James Bond’s Quantum of Solace. Lifus Interrruptus.

17 November 2008

I really don’t get it.

I’m a Bondophile which goes back to George Lazenby’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. To an impressionable (very young) child like me, Lazenby had it all. He was good looking, tough, physical and funny. And Australian. He was also in a ripper movie. If you haven’t seen it, get it out. It’s a spy drama with a genuine love story. My older eyes have since seen the shortcomings in Lazenby’s performance, but in truth he wasn’t half bad, and his Bond is probably closer to Ian Fleming’s laconic Etonian drop-out than any of the other actors who have donned his tux.

So I suppose I was ruined young. I crave the bullets flying across the screen at the beginning of each episode. I hang out for the title song and for the impossible stunts and the gadgets that are always inventive. But most of all I love the anticipation of the next movie.

For the last flick, Casino Royale, I went to a special media screening where we were searched to make sure we didn’t have mobile recording devices. This only built the tension.

The film, of course, was a ripper. Part of the gush that followed this film was partially due to the fact that it was not expected to be much of a Bond movie. Poor Daniel Craig got a lot of bad press from unkind people. “James Bland” “James Blond” and the like.

These people did Craig a favour. When the film was released, it was a whack on the head like no other Bond film since the early 1960s. This was a film that Timothy Dalton would’ve loved to have done. His attempts to turn the Bond into an acting piece were brave and solid, but they were still very 1980s movies in that excessive sort of way. Casino Royale stands as the benchmark, and that benchmark was set by Daniel Craig. He, by his performance, demanded that every other actor in the piece rise to his level. And they did.

The one worry I had after leaving that media screening, was that the producers would have a hard time making a follow-up film. The audience now know what to expect. The essence of Bond films is that there must be surprises. Until now, the Bond producers have simply made each one bigger and bigger, and sometimes this gets a little silly, like trying to outdo The Spy Who Loved Me, by taking Bond into outer space in Moonraker. It was clearly ridiculous. Even Roger Moore admitted as much in his recently released autobiography (we’ll ask him about it when we chat next Tuesday on the Breakfast Club. Wow. Roger Moore live in the studio!). The film came back to earth in the very fine For Your Eyes Only, but excess surfaced again in Octopussy, the next movie in the franchise. Pierce Brosnan has made no secret opf how he wanted to act in the Bond films, so what did they give him? John Cleese, shapshifting baddies and invisible cars. No wonder he got a little ropey about it all.

So to tonight. I’ll be seeing the media preview of Quantum of Solace, and will review it for you tomorrow.

But that a simple film can be a red letter day in my life says something about the power of the Bond mystique, eh?

– Phil