Don’t get me wrong. I may not be part of the key demographic, but I’ve seen all of the Bond films at least once and think that Live And Let Die is blaxploitastic. I’ve even made it through a copy of Ian Fleming’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service given to me by Him Indoors with a stern look that told me I’d read it and I’d like it. But I’ve come to loathe Bond Industries and all that they represent. I can take the casual racism, not so casual sexism and the dodgy perfidious Albion politics. These are, after all, defining period details, particularly in the earlier films. The machinations of the Broccoli Empire and participating studios are quite another matter.
For reasons I can’t comprehensively explain without concluding there’s a Stupid disease, the Brosnan junta brought in truckloads of box-office. Like Mr. Lucas’ most recent efforts, the rule of thumb seems to be that the worse the product is, the better the bucks. It didn’t matter that the films never managed to distinguish themselves from warmed-up leftovers. Or that they simply checked set pieces off the list. Or that I’d rather peel my skin off and roll in salt before sitting through The World Is Not Enough again. None of these things are of consequence when you can manufacture an event. Such diabolic stratagems are commonplace, but it seems to me that Bond is particularly pernicious in this regard. For the next week you will be unable to turn on the news, daytime standards or even Songs Of Praise without some twit telling you that “boys want to be Bond and girls want to sleep with him.”
For several centuries now we have weathered speculation regarding Casino Royale, featuring Daniel Craig who, depending on the ridiculous feature writer concerned, is The Blonde Bond or The Ugly Beautiful Bond. This new film, we were told, will be Bond going back to his roots. This will be the nasty creature of the books. This will be The Best Bond Ever.
We’ve heard it all before, but with Casino Royale it’s almost true. An opening section plunders the greatest hits of the Bourne films but act two changes lanes and slavishly sticks to the original material, a contemporised Bond Begins yarn. This approach works superbly on occasion. Fleming’s infamous torture sequence even makes it in. Alas, Martin ‘Zorro’ Campbell is rather less successful when recreating the incredibly dull card games that seem to take up most of the film.
Happily, for all the net-whinging, Mr. Craig is a good choice and, in a dramatic departure from his predecessors, displays human characteristics. But it’s simply not enough to persuade you that they weren’t just ticking boxes. There’s nothing special here. Even the chance to have fun with the genesis of the hero is squandered in favour of the same-old, same-old.
The franchise, it seems, needs to stop fretting about who is wearing the suit and start thinking about who is writing and directing.