In the same movie Bond even tried his hand at sumo wrestling, achieving victory with a series of cheap-shot antics, including a ferocious twist of his foe’s attire, thereby engineering a case of Deflategate far more excruciating than the one at Foxborough on Jan.18.
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“BEYOND the $$ factor, there is, as you may know, a CREATIVE factor whereby Sam and Daniel don’t like the Sony phone for the film (the thinking, subjectively/objectively is that James Bond only uses the “best, ‘ and in their minds, the Sony phone is not the ‘best”)”, wrote Andrew Gumpert, President of Worldwide Business Affairs and Operations for Columbia Pictures.
Craig may break their record – or call it quits – after five films.
The possible identity of his successor has already caused controversy, with Anthony Horowitz – author of the latest Bond novel – saying that The Wire actor Idris Elba was “too street” to play 007, sparking accusations of racism. Because the franchise has gone on with new actors, there has been a lot of talk about who would replace Craig when he decides to finally holster his Walther PPK. Suggestions range from Idris Elba to a female Bond.
But who should play Bond shouldn’t be the primary concern. The bigger question is whether there even needs to be another Bond. It was the usual franchise money grab, sure, but there was a creative reason behind it all that gave this era of Bond a unsafe new energy. It also includes a wealth of deeper references to long-ago chapters in the Bond franchise, from ghosts of Astin Martins past, villains past, henchmen past, fights past and even tuxedoes past. The revamp with Craig nearly a decade ago has given Bond a grittier texture, nearly a blue collar version of the spy.
There are two James Bonds. It was necessary to have boots on the ground.
The rest of the story often focuses on the ladies of Bond.
Connery’s Bond was so cool, suave and debonair he could charm the secrets out of a locked safe.
Audiences were more accepting of this kind of banter then. Not that a Bond plot needs to perfectly coalesce into something airtight, but jeez, it’s hard to know or care about what exactly James is pursuing as he follows leads from Rome to the Alps to Tangier to the Moroccan desert, trying to get to the bottom, or the top, of a massive criminal/terrorist enterprise. Quantum of Solace was an entertaining mess, but Casino Royale and Skyfall were superb.
Bond is still recovering from the events of “Skyfall”, most notably the death of M (Judi Dench).
With the release of Bond 24 only days away with Daniel Craig’s Spectre, let’s look closely at a few facts that may have fallen through the martini glass.
In Goldfinger, the pilots in Pussy Galore’s Flying Circus were actually men with blond wigs.
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The women cast to play opposite Bond began to mature past mere sexual objects with Halle Berry’s work in “Die Another Day”. Since women in Craig’s Bond movies have not be as vapid or two-dimensional. Anyway: something something, Information Is Power, something something, handsome Young Doctor Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux), something something, the End of the Double-0 Program, something something, Bond’s Childhood. It all comes together by the end, I guess, but too much of the film involves too-easy conveniences, not the least of which are repeated instances of Bond brazenly inviting his own peril when it would have made much more sense to sneak in the back door. Has it changed so much that a character created in the ’50s still has a relevance to today’s moviegoers?
