Perfect Use of CGI

Rating: 8/10 (1 July 2011)

This is not a plot/character driven movie, it is an action movie. So if you aren't particularly fond of action, you'll probably want to skip this one. The plot is incoherent, and the characters paper thin and dull. But the action, oh the action...
My beef with most current action movies is the over-reliance on cgi and the tendency for animators to completely ignore physics. When something looks real on screen and the cgi invisible, it has much more impact for me, and I think for most people. Anyone remember in Blade II when Wesley Snipes has a scene where it alternates between fantastic choreographed fighting and 100% CGIed Wesley and his opponents. The CGI ruined what could have been a great scene by making it laughably cartoonish. By contrast, The Dark Knight was such a good movie in part because Nolan made a conscious decision to use as little cgi as possible, Quantum has the same ethos.
At its core, the action sequences are real, and Craig does most of it himself (you should watch the bonus features to see one particularly bond crunching jump he did off an Italian roof). The real action is then modified by the cgi team to remove things like harnesses, guy wires, scaffolding etc. They do not change the basic action, there are no moments when Bond becomes a comic book hero doing things that no human could do. When he lands, you feel it. It is such a refreshing movie in that way and allows the viewer to enter the world.
So if you are like me, and are tired of cgi excess but still like a good action movie, you should watch this one.