"The Real Problem With The James Bond Franchise"

The mixed bag that is Cracked has finally come out with a Bond-related article I can largely agree with.

http://www.cracked.com/article_25892_the-real-problem-with-james-bond-franchise.html

Quote :

The James Bond film series has always varied in quality. We've seen the highs of Goldfinger and the lows of 007 battling evil while dressed as a melancholy clown. But back in the 2000s, things seemed to be looking up with Casino Royale. Daniel Craig's gritty origin story for a new Bond was a breath of fresh air after the Pierce Brosnan run devolved into stories about invisible cars and jokes about festively named women orgasming.

Although Craig is still playing Bond after 12 years, recent headlines are overwhelmingly dominated by how badly the public wants to see some other (super-duper handsome) guy take over the role. The only press surrounding the newest Craig Bond movie concerns the depressing news that acclaimed director Danny Boyle left the project, delaying the release until sometime between now and when the Sun explodes.

It's almost hard to remember how exciting this reboot was when it began. Casino Royale has a 94 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. But the most recent entry in the Craig canon, Spectre, received a mere 63 percent -- a full five points lower than the paragon of mediocrity that is Hitch.


This isn't to say that that cartoon fruit have any true bearing on a movie's quality, but the fact that the critical assessment of the series has fallen from near-universal praise to on par with the movie wherein Will Smith helps Kevin James get laid seems pretty bad.

Casino Royale wasn't just a good movie; it was an attempt to restore some of the more classic elements of Bond while pushing the series in a new direction. It retained Judi Dench's M (a '90s rebuke of Bond's sexism) and recreated Ursula Andress' gratuitous beach scene from Dr. No with the gaze flipped on Bond himself.



So what the hell happened? Well, here's one problem with the recent James Bond movies: They never just gave us a damn James Bond movie.

Think about it. Casino Royale was supposed to be an origin story. Like Batman Begins, we were watching this character become the Bond we know. He learns about martinis and gambling, and acquires his license to kill. He also falls in love with Vesper Lynd, only to be betrayed and watch her die, spurring a lifestyle of treating women like absolute garbage for no reason.

And after the entire movie held back on the classic Bond theme, in an almost tantric musical relief, the familiar melody kicks in during the film's final moments, informing audiences that Craig has finally become the Bond we know.


So naturally, the next movie finds Bond going on a mission to ... no wait, he's still becoming Bond. Quantum Of Solace sees 007 continuing to wrestle with the emotional baggage of his girlfriend's death. In the end, he symbolically lets her go, discarding her necklace and walking away, presumably because there are no pawn shops open.


Then, right before the credits roll, we finally get the iconic gun barrel sequence that typically opens Bond adventures. The message is "OK, now he's Bond for realsies, you guys."


But then something odd happens. When Skyfall rolls around, Bond is suddenly an aging relic. After being accidentally shot by Moneypenny and going full Spring Break, Bond returns to England and, surprisingly, he's too old and out of shape to do his job.



M puts him back in the field even though she admits he didn't pass his physical. How did we go from an origin story to a movie in which James Bond is too old to be James Bond? It's as if the series skipped over the part where Craig got to play Bond in his prime. Furthering this, when Bond and M are on the run, they swing by a garage where his legendary Aston Martin has been collecting dust, thankfully not claimed by some kind of Storage Warrior.


We've never seen this car in the Craig films, so the implication is that this incarnation of the character did have a bunch of fun Bond-like adventures, but for some insane reason they all happened offscreen.

Even crazier, despite the fact that multiple people have declared that Bond is too old to be a secret agent, like its predecessors, Skyfall ends with an "OK, now he's James Bond, seriously, no takebacks" moment. Bond greets a new M in an office similar to the one from the older movies, complete with Moneypenny at reception.


The message of this symbolic return seems to undercut the more progressive aspects of the newer movies. M is back to being a dude in an old wooden office, and Moneypenny has abandoned field work for a secretarial position. It's as if the franchise hit the reset button back to the 1960s, possibly because Mad Men was still a thing in 2012. And yet again, the movie ends with the gun barrel schtick.

Then Spectre seemed to be a culmination of the Craig films, with the titular evil organization revealed to be behind all of the prior villainous schemes. But then even the goddamn fourth movie has the spectacularly prequel-y feature of Blofeld receiving his trademark scar.


The point is, we've never gotten a Daniel Craig Bond movie where Bond simply shows up and does his job. You know, like a James Bond movie. Which isn't to say that the formula can't evolve, but taken as a whole, this new series feels like one big build-up to something that never happened. Which, yes, is still better than random circus clowns.

Cregg-Bond was never allowed to just be Bond, but rather hopped and skipped between rookie and old timer with nothing in between. Sad.

Casino Royale is crap.

Continuity in Bond films is almost non-existent.

The idea that Bond treats women like crap is millennial nu-think.

The article is bollocks.

Bond 'simply showing up and doing his job' is something I'd like to have back, too ... enough with the 'this time it's personal' (this has actually now been a feature in almost every Bond flick since LTK) and 'going rogue' already.

We saw the DB5 in CR06. Unless they're linking the DB5 in Skyfall to Connery/Brosnan Bond and forgetting CR06.

Otherwise, yes.

I can't keep reading this ill-informed Casino Royale praise.

CR is flawed, sure, but most casual Bond fans regard it positively, as did the bulk of the critical audience when it was released.

Anyway, I agree with the crux of the article which is that Craig's Bond has suffered from that never-ending arc of daddy issues and hasn't had a film where he goes and does his job with zero hangovers from the last and zero implications for the next film. As the writer points out, after every Craig film we're made to think that the next one will ditch the pretensions - which I guess felt fresh in 2006 but grew stale oh so quickly - but then they go and come up with some other hackneyed blast from the past plot.

Naturally, the bit where the writer goes on about how working for a white male with a female secretary is outdated in Current Year is not something I buy into.

CR '06 is my most hated and despised film. I literally cried in the theater at how bad it was and how they had thrown away the series. (Though it did prepare me for the depths of badness with Indy 4 and Disney Wars.) Even though each new entry is to me even worse-with SPECTRE being the absolute worst-CR '06 is still the breaking point for me and my stock answer to people when asked for the worst film I have ever seen.

I get a perverse thrill when they say: "oh you mean the weird 60's movie right?" so then I can respond: "no, the '67 film is a pop art madcap masterpiece whereas the 2006 film is filth."

hegottheboot wrote:

CR '06 is my most hated and despised film. "

Mine too. QOS gets a free pass because of the writer's strike and its good sense to opt for brevity, and SP for at least trying to retain the style and glamour of a traditional Bond film. As Eon took one of Fleming's best novels and completely abused it, especially off the back of firing the best Bond since Connery, only to be as disappointing as it is, it's stuck right at the bottom of the barrel.

I agree with that article too. CR ranked straight into my top 5 Bond films, along with OHMSS, GF and LTK when I first saw it, and nothing has changed my mind since.

From the massive high of CR, it gradually went downhill for Craig's tenure. QoS didn't really work as it was too tight and concise, whereas SF and SP went into the opposite direction and dragged pretentiously on and on. Mendes cannot do action films, and shouldn't be allowed near the franchise again. Newman's soundtrack also stank to high heaven too. He too shouldn't ever be allowed to return either.

Arnold was the one constant with Craig's first 2 movies - both very Barryesque, and he did a much better job than he managed during Brozza's era.

What annoys me more is the fact that there are still many untapped stories and scenes from the Fleming novels, yet they have been ignored for the crap we've been served up in QoS, SF and SP - bad attempts at Fleming reimagined.

I'd argue their biggest modern failure in terms of story is the ignoring of all Gardner and Benson material. There's really great stuff in there to pull from but noooooooo.

The biggest failure overall is not understanding what the series is and what it represents. They were always modern but made in the old school tradition of quality and the money is up on the screen. That has largely been usurped by modern studio trends and the current soulless industry.

jet set willy wrote:

I agree with that article too. CR ranked straight into my top 5 Bond films, along with OHMSS, GF and LTK when I first saw it, and nothing has changed my mind since.

From the massive high of CR, it gradually went downhill for Craig's tenure. QoS didn't really work as it was too tight and concise, whereas SF and SP went into the opposite direction and dragged pretentiously on and on. Mendes cannot do action films, and shouldn't be allowed near the franchise again. Newman's soundtrack also stank to high heaven too. He too shouldn't ever be allowed to return either.

Arnold was the one constant with Craig's first 2 movies - both very Barryesque, and he did a much better job than he managed during Brozza's era.

What annoys me more is the fact that there are still many untapped stories and scenes from the Fleming novels, yet they have been ignored for the crap we've been served up in QoS, SF and SP - bad attempts at Fleming reimagined.

IIRC, don't you only like half of CR06? Hardly a massive high for the Craig era.

And while you're right on point for QOS and SP, SF feels like it was adapted directly from a modern day Fleming novel. I'd much prefer that than reimagining Fleming's brilliant material as a generic superhero action film (i.e. Casino Royale).

As for the music of his era, while QOS's soundtrack is great, Arnold's CR fails to feel evocative of both Barry's music or Fleming's work. The source material was colourful, not sterile, and the music should reflect that. Newman has his moments but they're few and far between - he was never right for Bond, however. Give me Arnold's Brosnan-era scores any day.

Erica Ambler wrote:

Casino Royale is crap.

FieldsMan wrote:

I can't keep reading this ill-informed Casino Royale praise.

hegottheboot wrote:

CR '06 is my most hated and despised film. I literally cried in the theater at how bad it was and how they had thrown away the series. (Though it did prepare me for the depths of badness with Indy 4 and Disney Wars.) Even though each new entry is to me even worse-with SPECTRE being the absolute worst-CR '06 is still the breaking point for me and my stock answer to people when asked for the worst film I have ever seen.

I get a perverse thrill when they say: "oh you mean the weird 60's movie right?" so then I can respond: "no, the '67 film is a pop art madcap masterpiece whereas the 2006 film is filth."

I'd swear you guys hate CR more than the miserable grumps on the craignotbond.com site.

I still miss that site if only for the title. It got started and ran off onto the wrong reasons before the film came out...and then the film came out and the writing was all over the wall...along with the rest of him.