Shaken, Not Blended With An Umbrella

I grew up during the Roger Moore phase of the James Bond films. As a teenager, I thought there was something very cosmopolitan and European about him, something distinct from Dick Tracy or Columbo or whatever. Once I was out on my own and began to rent movies--I was not originally much of a film fanatic--I sampled the older, Sean Connery Bonds, but their datedness, at that time, rather blinded me to their virtues.

Forward ahead about 20 years. I became something of a film buff and, especially, discovered film noir and old detective fiction. This isn't really James Bond, but there's at least a tenuous link between them. I tried reading one of the Ian Fleming books, but about halfway thru decided it was better suited to film than to the written page. And between rentals and DVD purchases and new releases in the series, I woke up one morning and realized I'd seen most of the oeuvre a couple times.

From a bit of distance, it came firmly to me that Sean Connery was really the only respectable Bond. Somewhere along the way, the franchise became hijacked by cheesy gadgets and campy attempts at callous humor. Near as I can tell, Roger Moore has the sex appeal of a goldfish. But the franchise took perhaps an even wronger turn first with the Timothy Dalton films, and confirmed beyond all doubt with the four Pierce Brosnan bits: they made our indestructible, near-omniscient protagonist... sensitive.

That's just fucking wrong.

An überspy doesn't need to carry the baggage of love gone bad, a soul scarred by a woman; James Bond does not need to be politically correct. Not having read the book in full, I cannot comment authoritatively on the author's original character conception. But I can identify what made Sean Connery so effective in "Dr. No," and indeed on what made that film probably the best in the group: there's something about his extraordinary personal competence--his almost encyclopedic knowledge of the world--coupled with this double-0-licensed-to-kill status that makes him an enigma. It's all the better that he was impossibly good looking (without being pretty) and was irresistible to almost every woman who came in contact with him. Every guy watching wanted to be James Bond. It's not that I think men who treat women as sex objects are to be emulated. On the contrary. But that's the character, it's why we bother to show up at the theater. He's compelling to watch exactly because he's far removed from what we encounter in everyday, polite society. After all, a yearning to be exactly the kind of guy you are is not an aspiration; it's a sentence inflicted on the rest of us.

Sean Connery's Bond was a son of a bitch. He seemed led around by his dick most of the time, and yet managed not to let it interfere with his work. If he had to break things off mid-thrust, well, duty called and this was all just a pleasant diversion anyway. Yeah, a real bastard. But looking at how well those first couple of movies worked, what happened to the franchise later on just seemed like somebody, uh, took their eye off the ball(s). Villains became cartoon-ish and silly, the women formed a sorority of "Bond Girls" and got absurd names like "Pussy Galore" and "Xenia Onatopp." Please.

So when I heard that the next movie was going to attempt to go back to basics with the character I held out some hope that things might turn around. Daniel Craig seemed an inspired choice to replace Pierce Brosnan. He is rugged, less beautiful, more thug-ish. Good. We were also told that there would be a minimum of gadgetry, and no Q. Well and good. That first visit from a representative of "Q Branch" in either Dr. No or Goldfinger was just to bring Bond a Walther PPK and a briefcase with some concealed gold sovereigns. It's a shame somebody let it get so out of hand from there.

So this afternoon was the big payoff. The movie has been getting quite good reviews, and I went with my load of baggage (my wife insists on the caveat that load of baggage is not a reference to her lovely person) to see if my hopes for the future of the franchise were well-founded.

And I think they are. The plot, while still a mite too Jerry Bruckheimer, seems to concentrate more on the basic story and on two or three key relationships in Bond's world. Not much time is wasted in "briefings" and in following various tracking devices via some magic screen (though there's a bit of that, too). Bond is not given an excessive number of lines--he's not really a verbal character, I think--and those he has seem well-crafted. I don't know how one could improve on Daniel Craig. He looks the part--Susan was delighted at how much time he spends without his shirt and that it's so gratifying a way for him to be presented to us--and he inhabits the character fully. It must be noted that he heals very quickly, but let's not demand too great a shot of realism lest the whole franchise slip like sand through our fingers. He begins the story, at least, being kind of a deliciously overconfident bastard, and the original conception of him as a man of tastes and talents seems restored. The story does wander into romance, and I think they devote too much time to it, but insofar as they're trying maybe to explain how he got to be so love' em and leave 'em, perhaps it serves a function. (And perhaps I just have no clue about what formula is needed to get an audience of something other than 20- to 40-year-old men into the theater seats.) Anyway, it's quite well done. I do think there's a tendency to substitute confustication and mayhem for proper plotting in a couple places, but they didn't prevent my enjoying the experience.

My criticism of excessive action notwithstanding, the opening foot chase sequence is a real eye-opener.

I'll probably have to see it again.

For now, A- / B+