James Bond has always swum with the current of his times be it Sean Connery scuba diving with nuclear weapons during the Cold War, or Roger Moore swinging his way through the 70’s, or even Pierce Brosnan wenching it up in luxury during the boom of the 90’s. What we have in Daniel Craig is the post-9/11 Bond, the cold blooded killing machine that has little time for martini’s when there are secret terrorist cells popping up in every shadowed corner of the globe.
We were introduced to this new Bond beautifully in the fantastic “Casino Royale” from 2006. This was followed up with the considerably weaker “Quantum of Solace” in 2008 which brought Bond’s story line with his love Vesper Lynd to a close. So where do we you go from here? The producers, directors, and writers of “Skyfall” seemed to have all answered in unison “we do a Bat Man!”
It truly does pain me to say that this new Bond movie is a Christopher Nolan Bat Man rip off everywhere you look. London stands in for Gotham City and we got it all: the villain, the climax, the resurrection, the come back; there’s even a God damned Alfred in this flick (played by Albert Finney instead of Michael Cain). When I realized it (“this seems very familiar” kept popping up in my head) I couldn’t help but make the logical conclusion that “Skyfall” is pretty lame, and actually kind of boring. If you savored “Casino Royale” good for you, because it’s becoming apparent that a James Bond film like that doesn’t come around very often and may never come again.
Let’s start with Silva, the villain played by Javier Bardem. He’s a near perfect replica of Heath Ledger’s Joker, grotesque, asexual, psychopathic, genius (always ahead of the good guys by four or five steps), and only happy when handing out death and destruction. There is even a scene where Silva dons a police uniform and struts around as did the Joker in Dark Knight when he and his goons attempted to shoot the mayor at Gordon’s funeral.
The way the writer has tried to make Silva unique is by giving him a revenge motive while the Joker had none. But it’s stupid. He’s trying to kill an old woman (no offense Dame Judi Dench) over an old betrayal, and while he does cause a considerable amount of havoc in London, when it come to actually killing the old woman he is surprisingly incompetent.
The worst part is when they return to Bond’s childhood home and trade the character in for Bruce Wayne. His parents died when he was young, he hid out in weird caves under the house, and was raised by the groundskeeper (butler) named Kinkade (Alfred). Why? Why do we need to know all this?
“Casino Royale” was brilliant because it toyed with the idea of revealing Bond’s origins with a beautiful scene between Bond and Vesper where they guessed their respective backgrounds based on knowing each other for only a few minutes (both guessed orphan). But it never actually revealed anything. The current film wants to slow down the action to slog through the past for a while, while “Casino Royale” never slowed down, not even during a poker game, and it still packed an emotional punch while revealing a very defined Bond character. Instead of putting Bond in even more and more impossible situations, the makers of “Skyfall” want us all to imagine little James Bond on a creepy Scottish estate grieving for his dead parents and vowing to dedicate his life to fighting injustice (freaking Bat Man!)
James Bond should have no past because he doesn’t live in the past, he lives in the present. If the present is 1976 then he’s played by Roger Moore and he’s bedding a woman in 0 gravity on a cheesy swinger space shuttle. If it’s 1987 then he’s played by Timothy Dalton and he’s tobogganing on a cello while fighting Colombian cartels. Once you start giving him some moody past that involves the death of his parents and the motivation for his career in espionage then you don’t have James Bond, you have Bruce Wayne.
Everything I just listed forces me to say that that this movie is a bit of a bummer, but that’s just one man’s opinion.
11-23-12
We were introduced to this new Bond beautifully in the fantastic “Casino Royale” from 2006. This was followed up with the considerably weaker “Quantum of Solace” in 2008 which brought Bond’s story line with his love Vesper Lynd to a close. So where do we you go from here? The producers, directors, and writers of “Skyfall” seemed to have all answered in unison “we do a Bat Man!”
It truly does pain me to say that this new Bond movie is a Christopher Nolan Bat Man rip off everywhere you look. London stands in for Gotham City and we got it all: the villain, the climax, the resurrection, the come back; there’s even a God damned Alfred in this flick (played by Albert Finney instead of Michael Cain). When I realized it (“this seems very familiar” kept popping up in my head) I couldn’t help but make the logical conclusion that “Skyfall” is pretty lame, and actually kind of boring. If you savored “Casino Royale” good for you, because it’s becoming apparent that a James Bond film like that doesn’t come around very often and may never come again.
Let’s start with Silva, the villain played by Javier Bardem. He’s a near perfect replica of Heath Ledger’s Joker, grotesque, asexual, psychopathic, genius (always ahead of the good guys by four or five steps), and only happy when handing out death and destruction. There is even a scene where Silva dons a police uniform and struts around as did the Joker in Dark Knight when he and his goons attempted to shoot the mayor at Gordon’s funeral.
The way the writer has tried to make Silva unique is by giving him a revenge motive while the Joker had none. But it’s stupid. He’s trying to kill an old woman (no offense Dame Judi Dench) over an old betrayal, and while he does cause a considerable amount of havoc in London, when it come to actually killing the old woman he is surprisingly incompetent.
The worst part is when they return to Bond’s childhood home and trade the character in for Bruce Wayne. His parents died when he was young, he hid out in weird caves under the house, and was raised by the groundskeeper (butler) named Kinkade (Alfred). Why? Why do we need to know all this?
“Casino Royale” was brilliant because it toyed with the idea of revealing Bond’s origins with a beautiful scene between Bond and Vesper where they guessed their respective backgrounds based on knowing each other for only a few minutes (both guessed orphan). But it never actually revealed anything. The current film wants to slow down the action to slog through the past for a while, while “Casino Royale” never slowed down, not even during a poker game, and it still packed an emotional punch while revealing a very defined Bond character. Instead of putting Bond in even more and more impossible situations, the makers of “Skyfall” want us all to imagine little James Bond on a creepy Scottish estate grieving for his dead parents and vowing to dedicate his life to fighting injustice (freaking Bat Man!)
James Bond should have no past because he doesn’t live in the past, he lives in the present. If the present is 1976 then he’s played by Roger Moore and he’s bedding a woman in 0 gravity on a cheesy swinger space shuttle. If it’s 1987 then he’s played by Timothy Dalton and he’s tobogganing on a cello while fighting Colombian cartels. Once you start giving him some moody past that involves the death of his parents and the motivation for his career in espionage then you don’t have James Bond, you have Bruce Wayne.
Everything I just listed forces me to say that that this movie is a bit of a bummer, but that’s just one man’s opinion.
11-23-12
Good observations my son. Didn't notice it myself at the time, but you make your point well.
ReplyDeleteThanks dad! I knew one day I would please you.
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