Bonds —- James Bonds!
(Canscene) — Britain’s Daniel Craig, who has proven himself a very good actor in films like Munich, Defiance and Copenhagen does not endear himself to me as James Bond. The new treatment shows for Bond as a cold blooded killer and a torturer and Craig plays his part so well, when he’s allowed to act in between all those confusing high-tech chases, that he repels me.
This new, humourless Bond is light years away from the original created by Sean Connery, my all-time favourite. And Connery is no one-trick pony as he has proven in so many films like The Name of the Rose for which he merited Britain’s top movie award and The Untouchables winning him an Oscar.
Even though licensed to kill, the old Bonds as played by Connery, Roger Moore, Pierce Brosnan and others did so when up against a real threat to their lives or the lives others. Who can forget in from Russia With Love, the fight to death in a railway carriage between Bond and the Red Grant the Irish terrorist? Pretty low tech stuff but nail biting.
I recall another sequence when Connery threw an electric fan into a bath tub to polish off his adversary. His remark: “Shocking!” It was pre title scenes like this that always opened the Connery pictures and good old James came out of them all with a twinkle in his eye.
My verdict on the Craig series: Shaking but not stirring.
June 3rd, 2009 at 9:52 am
You are right. The latest saga of James Bond is gaga. “Failure” is not the right word to use about “Quantum of Solace.” “Travesty” is closer. In the 1940s and 1950s, movies were made to be “double-billed” at local movie houses, and we called them “action, double-bill.” Action is what this movie is all about, except that the sequences of action are so unintelligently handled that they is pretty well impossible to follow. Without characterization, it is difficult sympathize or empathize with anyone or anything … it’s as if everyone is going through the stilted motions. Even the special effects are blurry and rushed. No wit, no humour. Fleming, the creator of the series, were he alive today, would retire to his “Goldeneye” estate in Jamaica in dismay.