antennapedia

I've lost your mailing address. Can I have it again, please? :)

I must admit, I didn't like the new Bond. I hated the fast editing and the constant POV changes with the passion of a thousand fiery suns, however, I did like the slower parts of the movie. And I adore Judi Dench as M.

The reason why I'm stopping by is the masterlist for the Ethan ficathon. Somehow my link is broken....
*wanders off to check your October 2007 entries*

Here's the link:
http://antennapedia.livejournal.com/275193.html

Mmmm. I should go read them all again!

Judi Dench is so great as M, and this movie gave her lots to do.

So it opens with a chase scene. Shots are fired, cars are damaged, gendarmes are killed. It lacks what I want in a chase scene, which is the sense that the protagonist is outwitting the chasers. When Jason Bourne is running through the embassy, he stops himself, goes back and gets the guard's radio, he rips an emergency exit sign from the wall and uses it to do some planning. When he is driving the mini you get the sense of him asking "What can a mini do that those cop cars cannot do?".

I suppose there are other things a chase scene can do, fancy driving techniques, raw nerve, etc. I didn't feel we saw much (any?) of that either. It was just stuff happening.

But the kicker is the reveal of a passenger in the trunk, so really that previous chase scene was MUCH MORE tense than we imagined. But we can't go back and feel differently about it. It seems like a waste, like ignorant filmmaking.

The chase scenes in Transporter 3 were far more motivated, though they were also less artfully filmed. That descent into the quarry in the first chase was lovely. But, as you say, unmotivated unless one recalls the ending of the previous film and knows to join the two together. Which the typical viewer can't be expected to do.