 17, and 21 look to be the other big ones just by time length alone.  Arnold also references Vesper's Theme in a few nicely subtle places.  Track 9's Night At The Opera is probably my favorite track at the moment.  It combines what sounds like one of the central new main themes with a militaristic sensibility.

I'll definitely be picking up the U.S. release on October 28th.  This one's already a strong candidate for one of my favorite movie scores of the year.

I just found the video on Youtube and heard the song for the first time. The song is very mediocre in its own right, but the chorus where Jack White and Alicia Keys are just singing at each other in the same tone is just bizarre. They could have used some harmony or something. Ah, another "rock" meets "R&B" hybrid from some record company mastermind - what else should I have expected?

A trickling of reviews have come out for the movie, which will no doubt turn into a flood once it releases in the UK this Friday.  The general consensus is that it's not quite as good as Casino Royale.  The elegance and style isn't as prevalent, and the story's pacing suffers from what could partly be attributed to the forty minutes shorter theatrical time.  The tone is more bleak, and the violence even stronger than CR; in fact, the movie is being strongly compared to a "Bourne" flick.  In addition to a few of the stunt-coordinators from said series on board, Craig's Bond is a much more colder and calculating character, the action sequences are far more frequent with little to no downtime, and there's a far greater globe-trotting flow to the entire film.  The most interesting comments state that by the end, the movie feels like the second part of what will likely end up being a trilogy.  There's no real end or closure to Bond's mission here in Quantum of Solace.

I'm torn.  On the one hand, it looks like this one's going to seriously deliver the goods on the action front.  But hearing that a lot of what made Casino Royale so good being stripped away is disappointing.  Guess we'll see.

imho there can be only one Casino Royale.  There is only one origination of James Bond.  Reading this made me happy, because going in I didn't want them to take Bond into a new direction (read: backwards).  It sounds like they are moving Bond from the previous movie, where they outlined his motives, his rationales and his entire demeanor to the Bond we all know and love.  The cool and calculated spy...  I guess he is not really "cold", per se, but maybe they are moving him in that direction and closure in a third movie will relieve him of whatever burdens he has in this one and the previous one. 

I, for one, am really looking forward to this.

That's what I'm hoping they're going for.  If this is to be a trilogy in the making, then it isn't a stretch to imagine Royale being the origin story, Solace the catalyst-driven second act, and third the final closure.  All the same, I'm just hoping that the mood and class of the first isn't so far removed from Solace that it feels like a completely alienating film.

Aside from Bond being cold and calculating, I've also seen the term "borderline psychotic" being batted around.  o_O

Although I'm stoked for Quantum, I had a recent conversation with a buddy of mine about how this doesn't even resemble a traditional Bond movie but more so like a trend of recent action "everyone's-out-to-get-me" flicks like the (ho-hum) Bourne Ultimatum. I hope once they end this Casino Royale II thing, they'll get back to classic Bond themes like outrageous villians and gadgets and for god save the queen's sake, bring back Q!

Even still, every time I see the title "Quantum of Solace" I think "new Castlevania game?"

You've got no pulse, son.

A one-man war machine paranoid frenzy movie that tried to take itself too seriously (and preachy) took what the original movie did over the edge. Ultimatum had me saying 'Give me a break'.

Mastidon from AICN, who has seen the film, brings up an interesting point about gadgets:

"I have seen a few comments about this film like "Bond is dead". Bond is definitely not dead, but the gadgets are. When Bond first appeared in the 60s, in order to achieve the computing power of my cell phone you would have needed a decent sized warehouse full of equipment. In the 70s and early '80s, high tech was still an infant and out of the hands of most consumers. The gadgets started going wrong when tech toys became common place in the home. Each film had to have more spectacular toys than the last in order to satisfy the fan base.

The problem is tech was moving too fast to make anything exciting and new. This all came to a head in a desperate attempt to stay ahead of the curve with the invisible car. But really, where else could they have gone? The car was their last ditch effort at toys and it clearly didn't work. This was the moment the gadgets died. Today they are demoted to background devices. Nothing too fancy, just a prop but certainly not part of the story. If anything they have become a Sony ad in a Bond film. They are dead, time to move on."

I heard that the producers originally wanted to re-cast Sean Connery back into the role of James Bond,, but they scrapped that idea when they learned they would need to change the title of the movie to CARTON OF COLACE...

(colace is a brand of stool softener)

Saw this at my local premiere tonight.  The premiere event was a lot of fun, but the movie was not.  I don't feel like writing a full review just yet, but to get straight to the point, there is very little that is right in this movie.  It doesn't feel like a Bond movie, it's herky-jerky, there's no pizzaz, and Marc Forster's lousy direction doesn't give you a chance to care about any of the characters because he's so busy trying to get the thing over with.  I'll write more after I've had more time to think about it, but for now, chalk this one up as wasted potential.

Yeah, it's much funnier when you have to explain it...

XLord hath spoken.  Pity to hear; I'm hoping I'll have a better time with it.

I was able to nab a pass to a screening tonight.  I've always liked Bond, and to me this was no exception.  It is the shortest Bond film yet I believe, and it could have used a bit more time so that it didn't seem so busy trying to get it over with as XLord put it.  I had also just rewatched Casino Royale before seeing this a few days before (the collector's edition on Blu-ray too on me new Sony Bravia 55" XBR8 and it's a complete dream) so I was well prepared to watch the movie.  I liked the nod to the Canadian spy near the end of the movie heh, cause even though I live here, I don't think of Canada having a spy/intelligence agency that operates like the CIA or MI6 would.

Can I come over and watch, o' dear neighbor to the north?  I'll supply the martinis.

Quick complaint about the soundtrack: for some reason, the rather catchy David Arnold composed "Crawl, End Crawl" isn't on here.  Since it's composed by Arnold and the soundtrack is 95% his stuff, its omission is rather odd, especially since there's plenty of room on the disc for it.

Ah, another reason for me to stay for the end credits.  I always do, from a musical appreciation standpoint.

EDIT: Got to listen to it.  Eh, it's a decent little piece, but nothing to write home about.  It basically sounds like an extension of the already-featured track "Inside Man."

Saw the movie tonight.  I liked it enough, but it's no Casino Royale - a comparison I was mulling over even making, but after seeing the film, there's no doubt in my mind: comparisons have to be made.  The story threads and its key characters are cut from the same mold, after all. 

I didn't have a problem with the length of the film; it's lean, and felt about right for the story they were aiming to tell.  I think that if one goes in with the mindset that Solace is the functioning second half of Royale, one can appreciate the brevity.  Sort of like an extended finale.  I liked one reviewer's sentiment that while Royale may have felt too long and Solace too short, if you combine the two together, you end up with a film that could be considered a singular whole.   The general story beats are easy enough to follow, but the finer details delivered through the brief bits of dialogue got severely lost in the shuffle.  Reading up on the central plot on Wikipedia after watching the film helped a lot, and I have a feeling that the plot and its motivating drives would be much clearer to understand on a second viewing.

Craig and Dench are the true stars here; twin pillars of class, and the scenes they share with each other are always show-stealers.  I did like Kurylenko's Camille - her kindred motivations of revenge with Bond made for an angle that helped fuel the pivotal tone throughout.  Arterton's Fields felt sadly tacked on, but did allow for a nice visual send-up from Goldfinger - and Amalric's Greene didn't quite have the villainy presence of past Bond flicks, but he does get one hell of a fight scene toward the end.   Wright's Felix Leiter was a welcome return, but he should've had more to do.  And Giannini's Mathis, equally welcome, provided the strongest emotional tie-over from Royale - specifically, Bond's dissolved relationship with Vesper.

Now here comes the biggest complaint: the direction of the action.  Granted, the sequences do possess a viscerally kinetic charge that's undeniably exciting to watch, it's hard to excuse Forster's piss-poor editing and skewered quick cuts that simply doesn't allow one to appreciate what's going on half of the time.  It worked for Bourne, but it really doesn't work here.  The other problem is there's no emotive reasoning behind much of the action.  They happen so quickly, so rawly, and so on the fly that you don't have time to connect to the circumstances or the characters involved.  You're rooting for Bond when he's systematically tracking down an airplane bomber throughout Miami International.  The feeling isn't quite so mutual when he finds a contact in Haiti and drops the poor bastard in under a minute.

One other thing that irked the shit out of me was that they constantly had Bond nonchalantly "tossing things aside."  It worked swell in Royale after he deliberately slammed the SUV that belonged to the guy who thought he was a valet.  But here, he does it to the cell phone when he's through speaking in the car.  And the hotel room key.  And the handle after he broke it off the door.  It's like they're trying to emphasize his cool "I don't give a damn" attitude, but having him do it over and over made him look like a jackass.

The movie does tie up the avenging-of-Vesper story arch, which does leave one guessing what direction they'll go for the next movie.  And another one there will be: is there any doubt when the end credits explicitly states in big bold words, "James Bond Will Return"?

The "James Bond Will Return" line in the credits is an essential component of every Bond film, right up there with the main titles, vocal song, and gun barrel opening (which for some reason is at the end of QoS).  In many of the old films, they actually said "James Bond Will Return in [insert title here]."  In fact, For Your Eyes Only is cited as being the next film at the end of both The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker.

Ah, I didn't know that.  In truth, it's been a long time since I've watched any of the older Bond flicks, but it's something I likely couldn't have noticed anyway; my accompanying movie-goers never had the patience to let me stay all the way till the end of the credits back then. :p

They even had "James Bond will return..." at the end of Goldeneye 64.

This one's for you, XLord: a DVD rip of the full end credits, which includes the obligatory James Bond Theme, and Crawl, End Crawl:

Quantum of Solace - End Credits:
http://www.mediafire.com/?vqynfbyi5jb