Action is NOT incoherency.

The modern action movie has taught us one thing: coherency is an afterthought to chaos.

The cinema of Michael Bay and Jason Bourne have trained modern movie audiences on shaky cam, fast cuts, and multiple angles to compensate for the precision that used to be hallmarks of good action movies. Movie makers think that more and more means better and better, when audiences are trained to accept whatever you feed them they can appreciate when they can tell what they're seeing. It's all about the grosses, quality be damned.

The action genre has been taken over by frenetic editing, a formula that I never understood how it took off. Editors embraced this by cutting action sequences as chaotic and frenetic as possible at the expense of coherency. Second unit directors point and shoot, what technicians and stunt people work hard to stage. It is modern film editing that's robbed us from the ability to appreciate all the hard work that goes on making these films. Too many crashes, too many explosions, too many angles.

What a better way to contrast the changes than in the new Bond film with it's predecessor, Casino Royale.

Quantum of Solace, Directed by Marc Forster, replicates the trend to dizzying heights, resulting in action sequences that lose track of Bond, as well as what he's doing.

Actually, the whole movie is like that.

One of the things that made the Bond films the standard is it's innovation on the action scenes. The stunts of those films are still some of the best ever captured on film, you can pop those movies in and still be amazed at what they did because it was real. Until the early 2000's, Bond films relied on stunts to carry the day.
The editing back then sold us on these incredible feats, and Bond (more correctly his stuntman) was always the focus of the action. Casino Royale, Directed by Martin Campbell, took the series to greater heights by concentrating on character while still retaining the qualities that make a Bond film special. You could actually tell what was happening and where invested in the characters, every action scene was heightened by the character moments that followed:




It's an example of how to treat this franchise. While I like Marc Forster for his versatility, his movies are tedious to sit through. The man has done every kind of movie imaginable, from Monster's Ball to Stranger than fiction. His lack of respect for Bond is evident on every frame of Quantum of Solace, and that's lamentable.

It is disappointing by the standards set by it's predecessor.

Problem #1:

By hiring the second unit guy from the Bourne movies, the Filmmakers went in the other direction and made the action an incoherent mess. Now Bond is just like any sub par action hero, distinguished only by the name and exotic locations.

Problem #2:

The scenes are edited by a Blender. Forster's editor, Matt Chesse (no pun intended) excels at a different kind of movie. Here his edits ruin the flow of the movie by allowing a typical shot to last less than a second. Here is a link to an article on the guy: http://www.moviemaker.com/editing/article/license_to_cut_editor_matt_chesse_on_quantum_of_solace_20081113/

The film's car chase is an example of what not to do in editing. The sequence opens the film, mere minutes after the end of Casino Royale...with Bond on the run by a rogue organization. We can't tell what is happening, the movie just starts on the chase. There's relentless driving, good stunt work, and no suspense because the scene has no...buildup. No sense of geography. At least the way it's edited. This is why it's not always a good idea to bring someone's editor if you're an art house guy. Not every editor can cut action, and vice versa. Lee Smith, Nolan's editor on Dark Knight, accomplished an incredible feat of maintaining the action sequences coherent while never losing track of the characters, AND the film was 142 minutes yet felt faster than this piece of turd. Now, that's good editing.


Parting thoughts

When something goes right, something goes horribly wrong. The Bourne movies have FKed up action movies in general. That's what everybody's doing, and forgotten that showing something from 16 different angles is not as satisfying as seeing how dangerous it is, if we can't tell what we're seeing.

I do not like it, and don’t think it’s good directing. Blame it on movie trailers, blame it on our ability to sustain interest. The movies do not improve, and people watch what you feed them. While action sequences have gotten more grand and sophisticated (don't get me started on CGI)...filmmakers have lost track of what keeps an audience engaged: Suspense. Our ability to appreciate it has not, witness the success of Casino Royale. 564 million worldwide on a 105 million budget.

Shaky cam and incoherent editing is not action, it's not movement, it's not exciting, and its not good film making.

Perhaps the Bond filmmakers will realize this and remedy the headache.

Martin Campbell, come to the rescue.