Ignore The Hype - Quantum of Solace

It’s hardly rocket-science, but the preconceptions one takes into a cinema really can hijack one’s judgement of a film. The Sixth Sense being one such example – didn’t see it until it hit the small-screen, by which time I already knew the twist and had heard rave reviews from all and sundry. I was thoroughly underwhelmed and bored by the whole thing. However, the likes of Saw and The Descent were unknown beasts to me, and as a result rather well-received. Ditto Crank, now rightly honoured amongst the pantheon of all-action-no-plot greats. However, having recommended Crank to my sister, herself a worthy student of the all-action-no-plot university, I was rather disappointed to hear that she was so unimpressed she switched it off halfway through.

Quantum of Solace has received some pretty damning reviews. After the bizarrely positive critical reaction to Casino Royale, the knives were out for its sequel, and every review I read or heard assured me that this would be a disappointing, by the numbers, tedious action film. Thus, with expectations duly muted I took my seat – and thought it was great entertainment. I wouldn’t add it to my personal (and therefore definitive) list of celluloid’s finest ever, alongside the likes of Terminator 2, Aliens, Goodfellas et al, but a fine addition to the all-action-no-plot genre nevertheless. There was a good solid string of chases, explosions, fights and gunfire. The occasional breaks for plot (something about a Bolivian general, and oil supplies, and the CIA – whatever) were kept pleasantly short, just enough time for the stuntmen to catch their breath and dust themselves down, before getting back onto a bike/boat/car/plane, to be chased and shot at again.

The action scenes and kills were good enough to distract from the detracting elements. These included rather unnecessary layers of villainy – gone, it seems, are the days of one arch-baddie, his tough sidekick and numerous faceless henchmen who literally can’t shoot to save their lives. A la Die Hard. Instead, we intelligent audiences are now treated to a deviant who reports to a corrupt government official who is being blackmailed by megalomaniac who is owes money to a nameless assassin who is hired by a moustachioed foreigner who… (This is all Jason Bourne’s fault.) So the baddie aspect of Quantum was a tad convoluted, but not dwelt upon unnecessarily.
The English Bond-girl wasn’t really my particular brand of cognac, but the foreign lass was smoking. Yee-ha. I’m a particularly big fan of that poster of hot Bond-girl and Bond walking briskly through a desert, both in grubby evening dress, he looking switched on, she seething. It’s a many-layered beast, that picture – there’s a simmering unspoken argument between the couple; there’s the juxtaposition of dead-smart clothes covered in dust and muck; there’s his jacket neatly buttoned-up yet not quite hiding the massive stain of someone else’s blood. And so on. I rather like it. Shame to have seen the film and had its secret revealed.

I digress. This new post-Bourne Bond no longer has Q or gadgets, nor does he have the smarmy one-liners, but this linguistic deficiency was amply compensated for by some pleasingly scything interchanges between Bond and M. As such, the film was less a classic Bond, and more a cracking 21st-century action film. The legacy of Bourne has also brought about some really top-notch hand-to-hand combat, the likes of which Connery or Moore never delivered.

I’d recommend it – but there’s the rub. It’s precisely because it was not recommended that I was so pleasantly surprised. If you’re expecting a classic of the action genre you’ll be disappointed. So maybe just knock yourself on the head once you’ve finished reading this, give yourself short-term amnesia and shoot off to your nearest cinema. Or, if more convenient, ignore the hype that accompanies any given film, and, as far as is possible, watch it objectively.