Tag Archives: James Bond

The Purchase of MGM

Amazon.com has acquired MGM which means they have purchased the back catalogue of films which means (redux) that they now own the James Bond films.

Screenwriter John Logan, who worked on both Skyfall and the (IMHO) abysmal Spectre, had some thoughts about that and wrote an opinion piece lamenting/worrying about what that might mean to the long running franchise.

Over at deadline.com, Tom Grater writes about Mr. Logan’s thoughts:

James Bond writer warns that Amazon’s MGM deal could dilute franchise: “Let James Bond drink his Martini’s in peace”

In essence Mr. Logan’s fealty is with the Broccolis, who have controlled the James Bond franchise since its inception, and worries that if some corporate overlord worms their way into decisions regarding the franchise -versus continued control by the Broccolis- the brand may be diluted.

His worry isn’t far off. We’ve seen what’s happened -some good, some pretty bad- following George Lucas selling his ownership of the Star Wars franchise to Disney.

Certainly one thing that does seem to happen with these well known franchises that are acquired by studios is that there is an effort to maximize releases of new material and, hopefully, then make the brand even more profitable.

Mr. Logan likely worries that there might be a Miss Moneypenny TV show/movie down the road or perhaps something with Q or M. Given the way Disney is now releasing movies based on villains of their popular movies (Cruella being the latest release), might there not be the possibility of a Goldfinger (the villain) movie? Or perhaps something with Blofeld?

I can see Mr. Logan’s worry…

…but…

The fact of the matter is that the James Bond movie franchise has existed since the very early 1960’s. There have been great James Bond films. There have been mediocre James Bond films. And, yes, there have been pretty abysmal James Bond films (looking at you, Spectre).

There was a time when the James Bond films were the state-of-the-art action/adventure films but that, it seems, hasn’t been the case for quite some time.

The wonder surrounding the franchise -which for many years was the only movie franchise out there- IMHO has lost that luster.

James Bond films were essentially lost in the wilderness following Pierce Brosnan’s run. If it wasn’t for the success of the Matt Damon Bourne movies and the franchise using them as a template, perhaps the James Bond franchise might have faded away anyway.

Much as I love Casino Royale, the first and best of the Daniel Craig Bonds, it was clearly a film that benefitted tremendously from using elements found in the Bourne films.

What followed, sadly, has proven disappointing to me. Quantum of Solace was a slick looking film with some good action sequences but a story which was murky… and that’s being kind. Granted, the movie was a victim of a writer’s strike, but still. Skyfall, as I’ve noted before, I absolutely loved when I saw it in theaters upon its initial release. However, the moment the film was over and I thought about what I just saw, I realized that movie’s plot was complete nonsense as well and my opinion of the film has subsequently dropped.

And Spectre, as I’ve mentioned twice before above, I felt was absolutely abysmal, easily IMHO the worst Bond film ever made.

Would more Bondian works dilute the franchise?

I suppose its possible but I wonder if it matters at this point. The James Bond franchise seems to move in waves, sometimes good sometimes forgettable/bad.

Could more James Bond make the franchise better or worse?

Either is possible, certainly, but given the very long history to date, I wonder if audiences will be as preoccupied about that as Mr. Logan is.

Tenet (2020) a (Very Mildly) Belated Review

I watched the film yesterday and, honestly, it feels like maybe I should wait until I see it again before offering a review.

However, given the film runs 2 hours and 30 minutes, I don’t know when I’ll get that chance. Besides, I think I got most of what the film was about but will acknowledge it is quite deep and it does, like the best of director/writer Christopher Nolan features, ask the audience to think and not just passively watch what goes on screen.

Having said all that, the film is essentially a James Bond movie -specifically the 1965 film Thunderball– mixed with time travel elements.

Indeed, as the hours passed following seeing the movie, the more and more I realized the movie’s basic plot was indeed a variation of Thunderball. Just for the hell of it, here’s the trailer to that film:

While not one of the best of the Sean Connery Bond films and perhaps the first one (it was the fourth made) to start showing a little wear on the whole Bond formula, Thunderball nonetheless is an entertaining large scale Bond film involving the theft of a nuclear device and Bond’s attempts to get it back before its used to start a nuclear war… and possible Armageddon.

The film’s villain, Largo, is essentially duplicated in Tenet’s Sator (played with menace -and an at times silly Russian accent, by the very British Kenneth Branagh). Sator, like Largo, is very rich and spends plenty of time on his very large and luxurious yacht. Like in Thunderball, Sator is intent on getting a device which could spell the end of the world, only in his case its something that affects time itself.

The movie features John David Washington as “Protagonist”, a no-name hero who, after showing he’s willing to die for his the right cause, is “recruited” into a shadowy world where time is fluid and can run backwards. The fate of humanity is on the line, and with the help of his right hand man Neil (Robert Pattinson in a sorta/kinda Felix Leiter role), they navigate the current situation and devise a way to stop Sator from ending the world.

To do this, they have to go through his wife Kat (Elizabeth Debicki, quite good) who is being held on a leash by Sator and suffers greatly from this.

The movie certainly has a Inception-like quality along with its James Bond theme, and there wasn’t a moment where I wasn’t enjoying myself.

However, after the film was finished, there were certain problems with the plot that, at least for me, reared their head. Sadly, when you deal with time travel, especially where various characters are able to do so at will, one begins to wonder why the hero or villain don’t just go “back” to where they can fix things so they succeed and their nemesis fails.

I don’t want to get into SPOILERS, but this is increasingly the case toward the film’s ending. While Mr. Nolan tries to explain away these discrepancies with talk of the Grandfather paradox and fate and history being “set”, the reality is that until time travel is a reality, there is no reason to think we can’t go in time and “reset” the past.

The Grandfather paradox, for example, involves the idea that if we can travel back in time and kill our Grandfather before he conceives one’s father, how is it possible for you (the grandson/daughter) to even exist to go back in time to then kill your Grandfather? Wouldn’t you cease to exist if you were to kill your Grandfather before your father/mother was conceived? But then how did you exist to be able to go and possibly do this to your Grandfather?

It’s a philosophical question, one which has no answer, but I would argue that if time travel were possible (which is an open question, to say the least!) then the idea of multiverses and alternate timelines has to be considered. Thus, you could kill your Grandfather which would change the timeline and mean you now come from a timeline where your Grandfather lived but now, in this new one, the lineage stops yet you can theoretically continue to exist.

I know I’m probably botching the explanation, but its the best I can do off the top of my head.

So, if i do believe that timelines can change, I obviously believe that nothing is set in stone once you move from one time to another. You therefore can murder Adolf Hitler as a baby and, while WWII could still happen, it will do so without Hitler’s presence.

Similarly, some of the things which happen toward the end of Tenet, to my mind, don’t have to happen the way they do. We could simply go back to other points in time to resolve or screw them up worse!

As I said, Nolan movies sure can make you think.

Overall, Tenet is an easy recommendation, a film that borrows the best of James Bond and marries it with some brain twisting time travel. It moves like lightning and is filled with surprises and big set pieces.

Yeah, an easy recommendation.

Opinions are like…

….well… you know.

The older I get, the more I realize there is a very golden truth in that saying. What to you is solid gold might be, to me, nothing more than a smelly turd.

And vice-versa.

Having said that, I love reading opinion “lists”. In this case, and appearing on fashionbeans, Tom Fordy offers the following…

James Bond Films Ranked Worst to Best

Given the preamble I offered at the start of this blog, I think you can see what’s coming: There are points where I strongly disagree with Mr. Fordy’s list.

But first an admission: It’s been years since I’ve seen many of the Bond films in their entirety. It’s a fact of life: I have only so much free time and if I want to be fair to the films, I probably should revisit them before offering my opinions about which are “best” and which are “worst”.

Having said that, Mr. Fordy offers these films as the “bottom 10”, ranked from worst to best of the worst:

Die Another Day, Diamonds Are Forever, Tomorrow Never Dies, Thunderball, Octopussy, Quantum of Solace, A View to a Kill, The World is Not Enough, Moonraker, and You Only Live Twice.

Die Another Day, the last of the Pierce Brosnan Bond films, does get a lot of grief for going waaaaay overboard on many of its elements, including an invisible car. The CGI for the film was also quite crude, though that is more of a function of the fact that the film is by now rather old and those effects are simply a sign of that time.

Having said all that, the worst of the Bond films?!

For me, the very worst Bond film is easily the last one released, Spectre. Mr. Fordy feels good enough about that film to not even place it on the bottom 10 and ultimately ranks that film #14, which makes it his opinion #11from the bottom in the rankings. The fact of the matter is that I hate Spectre so much that I haven’t even bothered to buy a digital copy of it, even though I have all the other Bond films in my collection. And I’m a completist! It irks me to have so many films and not “complete the collection” but I hate that film so much I won’t spend another dime on it.

But as I said above, opinions are like… well.

My second least favorite Bond film is probably Moonraker, which Mr. Fordy puts at #16 on his list (or, to put it another way, 9th from the bottom). For many, many years I felt Moonraker was the absolute worst of the Bond films, supplanted only recently by Spectre. My opinion, however, has mellowed. In part it was because I so hated the Craig film that I realized my hatred of Moonraker might be exaggerated… after all, of the Moore Bond films, isn’t A View to a Kill even worse?

I have to admit, today my opinion would go that way.

Similarly, Diamonds Are Forever is listed by Mr. Fordy as the second worst Bond film ever made. I disagree. I happen to like the film and enjoy its pleasantly tongue in cheek attitude. In fact, of the Connery Bond films I would put You Only Live Twice as his worst, though I would agree that Thunderball was the first Bond film to start showing the formula could go bad. Still, I generally liked the film even if it was bloated.

Moving to Roger Moore, as I stated I very much disliked A View To A Kill. I also felt The Man With The Golden Gun (#12 on this list) was awful as well. My favorite Moore Bonds are Live and Let Die (#8 on the list) The Spy Who Loved Me (#11), and For Your Eyes Only (#13). I also like Octopussy (#20, or 5th from the very bottom). So right there you have strong differences in opinion. Further, to me For Your Eyes Only is Moore’s best Bond. I would then put The Spy Who Loved Me, Live and Let Die, and Octopussy in descending order from best to lesser -but still good- stuff.

Intriguingly, my biggest disagreement with Mr. Fordy may be his ranking of the two Timothy Dalton Bonds. I thought The Living Daylights (#9) was a damn good Bond film but his follow up and last Bond feature, License To Kill (#3…!!!!!) was a terrible Bond film and deserved to be on the bottom 10 rather than so high up. History would seem to bear me out as Mr. Dalton left the franchise at that point and the film didn’t do all that well at the box office.

Moving to the Pierce Brosnan Bonds, I have to say… they blur into each other for me. I thought the very first one, Goldeneye (#10) was probably the best of the lot, but it had its problems IMHO and should have been a lot better than it was, given that Brosnan was great in the role and the cast was quite strong. The Brosnan era was, IMHO, a great missed opportunity. You had a strong actor in the lead role but the films were mostly, again IMHO, tepid.

Moving to Daniel Craig, we again have IMHO a major missed opportunity. Mr. Craig started incredibly strong with Casino Royale (#5) but each subsequent film has been worse and worse. Quantum of Solace (#19, or 6th from the bottom) was slick but nonsensical. Skyfall (#7) I loved while watching it the first time… but then I thought about the story and realized it made not a lick of sense at all. My opinion of the film has subsequently gone down very steeply. And Spectre, well, I’ve already given my opinion of that film.

To Mr. Fordy, the best Bond film ever made and coming in at #1 is… On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the sole outing of George Lazenby as Bond.

Again, I don’t agree.

While I think OHMSS is a pretty good Bond film, it isn’t anywhere near my favorite. I thought Lazenby didn’t work well as Bond, even if the film they built around him wasn’t bad at all.

Which is my all time favorite Bond film? That’s a really hard one to say. I love the first three Connery Bonds, Dr. No, From Russia With Love, and Goldfinger. Having said that, the films are showing their age with regard to Bond’s sexism. Especially the later two films, which show Bond engaging in what can only be described as rape.

Heady, heady stuff, yet perhaps of its time.

I also love the Moore Bonds I mentioned, even if Live and Let Die is another film that shows some questionable societal ideation, in this case transplanting the “yellow peril” of the 1930’s to African American culture.

Again, we’re talking opinions here and no one is right and no one is wrong.

Well, except when you’re trying to tell me Spectre is a good movie.

That I cannot agree with! 😉

If this is true…

…its absolutely crazy that it was leaked to the media.

Written by Caroline Graham and posted to dailymail.com.uk:

Black Woman who will be the next 007: Lashana Lynch takes over the famous code name

Lashana Lynch previously appeared in Captain Marvel. My understanding (I didn’t see the film) is that she was quite good in it.

According to the above article (sorry to spoil everything), Daniel Craig’s James Bond, at the start of the new Bond film, is officially retired. He is brought back in to see M because of whatever problems need his attention and it is there that he finds Ms. Lynch’s character has taken over the 007 codename.

Directly from the article:

A movie insider said: ‘There is a pivotal scene at the start of the film where M says ‘Come in 007’, and in walks Lashana who is black, beautiful and a woman. ‘It’s a popcorn-dropping moment. Bond is still Bond but he’s been replaced as 007 by this stunning woman.

First off: I’m OK with this concept. It sounds like fun!

On the other hand… how the hell did the studios let this rather large whopper of a plot point escape?!

Can nothing be kept secret anymore? If indeed Ms. Lynch is revealed as a “new” 007, that is indeed a “popcorn-dropping” moment designed to shock and delight viewers…

…only now the cat’s out of the proverbial bag and absolutely no one is going to be shocked anymore.

I know the internet makes it hard to keep secrets. One tiny slip and the entire world knows what’s going on.

If this is indeed true, its a shame this secret has been revealed while the damn film is still being made.

The next James Bond…?

Over at the Daily Mail, Sebastian Shakespeare (what a name!) offers an article and a Q&A to Barbara Broccoli, producer of the James Bond films, concerning who might be in line for the role after Daniel Craig…

Next James Bond Could Be Black Or A Woman, Says 007 Producer

Nowadays, the idea of changing the gender, race, age, etc. etc. on long established characters (film or novel/story) is at least somewhat in vogue.

One of the earlier attempts at doing so was the film version of The Wild Wild West, a TV series which featured Robert Conrad in the titular role as secret agent James West…

Related image

…and the film version featured Will Smith in the role…

Image result for will smith james west

In the case of the movie, it was bad no matter who played the title role, but in this case, the changing of the character’s race was even more troublesome given the time frame the TV show/film exists in (ie post Civil War America).  To be very blunt: It was difficult to accept the idea of a black man, dressed to the hilt and obvious to anyone who looks his way, could somehow walk around post Civil War America and function successfully as a secret agent.

Nonetheless, I’m not against the idea of changing long established characters, so long as the end result is positive.

We are dealing with entertainment after all and the ultimate judge of success in a movie, book, or story is how audiences react to it.

In the case of James Bond, I feel the article is a little… misleading.  This is the important stuff from the article:

(Barbara Broccoli) was asked if we could expect to see a female Bond or a black 007.

‘These films tend to reflect the times so we always try to push the envelope a little bit,’ she replied. ‘Anything is possible.

‘Right now it’s Daniel Craig, and I’m very happy with Daniel Craig, but who knows what the future will bring?’

So, basically, she gives a non-answer here.  Sure, in the future, there might be a (insert pertinent race/sex/gender here) James Bond but right now we’re focused on Daniel Craig.

So there’s less to the article than appears… except for one thing.  Toward the end of the article we get this quote from Roger Moore concerning who should play the character:

Sir Roger, who died in May at the age of 89, told this newspaper in 2015: ‘I have heard people talk about how there should be a lady Bond or a gay Bond.

‘But they wouldn’t be Bond for the simple reason that wasn’t what Ian Fleming wrote.

‘It is not about being homophobic or, for that matter, racist — it is simply about being true to the character.’

He does make one very salient point regarding the idea of changing a well-established character’s sex/race/age:  Should we be so quick to do these changes with characters that were never written by their creators in this manner?

One should, at some point, respect the original author’s vision.

Perhaps a better option would be to create a new character?

Daniel Craig…one more time!

Word is that Daniel Craig, after apparently going through a living hell making the (IMHO) horrible movie Spectre, will return one more time to the role of James Bond…and according to Jacob Stolworthy at the Independent.com…

James Bond 25: Daniel Craig’s 007 return “secured”, Adele wanted for theme song

So the producers of the Bond films essentially are seeking a return of the “magic” found in Skyfall, which featured both Craig and Adele.

I’m…torn.

Truly.

I think Daniel Craig is a good actor and capable of good things.  Hell, check him out in this trailer for the upcoming film Logan Lucky…

He’s certainly capable of good things but his biggest role to date, that of James Bond, has been, IMHO, ultimately…not good.

Like almost everyone else, I loved Casino Royale, Mr. Craig’s first appearance as the iconic character.  However, what’s followed has been progressively worse.  Quantum of Solace, which suffered due to a writer’s strike, was barely coherent as a movie, though it certainly looked good.

Skyfall was, similarly, a beautiful looking film and, when I saw it in theaters, I was very entertained.  However, the film fell apart the moment you started to think about its story which, like Quantum, made absolutely no sense at all.

I’ve also made my feeling for Spectre known here, which I still feel is the absolute worst Bond film ever made.

Count ’em up and you’ve got the following: I really liked 1 Daniel Craig Bond film, think 1 was good while watching it but fell apart completely upon plot examination, and 2 which I thought were outright bad, with the last one being my nominee for worst Bond film of all time.

1 out of 4 ain’t good.

I suppose the end result depends on who they get to write the movie’s script and who directs it.  If someone like Christopher Nolan gets tagged to direct the film, it could be interesting…though I feel as good as Mr. Nolan is his action scenes aren’t always the best.

James Cameron in his prime would make any Bond film a must see, but I seriously doubt they’ll get him and, frankly, I can’t help but feel he’s a little past his prime.

There are plenty of other possibilities and, provided the movie’s makers deliver a coherent plot (how about that?!) filled with thrills and chills, I suppose it could work.

As a fan of James Bond, I hope it works.

But the recent track record suggests I should keep my expectations, sadly, low.

A little more on Spectre and other Bond musings…

No, haven’t gone to see the film.  As I said in my previous post, reading the reviews and discovering the “big” spoiler created a really bad taste in my mouth, one which I’ll get into in a moment.

In that previous post, I didn’t want to get into spoiler territory but now that the film has been out for several days and no doubt word of what this spoiler is has circulated among fans of the James Bond franchise, I feel safer in exploring it.

Of course, what I’m about to get into is still

SPOILER TERRITORY!

You’ve been warned!

Ok, so in that previous post (you can read the full thing here) I offered a link to one review in particular, that of Drew McWeeny for hitfix.com.  The review can be found here.

There are two “big” reveals in the review.  The first was to be expected: The character of Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz) turned out to be Blofeld.  Considering this film was named “Spectre” and anyone with even a passing knowledge of the fictitious evil organization knows that its head is Blofeld, I can only scratch my head as to why they chose to “hide” this fact.

I mean, EVERYONE knew that Mr. Waltz (despite the actor’s protestations) was playing the character.  It was a weak repeat of the weak “surprise” that John Harrison was in actuality Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness (2013).  I suppose one of the earlier examples of the use of this concept in modern times (and modern blockbuster films) was in 2005’s Batman Begins where Liam Neeson’s Ducard is revealed to be…someone else.  This concept was used again in The Dark Knight Rises (2012) with the revelation that Marion Cotillard’s Miranda wasn’t who she said she was, though even by that point audiences were already suspecting she was a certain character’s daughter.

Moving beyond this by now well worn trope, what really infuriated me -as well as Mr. McWeeny- regarding Spectre was this:

…the reason that Oberhauser became a criminal mastermind in charge of an international organization that is involved in human trafficking, drugs, terrorism, and myriad other destructive crimes is because when James Bond’s parents died, Bond was sent to live with the Oberhausers, and Papa Oberhauser decided he liked James Bond better than he liked his real son, Franz.

Yes. It’s true. Blofeld is Blofeld because his daddy liked James Bond more than him.

Wow.

I mean, wow.

Talk about cheap, pseudo-psychological crap.  One comes away feeling Oberhauser/Blofeld needs to get a grip.  I take it back: the screenwriters of Spectre need to get a grip.  How could they use this concept (already used as a joke in the last Austin Powers film!) and think it would come out as anything other than silly?

But like the “revelation” that Oberhauser is in reality Blofeld, the links between villain and hero also have a history.  A history that, by this point, has also slid into cliche.

Who can forget…

Many were totally blown away by this revelation though it, like the concept that Luke and Leia were siblings, was clearly a post original Star Wars creation.

A few years later, Tim Burton’s original Batman introduced this element which, though not familiar per se, created a sense that Joker/Batman were intertwined more than had ever originally been conceived:

In the comic books, the Wayne’s killer was a low level hoodlum named Joe Chill.  In this movie, Jack Napier/The Joker “creates” Batman and Batman, later in the film, creates the Joker.  Its one of those “neat” concepts that are perhaps a little too neat and can only occur in films that deal with the fanstastic.

Now that Spectre is out (and doing fairly well in theaters, though its box office wasn’t quite as high as Skyfall) and it might be Daniel Craig’s last go at the James Bond character, I suspect a major re-evaluation of his films is in the offing.  While the Pierce Brosnan films were box-office successes, following his departure people gave his run a second look and it turned out those films didn’t have legs.  Most today dismiss the Brosnan run as weak even though it did well enough to warrant four films.

I wonder if the same may happen with Mr. Craig’s four film run.  For my money and without having seen Spectre yet (I will, but probably not in theaters), the only really good Daniel Craig Bond film is Casino Royale, but only because it so very well created an “origin” of the Bond character.  I was hoping subsequent films would fully grasp the fun/action/suspense nature of the other Bond films but that was not to be.  Quantum Of Solace was torpedoed by a writer’s strike.  Skyfall was a beautiful film to look at and enjoy while watching it for the first time but immediately afterwards you realize the plot made absolutely no sense.  Spectre appears to be not unlike Skyfall in the sense that it is also a beautiful film to look at but one whose plot -and the character motivations- again suffer.

In time, will we look back and say that Mr. Craig made one really good Bond film and followed it up with three forgettable features?  Is this not what essentially happened to Pierce Brosnan?  Goldeneye, Mr. Brosnan’s first Bond film, is considered by many his best while the others…not so much.

Is history repeating itself?

(Very) Shaken, Not Stirred…

It’s my own damn fault, really.

I’m a curious guy and as much as I was (note the past tense) eager to see the 007 film Spectre, released today, I just had to read some of the reviews.

To be fair, the earliest reviews, appearing earlier in the week and following, I assume, the UK premiere of the film, were generally positive and my hopes were raised.  I’m a fan of James Bond and have a love for many of the films, even as I’m clear-eyed enough to recognize there is plenty of chaff among the wheat.

My favorite Bond is Sean Connery though even his run of films weren’t perfect.  Thunderball was a great spectacle but in retrospect was probably the first of the Bond films to show both formula and bloat but its follow-up, You Only Live Twice, was the only Connery Bond film (including the non-canon Never Say Never Again) to leave me cold.  While others loathe the tongue in cheek campiness of Diamonds Are Forever, I happen to like that film for just that reason.

Between You Only Live Twice and Diamonds Are Forever we had On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the only Bond film featuring George Lazenby in the title role.  There are many who consider this one of the all time best Bond films ever but I’m not one of them.  I found the film rather flat, though it was fun to see Diana Rigg and Telly Savalas in it.  Continuity-wise, I never understood why Mr. Savalas’ Blofeld didn’t recognize James Bond and vice versa.  Despite the change in actors, the two characters had come face to face in the previous film, You Only Live Twice.

The first Bond I encountered was the Roger Moore version.  Though many hate Mr. Moore’s take on the Bond character, I enjoyed his work.  The biggest problem, IMHO, with Mr. Moore’s Bond films is that one good film was almost always followed with a really bad one.  Further, two of the worst Bond films ever made, Moonraker (a silly Star Wars inspired affair) and A View To A Kill (an uninspired work -you need only check out the totally ho-hum opening action set piece to see how uninspired the rest of the film was) both featured Mr. Moore.  Yet the highs were very high.  The Spy Who Loved Me and For Your Eyes Only are two of my all time favorite Bonds.

Timothy Dalton would replace Roger Moore in the underrated The Living Daylights, a damn good Bond film that would have benefited even more had the producers/creators tailored their script for Mr. Dalton rather than Roger Moore (as good as Mr. Dalton is, there are moments in the film that appeared designed specifically for Mr. Moore’s interpretation of the character).  Mr. Dalton’s second (and last) Bond film, License to Kill, however, was a big disappointment and I wasn’t too surprised when it was announced he was out.

Pierce Brosnan, the actor who the studios originally wanted to take over for Roger Moore following A View to a Kill, would be hired for the next four Bond films which, frankly, didn’t do all that much for me.  I love the idea of Pierce Brosnan playing Bond but the films, apart from the first, felt like a cookie cutter product.  One film fades into the next and if pressed, I’d have a hard time telling you the plots of his Bond run.

Then came Daniel Craig with the 2006 “reboot” Casino Royale.  Based on the first Ian Fleming penned James Bond story, Casino Royale was what Timothy Dalton’s first Bond film should have been.  Serious, sexy, and tragic.  Here we had James Bond presented as a new agent and, by the end of the adventure when he states he’s “Bond, James Bond” it feels like you’ve just seen his origin story and away we go…

…only we didn’t.

The next Bond film, Quantum of Solace, fell victim in part to a writer’s strike and was a mess of a movie, IMHO.  2012’s Skyfall, however, hit audiences like napalm.  Critics almost universally loved the film and, when watching it, so did I.

But as pretty and adrenaline pumping as Skyfall was to watch in theaters that first time, the movie’s story falls apart even under the most modest of scrutiny.  Worse, this is the only Bond film I know of where the bad guy “wins”.  His stated goal is to kill Judi Dench’s M and then die and this is exactly what he does.  Which makes one wonder: Just how effective is this Bond?

Another thing that bothered me about the film, even upon first watching it, is that at the very end we again establish the “old” Bond setup of a male M, Moneypenny, and Bond.  Didn’t we already do a “origin” story with Casino Royale?  How come we’re now three movies into Mr. Craig’s run and yet we wind once again having an origin story with Skyfall?

Which brings us back to Spectre.

Despite the bumps in the road and the disappointing films, I maintain I’m a fan of the franchise and like nothing more than to see a good Bond film.  The early commercials for Spectre indicated, at least to me, that this new movie would offer plenty of homages to the old ones, something that thrilled me.

In my mind I’m thinking: Now that we’ve finally gotten rid of the whole origin story stuff, we’re going into primo-Bond territory with, among other Bondian staples, a bruiser henchman whom he fights on a train (Shades of From Russia WIth Love and The Spy Who Loved Me)!  You have the evil organization Spectre coming back after all these years (the organization that vexed Connery’s Bond for most of his run!  Hey, it’s in the movie’s title!).  You have car chases and snow and beautiful women (not that they ever left the series) and…

…and it looked like so much fun.

Then came the other reviews.

As I said above, its my own damn fault.  When I read this HEAVY SPOILER review by Drew McWeeny, I was beside myself:

Spectre Manages to Majorly Muddy Daniel Craig’s James Bond Legacy

I’ll try to stay clear of certain spoilery material as best I can, but one of the first things to annoy me upon reading this review is that it appears we once again have a Daniel Craig Bond film that takes place BEFORE he becomes a “full on” Connery-Moore-Lazenby-Dalton-Brosnan Bond.  In other words, we’re once again -on our fourth Daniel Craig film!- yet again dealing with a proto-Bond in an origin story.

Even worse than that was discovering in this review and others like it the identity and motives of the movie’s villain.  I’m not going to give that information away (if you want SPOILERS, click the link above or search for other reviews), but the motives of the villain are -and there is no kind way of saying this- stupid.

Extremely stupid.

How stupid?  So stupid one wonders if the writers forgot the same motivations and relationships were presented years before in one of the Austin Powers films (again, I’m being careful here to not be spoilery).  In the Austin Powers films these were presented as broad comedy and the silliness was intentional.  In Spectre they’re playing it straight and reading about it makes it feel all the sillier.

So here we are, four films into Daniel Craig’s run of James Bond and, based on some of the interviews he’s given, Spectre might well be his final appearance as Bond and, at least for some critics, if this is his swan song he’s going out on a low.

Too bad.

James Bond on my mind…

Between the upcoming release of Spectre, the latest James Bond film, to Daniel Craig’s ill-advised (though I’m sure from the heart, unless he was misquoted) comments regarding making more Bond films to getting all my Bond films -so far minus the Dalton ones, have to work on that!- on UV, it appears I’ve been wallowing in all things James Bond for the past couple of weeks.

And I will continue to do so here.

From Daniel Dockery and presented on the usually hilarious Cracked.com…

5 Ways James Bond Was WAY More Insane In The Books

I have the James Bond books but simply haven’t had the time to read them despite recommendations -and admonitions- from others.  Of course the novels movies are based on will often be different, sometimes radically so, from the movies made from them and James Bond is no different.

However, of the five differences mentioned the one that struck me the most was probably #4, the manner in which Dr. No dies in the novel.

DrNoFirst.jpg

Without giving it away, reading this makes me feel his death was so very…anti-climactic.  Silly even.  However, one has to remember the novel was originally published in March of 1958 and, let’s face it, that was an awful long time ago.  People people back then might have found some dark humor in the novelization death versus what I think about this villain’s death today.

Regardless, read the list, it is quite fascinating!

Daniel Craig and James Bond and other musings…

This past week, just as the publicity blitz for the soon-to-be-released (it comes out November 9th) James Bond film Spectre was ramping up, actor Daniel Craig, the man who plays the world’s most famous super-spy, provided some…uh…interesting thoughts on whether he was up to playing the character in another film:

Daniel Craig is so done with James Bond

and…

Daniel Craig: I’d rather “slash my wrists” than play James Bond again

When I presented the first linked article, found on io9, to someone I knew, their reaction to it was, I suspect, what the vast majority of people may feel.  This person opined that Daniel Craig needed to “get over himself” and not bite the hand that feeds him.  That working on these James Bond films has surely made him a ton of money while elevating awareness of him as an actor around the entire world.

I completely see this person’s point and yet… and yet…

Being an “artist”, be it a writer, musician, actor, etc. etc. is a very tough gig.  You can devote considerable time and effort to your projects only to see them fail to catch on.  You can labor for years and years in the shadows only to one day hit it big…on something you don’t have all that much love for at all.  You could even spend your entire life slaving over your artistic works and die a poor wo/man…and afterwards these works that were so stubbornly ignored by everyone during your lifetime become popular well after you’re able to enjoy the attention and financial gain from their later success.

If one looks at Daniel Craig’s IMDB page (you can read it here), you may be surprised to find that while Mr. Craig hit the big time with his first appearance as James Bond in 2006’s Casino Royale, he nonetheless has a wide variety of credits in various roles for both movies and TV shows dating all the way back to 1992.

Clearly this is an actor who has taken on many roles and while the success of his James Bond made him better known and most likely better paid, after spending nearly ten years of your life working on the same character in four movies it is obvious, based on the interviews he’s given, that he’s grown very tired of the role.

Daniel Craig’s laments, though, are not a particularly new development.

Who many consider the “best” James Bond, Sean Connery, also felt the drag of the role.  He left the series he made a world-wide success with his fifth James Bond film, 1967’s You Only Live Twice, and was so done with playing the character that they brought in George Lazenby to replace him in 1969’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.  The replacement actor in that case didn’t work all that well, especially for the producers of the franchise, and they lured Mr. Connery back, apparently thanks to a very big paycheck, for the 1971 Bond film Diamonds Are Forever.

But even with the better pay Sean Connery again left the series, famously stating “never again” in interviews and Roger Moore would take over the role starting with 1973’s Live and Let Die.  Interestingly, Sean Connery returned one last time to play James Bond in 1983’s “non-canonical” Never Say Never Again (yes, the title was a pun which referenced Mr. Connery’s “never again” statement).  The movie was a thinly veiled remake of Thunderball and is “non-canonical” because the producers of the other James Bond films were not involved in this movie’s production, which may be part of the reason why Mr. Connery agreed to come back to the role.  Regardless, it would mark the last time -canonical or not (some, including myself, feel that the 1996 movie The Rock had Sean Connery essentially playing James Bond again)- he would play the James Bond character.

So Daniel Craig is in good company regarding his current negative feelings toward the James Bond character and his work to create him.

And it is work.

Yes, the pay is far better than what most will ever make in our jobs but it is an investment in one’s time and, as someone who is currently engaged in a project that has taken nearly a decade to complete (and still requires at the very least 2-3 years), I can tell you from experience doing something for this long can be exhausting.

So despite everything, I do feel sympathy for Mr. Craig.  Yes, I envy the money he no doubt makes and I also wonder if its smart to make these comments at this particular time.  On the other hand, I can appreciate his candor, even if it might lead to negative feelings in others.

I also hope Spectre winds up being a great Bond film.  I always welcome them.