Quantum of Bondness
Lots of people seem to have got off on the wrong foot with the latest James Bond film – people go into a screening of any 007 film with the baggage of 5 guys and 20 other films, it’s like going on a date with Elizabeth Taylor. People gave Casino Royale the benefit of the doubt – it had most of the constituent elements, just diced up a bit, messed around with then mixed together with a zesty dressing and some onion. Quantum isn’t necessarily a new film, probably better viewed as the darker middle film of a trilogy. As for the other Bond films it appears to be referential but not reverential. I spent days afterwards trying to tot up the myriad references to spy films past – Shirley Eaton’s death scene in Goldfinger; the boat chase in From Russia With Love; Roger Moore’s Universal Exports alias in The Spy Who Loved Me; the stooge falling off a roof scene from the same. You could go a little crazy and throw in the plane scene from The Living Daylights too if you wanted. That said, it’s not a slavish film-by-numbers and gives the discerning filmgoer pause for thought when it comes to Bond himself. You wouldn’t, say, advise whoever might have seen the previous film solely for the scene where Daniel Craig emerges hulkily from the water should pop along to their local cinema.
There’s not much to say on the film that hasn’t been said before – it’s very good, it’s very different, but somehow the same. Craig has managed to make James his own without resorting to pastiche like some actors have done and the producers seem to have given him the freedom to develop the character over a couple of films. The pressure really comes from the next film onwards – we’ve not really been given any reason to like the guy; he’s a cold-blooded, almost psychopathic killer and hasn’t yet got round to his quippy icy cool. We stick by him out of a strange loyalty, a long-lasting friendship. Quantum of Solace will entertain the knickers off you if you engage in the right spirit, but I’d just hate that to be taken for granted.
Tags: dead cultural stuff