In Defense Of Levity (For Bond)

So, this post isn't going to be my typical review-tangent that I've devised for this blog. I've been away for a while, been thinking for a while, and been trying to keep up with film news. For those who don't really know or aren't aware, I'm a huge HUGE fan of the James Bond series (both the books and the movies). I'd recently completed the new Wii version of "GoldenEye", and I'm currently watching The World Is Not Enough and am in the mood to watch Quantum Of Solace immediately after that. I've essentially memorized both films by heart, but am here to make note of the most glaring difference between the previous films in the Bond series, and the markedly different (more "mature") version present by Daniel Craig.
I greatly enjoy Craig as Bond, and the two films have had their moments (well, to be fair, Casino Royale is one of the best in the series). However, with the recent swirl of casting rumors for the next Bond film (Javier Bardem? Ralph Fiennes? Both very fine, accomplished actors, don't get me wrong), and the surprising, intriguing choice of director and writer (Sam Mendes and John Logan respectively), the question I keep asking myself is: where'd all the fun go?
I understand that following 2002's wrong-headed and overblown effects-spectacle that was Die Another Day, the series needed to be toned down considerably (this happened throughout the history of the series: after You Only Live Twice came the unbelievably accomplished On Her Majesty's Secret Service; after the cartoonish Moonraker came the underrated For Your Eyes Only), so toning down the series was never something unheard of in the series. The difference, however, is that the latest three-picture arc seems to focus on the inner-demons and psychological turmoil of the character that is James Bond. To be honest...that's...slightly boring.
Look, Casino Royale was successful because we saw a version of Bond hitherto unseen: fragile, cold, single-minded, and, ultimately, naive. It was the first film in the series since On Her Majesty's Secret Service to actually treat "Bond the archetype" as "Bond the real life character", and the result was excitement in watching Bond get hurt, make mistakes, and grow as a character. It was bold, exciting, and fresh. And within this rebooted series was still the sense of flippant fun that characterized the series (a parkour chase in a construction site? Only in a Bond film!)
Quantum Of Solace (and, I fear, the next film in the series) treated Bond as just another tragic, tortured hero for the Millenials. In that film, he doesn't sleep, he drinks too much, and he kills without hesitation, and there is a real feel to the violence (when he kills Mr. Slate, he coldly waits until we see that character bleed out). He's tortured, yes, and when he dumps Mathis---his friend who was literally tortured for Bond's sake---in a dumpster and steals his money, you realize, "Wow. What an asshole."
And that's a line Bond always managed to deftly walk. He is chauvinistic, arrogant, sexist, and, essentially, a boy in a man's body. He's selfish, callous, possibly sociopathic, and a murderer. But he does it with such charm and assurance and grace that he's likable; although we know he'll always get out of a jam, we still enjoy watching his means of doing so. And have enjoyed his escapades for the past 49 years, 22 films, and 6 actors. Bond should enjoy being Bond; his existence is almost entirely materialistic, almost anal in the detail to class, high-living, and showing off money and elegance.
So why Bourne it up? Why choose directors who have almost no experience in the action genre (look, Marc Forster is a good director, but he was entirely the wrong choice to direct an action film...especially a Bond film. The same goes for Lee Tamahori and Michael Apted. These are good directors with some great films, but their movies rank in some of the blandest or worst of the series). I have hope that Sam Mendes will give the goods with his Bond film (he did direct the very accomplished Road To Perdition, which also featured Daniel Craig and had some atmospheric composition and at least decent action), but I for one am tired of "pushing the edge" with the Bond series.
Daniel Craig's serious take on Bond was predated by over 15 years by Timothy Dalton, who gets a lot of undo flak for his take on the character. Dalton's take was the best balance of film-Bond and novel-Bond, and he was badass (just look at the opening to his first Bond, The Living Daylights: he doesn't even talk until he's done some implausible stunt and exploded a living human being. It doesn't get more badass than that!) Craig and Dalton approach the character the same way and with the same gravitas; the difference, though is that the Dalton films still manage to incorporate the staples of the series (gadgets, outlandish set-pieces, beautiful locations, Moneypenny, Q) while giving a more "real-world" feel to the plot. It was an attempt to make Bond more realistic and gritty, but there was still the fantasy, still the wonder and excitement and, damnit, FUN that characterized the best of the series! (Want an example of where the Craig Bond films should go to keep that balance? Just watch the extremely underrated Licence To Kill.)
Maybe it's the state of modern action films. We want our heroes conflicted and tragic. We want our action gritty and dirty and confusing. We want everything grounded in a reality we can understand. But when we do that for every film, what do we lose? Maybe it's the same difference between 1989's Batman and The Dark Knight: The Dark Knight is by far a superior film, but it's just not as fun, it's not the film I would watch at 1 in the morning after drinking. It's the difference between 2004's Punisher (a film that takes itself much too seriously) and 2008's goofy, fun, violent Punisher: War Zone. It's the difference between Iron Man 2 (which spent too much of its over-produced runtime setting up The Avengers and throwing in geek references that won't pay off until films that come out at least a year later) and Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, which was just so damn buoyant and in love with itself you couldn't help but be charmed by its self-contained sense of fun. Why does "serious" mean "tragic"? Why does "realistic" mean "gritty and violent"? Why does "good" mean "down-to-earth"?
I want my Bond to enjoy being who he is, and not be a humorless dick. When Craig says to someone in Quantum Of Solace, in a scene right after an ultimately disappointing and confusing boat chase, "Here, take her. She's seasick.", he says it almost derisively, as if making a pun were a chore. His character can't enjoy himself, and I think Craig (the actor) is feeling it too. He's stated in interviews he'd wanted a fun romp to end his tenure. And I want that too. Bring back the gadgets and the machine-gun-toting cars. Make that balance between fantasy and topical events that were explored so well in From Russia With Love, and GoldenEye, and Casino Royale, and Licence To Kill. Have fun!
I'll end with this: I hope Mr. Mendes realizes that Bond is fantasy. He's the ultimate male fantasy. A "mantasy", if you will (my next article on sea mammals will also use that word). He's best enjoy on the big screen, with the loud music, and with his theme blaring in the background. The Wii game I just played does this balance well, and was more enjoyable than the last film.
The most memorable Bond films are the ones that are fantasy. Surely, the stunts of the modern version of Bond can do better than a confusing rooftop foot chase, or a dumb-as-shit boat chase. Or a confusing as shit car chase.
I'd want to be as blown away as I was watching the parkour chase five years ago.
Or go all out: upstage the parachute jump from The Spy Who Loved Me.
Make something as immaturely fun as the tank chase from GoldenEye!
Something memorable!
Whatever you do, just bring back the fun!

Quantum of Solace

It was okay.
I was really, really hoping to enjoy this movie. And, to an extent, I did. I'm a James Bond fan. A huge James Bond fan. I've seen each movie at least 40 times each. I've listened to each of the commentaries, seen most of the documentaries, and read each book at least twice. I've listened to the soundtrack and can even hum some of the tunes. I can recognize each movie by the opening gunbarrel logo. So I found myself asking why James Bond was in a Jason Bourne movie.
The latest installment in the series, Quantum of Solace, derives its title from the 1958 short story, but little else in the movie is evocative of the James Bond we've grown up with. That was a good thing with Casino Royale, which introduced the world to James Bond. Again. That time he was in the guise of Daniel Craig, a more-than-capable actor who suffered a lot of criticism that was promptly silenced as soon as his debut Bond film was well-received by both the critics (who nominated him for a BAFTA, the only Bond actor presently to be nominated for his portrayal ofthe secret agent) and the fans (who responded to the tune of nearly $600 million worldwide, the most successful fim in the 46-year-old franchise).
But I digress.
Casino Royale is already considered a classic of the series, and one of the best action films of the past 10 years, and was highly influenced by the new world political order: one of fear, paranoia, and untrustworthiness (ah, the Bush Years have given us some of the best movies of the past 15 years). Action movies seemed split into two categories: dense, loud MTV-styled escapades, instantly forgettable; and serious-down-to-earth affairs. But its influence, the Jason Bourne series of films, has clearly reached far in reshaping the Bond series. Dan Bradley and his stunt team, veterans of the Jason Bourne series, were hired to helm the second unit footage for Mr. Bond this time around, and I'm afraid to say I wasn't impressed at all. The opening car chase would've been effective in pumping the adrenaline if I had known the geography of Bond's Aston Martin or the Alfa Romeos that pursued him. Several times in the chase the camera was so close to Daniel's face I was waiting for an internal monologue to start playing. Instead we get few establishing shots, a bunch of close ups, and an editing style that required me to use the opening title sequence to figure out in my mind what just happened. It like my action films fast paced, but I also like to know what the hell I was watching. That said, starting the movie in the middle of the car chase (itself an extension of the last scene of Casino Royale) was inspired, and worked to segue the last film with this one. The chase ends, Bond reveals Mr. White, one of the villains from the last film, in the boot of his car, makes a quip, and the titles start.
I am not a fan of MK12's work here. Nor of the title song, "Another Way To Die", by Alicia Keys and Jack White, whose jagged vocals do not complement that of his duetist (this being the first duet in the franchise's history, one would expect two artists who complement each other's vocals). Chris Cornell's "You Know My Name" was infinitely better than this, and Amy Winehouse's aborted effort (thank you Mark Ronson, you ass) would've been so much better I'm sure. The title graphics themselves (right down to the font) just didn't feel like Bond at all (a friend of mine sitting next to me leaned in during the titles and commented, "This feels like a college student's parody of a Bond title." And he was right.) Daniel Kleinmann, the man responsible for every title sequence since 1995 (the titles for GoldenEye and Casino Royale are classic and are worthy complements to Maurice Binder, who designed the originals titles for all but two of the original 16 films) is sorely missed, and I hope he decides to return for the next installment. Or that the producers remember to hire him that time out. David Arnold's score was decent, but I really REALLY wish he'd use the James Bond Theme a bit more with Daniel. If I'd at least heard that I could believe I was watching a Bond movie.
The next sequence finds M, again played by Dame Judi Dench, the only actor held over for Pierce Brosnan's tenure, interrogating Mr. White in Siena, Italy, during the Palio Horse Race, an annual race held in the streets. But we wouldn't know that, as there are no shots connecting the interiors of the safehouse to the streets of Siena aside from the few wide shots once a foot-chase ensues between Bond and a doubel-agent. And this chase was exciting...at least it would have been if Dan Bradley had used a tripod or the editor had incorporated shots that lasted more than 12 frames. In fact, I was hoping to love the scaffolding fight, to finally feel like "Okay, this is definitely a Bond moment". But I didn't feel that at all: the fight was shot in medium shots and close-ups, instead of the camera hugging the geography (I have a credo when shooting a movie, including my own stuff: If you need to shake the camera or or use handheld to generate a feeling of suspense, you should not direct an action scene. Tension comes from the director, not the camera.) The scaffold fight should've been typically Bondian in style, it should not have felt like an imitation.
And that's what I kept thinking on my second viewing of the film: I know this is a James Bond movie, but it just didn't feel like it. It felt like a James Bond movie that was trying so hard not to be a James Bond movie that it felt soulless. A serious lack of fun was also evident, as even in Casino Royale, the heretofore darkest Bond film, Bond himself was at least allowed some comedy, a chance to enjoy himself and his lavish-if-improbable lifestyle. In this film the only fun came in Gemma Arterton's character of Fields, and she suffers from an all-too-short appearance (I did love the Goldfinger homage though). Bond's quip to most of the members of Quantum, the evil, secret organization (that's where the title comes from!) was also great, as was that entire sequence in the Tosca Opera House.
But the dogfight in the desert? Man, that would've been incredibly better had there been at least 3 wide shots in there (I am amazed that there were actually not one, but THREE close-ups of Bond from outside the flying airplane looking into the cockpit. WHY?) The manuevers were amazing, the use of prop planes original in this day of high-tech jet fighters and such...but the camera didn't let the scene breathe at all, and in cramping the action the film cramped the tension.
The only scene in entire film that felt organic and real and fleshed-out was the coda in Kazhan. And even that lasted about 5 minutes.
Everyone in the film does the best they can with what they're given. Dame Judi Dench is given a much larger role here, and it's clearer in this film that she's very much the maternal figure to Craig's Bond, the only authority figure in his life (compare this to Brosnan's Bond, who was always seen as smarter than M, and who answered to no one). She's icily decisive (although her decision to start trusting Bond at the end and to let him get away to stop the villain is completely unexplained and unprompted. She spends the film trying to bring Bond in, and then relents at the end for...? I thought I'd missed something there first viewing. I hadn't. It just wasn't explained.) Olga Kurylenko does her thing and she doe sit well: a beautiful woman out for revenge. Like in the last two movies she was in: Hitman and Max Payne. Only here she's wearing considerably more. Her character, Camille, is one of the few truly interesting Bond girls...but I can't help thinking that her character is derived from so many similar movies. I don't think her character is a memorable addition to the cast, nor to the Bond girl lineage. Gemma Arterton, mentioned earlier, is one of the highlights of the film, and she definitely feels as if she's not only truly enjoying herself, but that she knows how to play within the Bond universe. It also helps that she's also undeniably cute, even when wearing a giant, brown raincoat. Anotle Taubman, as the henchman Elvis, is forgettable, nonthreatening, and does little here, which is a shame because he's apparently a very good actor. Either he had little to work with or what was in the movie got cut out. Jeffrey Wright, one of my favorite actors, once again does a good job as the new Felix Leiter, although it isn't really explained what Felix is doing in Bolivia. Giancarlo Gianni returns as Mathis, and what a welcome return it is. His final scene with Bond felt genuine, and it was apparent that Mathis was a character he had spent a lot of time making "real". But there are two characters that just didn't work for me.
First off is the villain, Dominic Greene, an eco-terrorist (get it? "Greene"? Clever...) with zero menace outside of his widely bulging eyes and Roman-Polanski demeanor. Greene reflects the current trend of "living green", but his scheme is considerably more sinister (cause a drought, allowing a deposed dictator to return to control in Bolivia, and then use Quantum to act as utilities provider for that entire country). Clever. Original. But not really "Bond". The final confrontation between him and Bond actually did work for me, as Greene doesn't look like he'd know how to fight, and that is exactly how Mathieu Almaric played it: fire axe in hand, Greene throws Bond off adn actually, for a few minutes, does apepar menacing. Perhaps all of Greene's more menacing scenes (as well as a less-abrupt introduction to him) would up on the cutting-room floor.
Oddly, the thing that also didn't work for me was Bond himself. Don't get me wrong, Daniel Craig does an amazing job, as he did last time out, but his Bond is even less classy and suave than he was in the first few scenes of Casino Royale. Bond here is too cold, too unemotional and too brooding to be likable (just view his sendoff to Mathis for an example). He's also unstoppable in the John McClane in Live Free or Die Hard or Indiana Jones in that last movie way. He falls out of a plane without a parachute and in the next scene he gets up like nothing happened. He chases a dude through a horese race and fights him on collapsing scaffolding and doesn't have a mark. He gets dirty and bruised, but even in Casino Royale he got beat up pretty badly, and wore scars following the parkour chase and airport sequence. Here, nothing stops him. He knows how to get out of any situation and knows that he's going to make it. Yeah, yeah, that's Bond. That's how Bond is played. Except for when it's played completely seriously. There is no quip, no matter how half-hearted or ironic (as Timothy Dalton, who also played a very serious, jaded Bond). And that's sorely missed. Craig growls his few quips as if he's annoyed. You shouldn't be annoyed to be Bond. You should be having the time of your life.
And the director, Marc Forster. His previous films have ranged from artsy to artsy. He never handled an action movie, much less a franchise film, much less THE franchise film. Relying too much on his second unit, he cuts the action much too fast, adhering to second-long shots, handheld cameras, and jarring angles (there were at least two canted angles...for NO reason). The "quiet" more character-driven scenes, oddly, didn't amount to much for the most part, and it felt as if he were just working furiously to push the story. Casino Royale allowed the characters to breathe and develop: here that's not the case, and it's surprising, given Forster's pedigree. If Forster had worked on even a small-scale action film he might have fared better...but here he seems to be winging it, throwing everything possible at the audience and hoping that something sticks. It was an interesting experiment, but it just didn't work.
So now Craig's Bond is fully formed (suggested by the use of the familiar gunbarrel logo at the end...finally!). Hopefully the producers will start to inject some fun into the series again, as well as a director who is adept with action, now that they've managed to inject some fresh blood and life into it. I'll still be in line to see the next one. A slight step down after stepping up the game by about ten storeys is no need to weep.
I'll just view this entry as an "in-between missions" movie.