1 post tagged “007”

They were so worried that Craig will make a poor Bond that they overshot with the movie quality.  This movie is too good for a Bond picture.  It's fiendishly involving.  It makes us care about the characters.  The women are suddenly 3-dimensional and inspiring.  I actually caught myself arguing the plot points with my friends afterwards.  The last time this happened to a Bond movie, I was ten years old.

Sure, there are chase scenes and an improbable villain.  There's brinkmanship and cool cocktails.  But this is not your father's Bond: no fluffy, preposterous plot devices; no disposable plastic nymphs; no "cunning linguists" and similarly breezy dialog to gloss over shocking inhumanity of covert ops.  And where's the understated yet flippant misogynist we all know and love?  Maybe he only shows up in subsequent novels -- this is, after all, the story of Bond's becoming 007.

I was happy to see realism and accuracy in Montenegro scenes, with correct localisms in evidence everywhere: language, alphabets, insignias, etc.

So the movie was excellent, and Daniel Craig makes a lovable bad-ass secret agent.  But it will be a while before I associate Bond with this scraggy blond rumbler.  Hopefully this is just a normal part of a transition process like the ones happily survived by this franchise before.