The Dilated Pupil's Reviews

The newest entry of Bond expects a lot from it's audience. First, it expects that you know what the hell "Quantum of Solace" means which I'd imagine most of Amerca (spelling intentional) probably doesn't. Secondly, it expects that you've actually seen the previous entry known by 3 people that I spoke with today as the first Bond.

Quick warning, for all of you Sean Connery is the best Bond you'll want to stop reading this now, the rest of you-people with taste-should proceed.

This Bond continues the story from Casino Royale and save for one brief moment refuses to offer any kind of flashback that lets the viewer know who the hell is actually on screen or what events the characters are talking about. In order to fix this "problem" you need to have really loved the previous entry or have watched it recently.

The writers have decided to push aside the decades of movie industry arrogance that plagued ALL earlier Bond movies thus writing a Bond that is well...Bondy. At the end of the day, Bond is a murdering, womanizing, self-loathing yet narcissistic, gambling, alcoholic, asshole that shares no love of things but refuses anything but the finest. Finally, you will hear the real drink that Bond orders in spades. In short, Bond is not a good guy, instead, think of him more like Batman without the suit or "morals".

This is not a happy story, it is a revenge story, if graphic fight scenes and a complete lack of moral high ground bother you please don't watch this movie and complain about a thin storyline. This is more Kill Bill and less "Live and Let Die".

I loved the last Bond film. It was the most accurate representation of Bond before the 60's turned him into a little bitch. That's right. You heard me. This Bond continues the story which does a couple of things: the books had SMERSH and the movies now have the Quantum group; Felix was an important character in that he was a true friend of Bond in the beginning and this continues that tradition.

All-in-all, the movie was a solid entry into the series. Unfortunately a couple of scenes have terrible dialog to the point where you just turn your brain off and go along with pretty pictures but thankfully that is rare. They've removed all of the original series' cheese lines-"Christmas only comes once a year"-but kept the smokin' hot girl.

I'm giving it a 4/5.

I have to admit, I had no idea this movie existed before a friend made the recommendation. Christian Bale in a Matrix ripoff? OK, so it's not completely a Matrix ripoff but it doesn't stray too far from the formula.

Thankfully the whole movie takes place in my favorite type of future-Dystopian. Crappy 90's cars painted over as police cars-check. Nylon dusters-check. Lots of pale white people-check. The action sequences are OK but there is one scene in the beginning that is completely dark and the effect is pretty rad. Overall, this movie is OK because Bale and the story is interesting if not perfectly executed. Also, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY, PLEASE STOP USING LENS FLARES!

The first non-fallout 3 related piece of content during my "Summer of George" weekend involved watching Smoke. My body wasn't quite ready for a Forest Whitaker movie after nearly 8 hours of straight Fallout 3 goodness but thankfully this movie was well acted by William Hurt and Harvey Keitel most of the time.

Smoke gets it's title from the role smoking plays in the movie. Yay, go PM, way to own the 90's! A cigar shop owner (Keitel) and a regular patron (Hurt) get mixed up in the life of an urban yoot in NYC.

Whitaker actually ends up playing a pretty interesting character but still manages to over-act everyone else. Film also looked great so, 3 stars. I'm also going to put this movie up for worst cover ever.