Saw “A Quantum Solace” yesterday. I am by no means a Bond specialist, but since this Blag cries for some new entries I figured that this is the only subject I can maybe make some meaninful observations about right now.
Six of ’em
What struck me most is the absence of coolness of James Bond, apart from some traces left in the face of its actor. While the absence of the old, british Bond has been lamented already, I more mourn for the easiness and the elegance that have gone missing, too. James Bond has been reduced to a humble worker in the sweatshop that intelligence has become – he drives sportscars cause they are fast, not because he enjoys driving them, he drinks six Martinis (the old Bond barely found time to finish one usually) to get drunk, he runs and fights and slaves to get his job done. Which is understandable, since with Q’s departure the gadgets have been taken away from him. Those little devices that gave Bond the edge over his usually much more powerful enemies are probably no longer developed in the deep vaults of the MI6. Western technical ingenuity has been replaced by cheap mass-production in China. Granted, his boss still gets to watch some minions toy around with a “Minority Report”-like touchscreen display, but that’s the single appearance of anything you can’t buy at the mall these days.
Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be
The good news – for Bond – is that his enemies equally have lost their powers. Dominic Green isn’t some rich tycoon craving to satisfy his personal psychosis by spending his fortune to gain world domination, he is simply a guy levering power for money. The supervillain is a travelling salesmen of a faceless organisation whos name – “Quantum” – symbolizes adequately that it is simply a cog in the wheels of todays capitalism. “Yeah, you’re right. We should just deal with nice people.” as the CIA operative mocks his collegue – these days indeed the sides have become as indistinguable as their agents. Greens main occupation seems to be to hustle a depressed would-be-avenger of a bond girl to its date with a fat caricature of a dictator in some third-world-country. He finds his death not in the ruins of an ocean-based palace or the wreck of a space-station, but gets executed just like the replaceable clerk he is. And frankly, even the foolish reservoir dogs failing their diamond heist had more sex appeal to their colour-coded criminals than the almighty “Quantum” can provide to Mr. White or Mr. Green alike.
A Slave in the Garden of the Lord
Fun was the everlasting promise of Bonds adventures: That beyond the walls of the flats we rent and the bureaus we sit there is a world of beauty open for some of us, maybe, that life in capitalism actually could be rich and rewarding; that if you endorsed his principles you might end toasting a soft-eyed beauty at some foreign shore – instead of your mates down the pub. Inherently, the old Bonds were not more sexist or racist than the audience they were made for. Whatever they showed in discriminating behaviour was aimed to please, not to reinforce the bad attitudes of its viewers. Coolness is not a question of race, gender or belief. Coolness is enjoying the world around you as you work with it and through it, coolness is reaching ones personal aims with the least effort necessary and the greatest elegance available.
The new James Bond may offer a quantum of solace for the hardships of capitalism, but he makes it look decidedly uncool.
