The Redemption of the Bond Franchise
Regardless of whether you side with the Morenos or the BearcLaws of the world there’s no denying that we are living in the age of the franchise film. Since X-Men burst on to the scene in 2000, we have seen a steady annual increase in franchise films every year. Right now it seems as though every summer film that does well is part of something larger than itself, and there are varying levels of success that come along with that. Marvel, Fast & Furious, Hitman and Pitch Perfect represent a fairly broad spectrum of the types of franchises out there but most center on some sort of super-hero or heroine defying the odds to achieve their goals. The amazing thing about this year in particular was the resurgence of older franchises like Jurassic World, Mad Max and Star Wars. Outside of the aforementioned Star Wars, I do not know of a more successful film franchise than James Bond, and with the release of Spectre this week we are about to experience our twenty-fourth official Bond film, not counting some of the spinoffs. Much like Batman in recent years, I think the re-emergence of Bond as a great modern film hero has everything to do with the film that rebooted the franchise, Casino Royale, and of course the guy playing Bond, Daniel Craig.
Without having seen Spectre yet it does look to be very much in the vein of Skyfall and, of course, Casino Royale before it (for the sake of quality we’re going to overlook Quantum of Solace for the most part here). If this film has even half the quality of Casino Royale, then we may be looking at the greatest Bond run in history. Connery, to his credit, began as the original Bond (sort-of) and eventually starred in six official Bond releases; Dr. No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice and Diamonds are Forever. While the first three films are exceptional, to me there is a drop in quality as soon as we hit Thunderball. While none of the Connery films are outright bad movies, it is pretty clear to me that at a certain point the producers were more interested in pushing out the product than creating worthy follow-ups to the solid first three entries. So if you break it down (and ignore the unofficial spinoff/remake Never Say Never Again), it could be argued that about fifty-percent of the time Connery’s Bond films were pretty damn spectacular. Cut to now where the sample size is admittedly smaller but just as revealing. Across four films, one of which was inhibited by a writer’s strike, Daniel Craig may end up with at least seventy-five percent of his outings being good films. Of course this argument hinges on whether or not Spectre lives up to the pedigree of Skyfall but there is often a lot of animosity when the “Best Bond” argument comes up, claiming the distance between the performances is greater than it actually is. Connery was great in his time as the icon, but Craig is the stronger actor.
You have to also take into account the talent that is now around the Bond franchise to appreciate the type of films this franchise is now aiming to make. Since The World is Not Enough, the Bond franchise has been co-written by a guy named Robert Wade. While the Brosnan Bond films are pound-for-pound some of the worst outside of Goldeneye, I think it is interesting to note that despite putting out two horrible Bond stories that Wade was kept on the franchise. The producers must have thought something clearly worked with Wade’s perspective but the inclusion of Paul Haggis on Casino Royale, and then John Logan on Skyfall, really elevated the quality of the films into more serious fare. The Bond films are now about Bond as a fully-rounded character, which is something you could not really say about the older films. Typically the Bond films are pretty paint-by-numbers. There’s a tried and true formula that consists of getting gadgets, sleeping with the girls, getting captured by the villain while he explains his plan and then besting said villain. Outside of the criminally miscast On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Bond was never portrayed as vulnerable character until Royale, and you have to credit the writing for bringing out those sides of the character to be at the forefront of the films.
Craig was my true introduction to the Bond franchise and helped me realize that the versions I grew up with, aka the Brosnan years, were not a great representation of the character. After Royale and then into Skyfall, the franchise became a little more dynamic. I feel now like somewhere in the world there could be a guy like Bond. I think the opening foot chase in Casino Royale does a great job at taking a ridiculous idea of two guys fighting on top of a skyscraping-crane and building up to it in a pretty logical and action packed way. By breaking the conventions of what Bond stories typically were, Casino Royale marks a turning point in both this franchise and reboots in general. It is easy to forget just how awful the Bond films got at one point, and while Quantum of Solace was a moderate reminder of this it is nice to know that the team behind Bond seems to be committed to moving this franchise forward in new and exciting directions.
So what’s your favorite Bond actor? Film? Do you even like the guy? What have you got against him? Let us know below and, as always, Binge On!
Andrew Libera
November 3, 2015 @ 12:35 pm
I will argue that OHMSS isn’t the only time we see Bond vulnerable. Take a look at 1989 License to Kill staring Timothy Dalton. Bond’s good friend Felix Leiter is getting married, right before the wedding we see Leiter get called in by his partners at the DEA for a drug lord he’s been after. He catches him with Bond’s assistance and parachuts to his wedding in a very cinema like take right into the intro video. It makes you happy. The movie takes a very dark turn when Leiter and his wife are captured right after the reception by the said drug dealer Sanchez played by Robert Davi. One of Sanchez’s henchmen rapes and kills Felix’s wife and then they feed Felix to a shark which is taken from the book Live and Let Die. Bond quits MI6 in pure rage and goes after Sanchez on a rouge mission against M’s wishes. Bond in that move is motivated by revenge and revenge only and makes a lot of mistakes where you see him being very human. LTK gets a bad rep because it did very poorly at the box office due to it coming out summer of 89 which had some tough competition (Batman, Lethal Weapon 2, ndiana Jones and the Last Crusade, etc) and add in the legal battle that came right after over the rights to the series which delayed Dalton’s 3rd film that never happened and gave the role to Brosnan for Goldeneye.
Dalton was Bond in my eyes. I am a book purist and having read most of them I feel like Dalton captured the character perfectly in this film and in his other outing The Living Daylights.
Craig does an excellent job in his own ways but to me there are small things that are missing with his films which are minor. I am looking forward to Spectre to see how they do the whole arc and hopefully stay true to the books without being a complete remake.
For me Dalton, Craig, and Connery are my 3 favorites. While I respect Roger Moore and his role, towards the end of his run his movies just got too goofy and poorly made specially the very obvious stunt doubles.
Episode IV
November 3, 2015 @ 12:45 pm
Bosses, hire this man!
John MacIntyre
November 3, 2015 @ 1:41 pm
From a pure entertainment standpoint, Roger Moore will always be my favorite Bond. It is usually Moore-era Bond movies that I will throw on if I’m bored. They have a comfort factor for me. That said his interpretation is quite off the mark from the Fleming source material; A fact that Sir Roger himself is likely to agree with.
I like the serious take of Daniel Craig. However I’m bothered by how much of the fanbase ignores Timothy Dalton’s contributions. Dalton did a dark and gritty Bond about two decades before the world was ready for it. License to Kill is often derided as being an inferior entry. Yet out of all the films in the franchise, it may have the most satisfying emotional arch. And I realize that’s a bold claim when you set it against the Tracy or Vesper stories. But consider this: the death of Tracy gets an underwhelming pay off. Bond’s quest for revenge after the death of his wife is crammed into the pre-title sequence of Diamonds are Forever. Even when Blofeld comes back later in that very same film, Bond seems to be over the death of Tracy. This is largely due to the switch back to Connery and the producers’ basically ignoring what happened in OHMSS.
The Vesper story suffers from the opposite problem. The pay off is extremely protracted, being a primary focus in the full run time of Quantum of Solace. Even with all that time, the final bit of “closure” is arguably very week.
In License to Kill Bond gets his revenge within the film. It’s self-contained and therefore extremely satisfying. They set up Sanchez as a monster that needs to be slain and Bond kills the son of bitch.
When comparing and contrasting Dalton and Craig’s Bond runs, I like to look at the “going rogue” trope. In License to Kill, Bond goes rogue for a very clear reason and it was a fresh concept at the time of the film’s release. Craig-era Bond on the hand seems to go rogue in virtually all his movies. When you have the trope of going rogue back-to-back-to-back it really loses it’s narrative punch and becomes goofy.
Jack Falvey
November 3, 2015 @ 2:03 pm
Interesting take!
I do disagree with the idea that the Craig films have a goofy edge. Quantum totally has that feel, but I think the circumstances of what happens in Royale and Skyfall are fairly organic. Also, we’ve got to factor in the writer’s strike and the reports that Craig himself actually helped finish pieces of the script, explaining the drop in quality by stating “I’m not a writer”. In Royale, he’s naive. In Skyfall, he abandons the spy life largely in response to what his enemy does. I’ve gotta revisit the Dalton flicks because I just don’t remember them much at all. Great points!