The Spy Who Failed Me

[John Drake]

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http://www.canada.com/topics/news/story.html?id=1081332

The Spy Who Failed Me

Andrew Cohen December 16, 2008

The Arctic is melting and the automakers are collapsing. Afghanistan is failing, malaria is rising and governments are fiddling.

Canada is last or near last in the world on the environment and in early childcare. We are not as competitive, productive or healthy as we were a generation ago. We may not win our traditional seat on the UN Security Council next year.

For all that, though, can we talk of James Bond? Can we ponder whether his demise reflects a world in free fall? Could they not have spared us his unfortunate makeover at the moment we need him most?

Flee to the multiplex to escape the bad news and you find no relief in Quantum of Solace, the 22nd Bond film. If you are looking for the James Bond you used to know -- like Christmases past -- good luck. You won't recognize him; if you do, you won't like him.

That's because James Bond has been reinvented. He hasn't heard that the greatest menace facing the world today is not Iran, Korea or al-Qaeda. It is his metamorphosis into a poster boy for 21st century angst, revenge, psychosis, even love.

Now he's a brooding, clinical killer who dispatches everyone who crosses him with wordless efficiency. He badly needs a course in anger management and sensitivity training.

Poor guy. They killed him to re-create him. He's the victim of identity theft. It's the end of everything for those who loved James Bond, whoever played him, as a paragon of elegance, brio, wit, savoir faire, grace, and detachment. Not to mention shaken martinis, creaseless dinner jackets, expanding wristwatches, exploding fountain pens and bountiful décolletage.

The remaking of James Bond began in Casino Royale. It wasn't just that Daniel Craig, who succeeded the superb Pierce Brosnan, was blonde rather than dark. We could live with that. It's that this Bond is without irony or humour. Worse, he's vulnerable.

Yes, vulnerable. James Bond has driven into walls and fallen through glass and leaped off dams. He has been seared, bruised, and gouged. But he has never been seriously hurt. In Casino Royale, Agent 007 is tied to a chair and tortured. He suffers. This isn't right.

Worse, he's hurt by a woman. Quantum of Solace is about avenging the death of his lover, Vesper Lynd, whom he lost in the last watery scene in Venice in Casino Royale. So he kills everyone in his way so successfully that his masters in London recall him.

For Bond, women have always been bedmates, not soulmates. This was how Ian Fleming saw the sexes when he wrote the stories in the 1950s.

Now women matter. Indeed, Bond is a monk with fashion sense, no longer a Lothario with a licence to kill. In Quantum of Solace, there is some hope for the normally voracious Bond when the fetching Agent Fields appears, but she doesn't last long.

Women are not the only problem with the new Bond.This James doesn't really care what he eats or drinks. It is incomprehensible that Daniel Craig would be able to order a Pinot Noir 1973 or choose the right fork to use with fish. Or know the seasonal run of the tides off Bangladesh or the history of the frescoes of every church in Sienna.

This is the élan that made James Bond. It was also exotica (sea to desert to forest to city), gadgetry (cars, cameras, attaché cases), villainy (odd, grotesque) and femininity (spies as sexpots).

Sure, Bond still looks good in a dinner jacket. There are cars in Quantum of Solace, as well as boats, trains and planes, and action in one scene after another. Presumably, this is the rush of adrenalin today's audiences want.

Years ago, they turned James into Jimmy and it diminished the franchise. Today, they have turned James Bond into Jason Bourne, and it has changed the franchise.

Today's Bond is troubled, consumed and obsessive, like Bourne. He is dark, lugubrious, mirthless. In his trilogy of thrillers, Jason Bourne is either searching for himself or running from himself.

But the problem with the new James Bond is more basic than that. Where is the eccentric, white-coated Q, or a worthy successor, to show an insouciant Bond the latest toys from his laboratory? Where is the Bond who could happily drive a tank through city streets with a Winged Victory lodged on its turret, or pilot a speedboat into the Thames, go under, come up, knot his tie, spit out a fish and keep driving?

Now, that was Bond!

As a child, James Bond enchanted us. Seeing From Russia With Love for the first time was a rite of passage. Today, Bond is so explicit -- violence, not sex -- that you can't bring a child under 13.

Ah, Bond. Quantum of Excess.

[katied]

And why would you *want* to bring a under-13 to a Bond film(even though some do..it varies with the kid,IMO)

[stockslivevan]

James Bond for kids? That's exactly why the Moore/Brosnan films sucked, they pandered too much to youngsters with retarded humor and over the top gadgets. Keep the Bond films on the adult level of Connery/Dalton/Craig.

[katied]

LOL if parents want to expose their kids to the cheesy era of Bond films, it's a free country

[stockslivevan]

This reminds me of folks saying The Dark Knight is bad because it's not kid friendly.

[katied]

Oh lord..you'd have to be warped to take your kids to see the Dark Knight..but I saw some kids sitting in front of a TV that was showing TDK when i was at a Best Buy the other day and they were apparently unsupervised

[stockslivevan]

I'm surprised there hasn't been a reaction from parents like there was for Batman Returns. Batman is typically passed on as kids stuff more than Bond.

[John Drake]

James Bond for kids? That's exactly why the Moore/Brosnan films sucked, they pandered too much to youngsters with retarded humor and over the top gadgets. Keep the Bond films on the adult level of Connery/Dalton/Craig.

I grew up watching the Connery films. If you think the James Bond series is some sort of high-art adult thing you really need to get out more. It's enjoyable nonsense for imaginations of all ages. I don't know about 'retarded humor' but you'd have to be a bit thick or miserable to extract much enjoyment or respect for the last Bond film, which I believe was called Quantum Of Solace and starred Daniel Craig.

[stockslivevan]

James Bond for kids? That's exactly why the Moore/Brosnan films sucked, they pandered too much to youngsters with retarded humor and over the top gadgets. Keep the Bond films on the adult level of Connery/Dalton/Craig.

I grew up watching the Connery films. If you think the James Bond series is some sort of high-art adult thing you really need to get out more.

I never said it was "high art" . I'm just saying the Bond films shouldn't become kiddie fare and should remain what they were during the Connery flicks minus YOLT. I don't remember the books being targeted towards kids.

I don't know about 'retarded humor' but you'd have to be a bit thick or miserable to extract much enjoyment or respect for the last Bond film, which I believe was called Quantum Of Solace and starred Daniel Craig.

Well I'm neither so there goes your theory.

[Dr. No]

a Canadian wrote this?
Wow!

Flee to the multiplex to escape the bad news and you find no relief in Quantum of Solace, the 22nd Bond film. If you are looking for the James Bond you used to know -- like Christmases past -- good luck. You won't recognize him; if you do, you won't like him.

Poor guy. They killed him to re-create him. He's the victim of identity theft. It's the end of everything for those who loved James Bond, whoever played him, as a paragon of elegance, brio, wit, savoir faire, grace, and detachment. Not to mention shaken martinis, creaseless dinner jackets, expanding wristwatches, exploding fountain pens and bountiful décolletage.

The remaking of James Bond began in Casino Royale. It wasn't just that Daniel Craig, who succeeded the superb Pierce Brosnan, was blonde rather than dark. We could live with that. It's that this Bond is without irony or humour. Worse, he's vulnerable.

Women are not the only problem with the new Bond.This James doesn't really care what he eats or drinks. It is incomprehensible that Daniel Craig would be able to order a Pinot Noir 1973 or choose the right fork to use with fish. Or know the seasonal run of the tides off Bangladesh or the history of the frescoes of every church in Sienna.

[Dr. No]

Hey Stocks!

[007]

Good article on the whole.