The QoS Confusions ?

[Daltons Chin Dimple]

A number of reviews I have read, and a number of people I have spoken to, state that they had a problem with QoS because the plot was confusing. This worries me as it makes me think I am missing something.

So...... spoilers if you haven't seen it yet:


During the interrogation of White by Bond and M, Quantum is revealed and is clearly powerful, connected and insidious.

Bond is ordered to find out more about this organisation.

In the course of doing so, he discovers they are arranging a coup to place the General back in power in Bolivia, in exchange for a seemingly innocuous tract of land in the desert.

The CIA are making a deal with Greene to turn a blind eye to the coup in exchange for the oil they suspect is under this desert land. Therefore they are p*ssed off when Bond interferes and want him stopped.

M is p*ssed as every lead Bond uncovers, he kills. This also leads to pressure on her, both from the CIA and the Home Secretary, to reign Bond in. This means Bond has to turn to Mathis for help to get to the bottom of what Quantum are really up to.

It turns out that Quantum are playing both ends against the middle and that there is no oil. They have used the land to seize control the water supply for huge amounts of South America by damning up undeground rivers and altering the water table within the desert sink holes.

In the course of stopping this, Bond get's information from Greene that leads him to Vesper's supposed lover, also a Quantum operative.

Done and THE END. Am I missing something ? Have I got it wrong ? Was it more complex than I thought ?

[WhiteKnight]

Well, I'm sort of both minds about this. Your synopsis is spot on, but the tricky part on first viewing is understanding just how Bond was able to connect the dots. It took me more than one viewing to figure out some of the connections myself, and I like to think I'm a pretty bright chap.

I'm still not quite sure how MI6 and Bond got onto Slate. Something about tracking money in Le Chiffre's account to Mitchell and from Mitchell to Slate.

The introduction of Camille was confusing on first viewing, too, but I've since come to understand what was going on. As I understand it, Greene hired Slate to kill Camille because he knew Camille was getting information from the geologist about why the land was so special. Bond killed Slate, and Camille saw him coming out of the hotel. She invited him in the car thinking he is the geologist. Bond opened the briefcase and tipped Camille off that Greene wanted her dead. She mistook Bond for the assassin and tried to pop him as a result.

Looks pretty good on paper and makes perfect sense after you've seen it twice or three times, but it's hard to digest that much exposition in the scant two minutes you're given to munch on it.

I had a little trouble digesting the Tosca sequence the first time, too, but I'm going to attribute that to working all day and having the gall to go to a midnight showing when I was tired out of my skull. I actually felt stupid for not understanding it the first time when I saw it again the next day.

Those are really the only bits that gave me much trouble, but that's probably enough to confuse the average movie goer into giving up and just trying to enjoy the pretty action set pieces. I'm willing to bet this is the reason for the polarization this film is getting from the fan base. The people who wanted to understand it and made the effort realize that it is a decent enough film, while the lazy bastards who want all the exposition spoon fed to them like they got in Casino Royale don't appreciate it. Sadly I admit QoS is nowhere near the film as its predecessor, but it isn't deserving of all the hatred it's getting, especially the comparrisions it is getting to Die Another Day.