Quantum of Solace preview

Attended the special premiere of the James Bond:Quantum of Solace movie at the GSC Gardens on Friday night. First of all, The Gardens is like any typical mall in KL ... same stores, same stuff, same atmosphere - so in one word, BORING. As far as I know in the quick walkthrough of the place, nothing really interests me to go back for a second time.

Secondly, are these developers THAT desperate to open? The building is still largely incomplete and the signage is terrible. Locating GSC from the carpark was terrible as doors lead to a dead ends or ended up going in circles. Walkways were unfinished and dangerous - imagine 7 floors above ground level with no walls to stop you falling out. I'm wasn't the only one, 'cos I ended up with a group of maybe 15-20 of us scurrying around the floors of the carpark banging on multiple doors looking for ways into the Gardens. Guards were of no help because they either didn't know or just didn't speak English/Malay/any local language. *sheesh*

Anyways, finally reached GSC Gardens with 10 minutes to spare but the halls were only open a little after 9:30pm, I'm guessing probably due to the lack of staff at the venue. As the crowd grew larger, noise levels went up as well as the heat. Those who won in the Discovery Channel contest were given a bag which featured a banged-up Buster with the slogan "Buster does all my stunts" along with a oversized pen and the current issue of the Discovery Channel magazine featuring James Bond. In the cinema, everyone had a large sized popcorn and Coke drink. The preview was held in Hall 1 which I later found out charges RM20 per ticket!! Pop corn and drinks were RM15 so for two people to watch a movie you would need RM55 ... kinda pricey!

So what about the movie? SPOILERS AHEAD - TO AVOID READING, SKIP TO ***!!! Hmm, if you're a James Bond fan you probably won't be dissapointed with the amount of action in this movie. Although its short (shortest so far amonst all the Bond films) it probably has the highest number of chase sequences in a single movie. It has foot chases (two actually), bike chases, car chases, boat chases and air chase scenes ... heck the only major mode of transportation not covered is on a train! After a while, it felt like there wasn't enough of a story to last the length of the movie so I'm guessing they added on these scenes - a bit too repetitive for my tastes but exciting nonetheless.

Predictably there's always the Bond girl that he sleeps with (no pun in name this time round though ... Miss Fields) and dies in a fashion uncannily like in Goldfinger. There are far less gadgets this time round other than the oh-so-obvious main sponsor Sony handphone that doubles as a camera with face recognition technology. Even the car gets banged up pretty bad after the first five minutes and is never seen again. Characters seem to appear in the movie such that they do not really support or move the story along other than to provide more evidence against Bond to bring him in to MI6 because of his actions.

***
Overall though I can't really complain too much. It IS a valiant effort trying to make a full length movie out of what is actually a short story as it attempts to conclude the story from Casino Royale (eventhough NONE of the story itself is used in the film other than the title). Basically, for effects, action and thrills it earns highest marks but otherwise its just OK and is probably worth the price of admission. Gardens on the other hand gets a dissapointing two thumbs down (for now, might change once its complete) as a place to shop/spend time ... you get more at Sunway/1U/Curve etc.

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