So the pro-imperialist misogynist thug is back in town, the wet dream of the British establishment fighting the bad guys and fighting his own lust for revenge….yes, the swaggering James Bond is here and overwhelmed by grief. Grief for his lost love, Vesper, who we saw die at the end of Casino Royale. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery so the makers of the Bourne series should be proud.
The Quantum of Solace has Daniel Craig reprising his role of the eponymous secret agent. I suppose it is a mediocre romp with the thrills and spills of fight scenes and car cases. That and switching off your political faculties for one hour and 45 mins. Again, I couldn’t help compare it to the superior Bourne trilogy and boy, does Quantum liberally borrow from it.
Matt Damon handles fight scenes much much better than Daniel Craig (and to be honest, have seen better fist fights handled by the actor Rupert Penry-Jones in the MI5 series, Spooks..than Quantum).
The early scenes involve car chases crashing around tight corners with a picturesque backdrop of the border between France and Italy. Leaping across rooftops with an ensuing fight scene reminiscent of Bourne Ultimatum. Though the fight scenes in Quantum are much shorter bursts of action and rarely are they prolonged.
The similarities between the death of Bourne’s girlfriend, Marie and Bond’s love Vesper both want answers but it is the way they deal with their grief and Bond deals with it by violence though shrouding his pain by booze and a desperate need to cover it up by resorting to a stiff upper lip attitude. Bourne too is looking for revenge but also redemption, tries to take responsibility for what he has done. That is never part of the agenda for Bond. He’s morally unambiguous. But….are the writers trying to give Bond emotional depth?
The film is very much pared down, little humour and very few of the famous quips Bond has a tendency to make. And his usual trademark, the Martini, is non existent…little is seen either of the beloved Aston Martin along with the gadgets and gizmos. Though lots of product placement btw.
Anyways, here’s a brief outline; Bond is globe trotting, fighting from country to country in hope of finding what were the circumstances that led to Vesper’s death. It leads him to Dominic Greene (the hint being in the name), an entrepreneurial environmentalist who runs a company called Quantum that isn’t on the radar of the British secret service but the Americans are desperately trying to play ball and make covert secret deals with. Greene is also hatching a plan to destablise Bolivia and then as a result bring back a former dictator. Along the way, Bond meets a young woman called Camille who too desperately wants revenge (on that former dictator who wiped out her family).
There’s twists and turns based on trust, revenge and grief. Bond meets Strawberry Fields who is dispatched to send Bond back to London. Instead both are despatched to the bedroom (c’mon there has to be at least one shag scene). Though nothing is new, women are shown to buckle at the knees when introduced to the sexy masculine Bond (wry and tired observation) and can’t resist his prowess. Grrr.
The Americans are making deals with Greene though not sure what he wants (can’t be oil, can it?). Greene’s demand is a piece of desert in south America…but for what?
Bond manoeuvres around various obstacles and violent confrontations to get to the hypocritical Greene who is using “environmentalism” as a cover. And as ever there’s the show down……..
Overall, the writers of Quantum delve deep into the bowels of earlier Bond imagery. I saw glimpses of From Russia with Love to Live and Let Die. The pick and mix included an up-to-date version of a certain iconic scene from Goldfinger..
The women…. well, Camille is a feisty, strong and striking woman who holds her own and knows how to pack a pistol. She’s focused and trained. But she still remains an unequal sidekick. It is not as basic as the previous emphasis on the “Bond babes” clad in bikinis but still they are there as a function (though it still throws up contradictory ideas) to service the needs of Bond. Fields, clad in a rain mac and little else gets the shag and…well, sex and death. Why do I expect more when the position of women reflects the politics and ideology of the film?
The bad guys are obvious, though there are a few rogue elements in the secret service. Trust is part of the foundation to the script and story. Nothing seems contradictory and complex. We know who the bad guys are, the line is firmly drawn. Greene is indulging in “green wash” by using environmentalism as a cover. Will the story inspire younger viewers into a political consciousness about oil, water and climate change? Interesting, as well, that Bolivia is thrown into the mix (and we know that the American establishment were involved in trying to destabilise Venezuela and dabbling in it with Bolivia).
The script writers (one of them being Paul Haggis) has been watching what has been happening in the world and the global world order.
And yet….. the Bourne trilogy instead of looking for the baddies elsewhere is fixed on the heart of darkness within the American establishment itself along with the dirty tricks and operations. Bond still has the whiff of the old imperialism and colonialism Fleming was immersed in. Matt Damon described Bond as an imperialist and a misogynist who kills people and laughs about it, and drinks martinis and cracks jokes.
Is it a relic of its time? I think it is…
Posted by harpymarx 
