Quantum of Solace
blogI am a shallow man, a hollow man, a man for whom going to the cinema is an opportunity to absorb, via osmosis, something that resembles a personality:
After watching a chick flick I am kooky and endearing; after an arthouse movie I am quizzical and languid and, after submitting to the frenetic largesse of the contemporary Hollywood blockbuster, I am a nimble, daring and dashing hero of my own head.
Unfortunately, in the Quantum of Solace, James Bond is so charmless that to emulate him would be to emulate a serial killer. Unlike Casino Royale, the events of which are referred to numerous times, Bond doesn’t get opportunity to be droll or dapper. Indeed, he is practically autistic the whole way through. “You’re very efficient,” says his female accomplice. “Thank you, I’ll take that as a compliment” says Daniel Craig’s Bond flatly.
I saw Quantum of Solace in Peckham, a place where you need all your physical self-possession just to avoid being stabbed. Actually, that’s not true, Peckham may be full of mentally ill people but it is generally quite charming. The Will Alsop library helps, even when you are being berated by a woman with a loud hailer.
My favourite part of the film was the bit set in La Paz, Bolivia, where men wear fedoras and women wear bowler hats. As you no doubt know, hats are essential to civility so it was interesting to see them worn in a spirit of conservatism rather than the spirit of dandy individualism that you have to affect when you wear a hat in Britain.
But despite that moment of sartorial interest, it was just endless fight scenes and thus quite boring.