In defence of QOS

I assume most of you have watched QOS? If not, you might want to avoid this spoiler rich post.

Anyway, the reviews have been mixed, but overall leaning towards positive. Personally, I found QOS to be a masterpiece and true to the new Daniel Craig Bond series. It’s an 8/10 for me.

Here’s why.

The action scenes are as often as they are varied. In QOS we have a car chase, boat chase, a dogfight over a desert, and the roof chase scene many critics accused of being a sign of Bourne envy.

While there are some resemblence to the roof chase in The Bourne Ultimatum, the difference is stark. Bond’s chase on the roof was short and ended with a spectacular duel in a building he fell into. Very creative.

In Ultimatum, Bourne was trying to evade the police and protect the girl. It was a good scene, but was pretty straightforward. Either way, both franchises have their merits and styles.

The fact that the action keeps coming is something to be said also, because that is how an action flick should be. It doesn’t wander off dwelling in the drama of a subplot.

Defying convention

Although Q might be introduced later on, QOS is true to the new dirty-realistic style of Bond. No overblown gadgets, just a pistol and brute force. In Casino Royale, we saw quite a number of gadgets, though toned down. But QOS just did away with almost everything. This is compensated by Bond’s incredibly good luck and superior spy training?

The Bond girls are no longer the slutty sidekicks, but women encountered along the way. QOS was the first Bond flick that didn’t have a pre-assigned female partner. Fields was a clerk at the consulate, and Camille was a Bolivian agent he mistakenly bumped into while following a lead in Haiti.

Although both girls are incredibly attractive, but the new Bond doesn’t get too caught up with the romance, which is starting to get a little old by now. He does sleep with Fields (customarily), but Camille was left untouched.

It’s interesting to note how they’ve interegrated the Camille subplot alongside Bond’s agenda, ending it with the assasination of Gen Medrano and Dominic Greene.

QOS also continues the story of Casino Royale, and the next Bond installation will carry it on. This is another first for Bond movies.

Matured

Basically, QOS is the maturity of the new Bond era. The new direction taken in CR is now fully developed. The realism, the girls, the links in the plot.

CR marked the rebirth of Bond, and the gadgets making a come back is definitely a possibility. But for now, the new Bond has lived up to its new style. And I couldn’t be happier.