Quantum of Solace

Saturday night, Jelle and I went to see the new James Bond movie "Quantum of Solace". I didn't like it too much. I mean, it was entertaining, I didn't get bored but I didn't like it as much as the "first" new Bond with Daniel Craig. His acting was good, I still like him as new Bond actor. But the movie itself was less attractive.

There was some resemblance with the "classic" bond movies, like beautiful people in beautiful and famous places (e.g. Siena), a few trials to make a joke, a hint to Bond's drink (but neither shaken nor stirred), no real bad jerks like a Goldfinger or such..., no fabulous gadgets... it more felt like a "standard" action movie, all the ingredients that used to make out a Bond movie were missing in my eyes. Though the previous Bond to this one did also away with many of these items it still felt like a Bond movie - this one didn't. I didn't like the many but average action scenes combined with fast scene cuts, shaky camera shots that obviously were ment to give it more rhythm. A few things exploded but I actually don't know why other than for the effect of it... The movie started with a lengthy action scene and at the end of it presented a "bad" guy. This bad guy later appeared again during the movie (why? I didn't understand how and why he escaped alive from the begin scene) but wasn't at all the one that the movie was all about - so a lot of fuzz for nothing... It was an entertaining movie but definitely not a good Bond movie in my eyes.

Interestingly, though the movie started in Holland already on th 6th of November the cinema yesterday was full (well, okay it was saturday...but still). We had purchased tickets online and came to the cinema late and were confronted with long lines in front of the box office, the ticket machines and the bar... sigh... since we "only" needed to pickup our tickets (I still don't understand why I have to exchange my confirmation with barcode into a ticket... why can't they simply scan the code at the entrance?) Jelle queued at the machines and I at the bar to purchase our cola and fanta and M&M's and chips (I hate popcorn). The machines didn't work so Jelle later joined me in my queue and after about almost twenty minutes wait we finally received our tickets at the bar and our refreshments. During the wait I had noticed that our movie in the meantime had sold out! But not only our show, there was also another cinema showing the movie, at the same time, next to us, which was also sold out and the later shows were also sold out. That movieplex alone had about 25 showings of the movie on saturday, amazing! So when we entered the cinema, of course it was full and we didn't find seats next to each other anymore (why the hell with all these electronics and stuff can't they assign seats for popular movies? Ridiculous!). So we had to sit behind each other and Jelle wasn't too amused about that and almost wanted to go home... oh well, we stayed and watched. ;-) Jelle said he never experienced a sold out movie theater before. I am sure I have but can't remember which movies it was...

Anyway, it was an interesting experience and for sure we will never go on a saturday night to an obviously popular movie... :-)

A hug.