Luckily, I got the complete James Bond box set I'd wished for as a Christmas present - so now I can reacquaint myself with all the old classics as well as the newer flicks, and get a few blog posts out of it all into the bargain. As I've already done a personal ranking of the Pierce Brosnan films, it seems natural to follow up with a post on the films starring his successor Daniel Craig.
I was surprised at how much my first impressions held firm. I've mentioned both once and twice that I don't really think Daniel Craig is suited for the role of Bond, and rewatching his films to date hasn't changed my opinion. I'm not saying he's a bad actor, or that he's not attractive in his own way. Ironically, I think he would have worked very well as a Bond villain with a bit of extra depth - the hard man who's more intelligent than you give him credit for. I enjoy his dry delivery, saying things like "that sounds perfectly lovely" when you know it's something he hates the very idea of. But apart from lacking suavity, he just isn't convincing enough as a lady killer. Bond should be so obviously, almost cheaply handsome that you understand how women are tempted to fall into bed with him after just a short acquaintance. In Casino Royale, the disgruntled wife of a small-time crook connects with Bond after he throws her one cheesy line. She sizes him up and apparently thinks: "OK, go for it". This reaction is much more believable with someone like Brosnan. Bond shouldn't be the dark chocolate that only true connoisseurs appreciate, he should be the tempting milk chocolate bar most of us are ready to grab and eat when we're hungry. And speaking of dark, Bond shouldn't be blond, surely?
My views on the films also stayed very much the same as when I first saw them. I expected to have underrated Casino Royale - seeing as it's so widely praised - and overrated Skyfall. But no. Consequently, my personal ranking remains more or less what it was, i.e.:
1 Skyfall This one ranks far, far above the rest. In fact, I'd say it's up there with Goldeneye. Craig is dry and likeable, the set pieces are stunning, the supporting cast amazing. We have a great villain with an understandable grudge against M, perfectly played by Javier Bardem. Judi Dench's M has a magnificent send-off, and the mother complex that Silva and Bond share in relation to her works well as a theme. Poor boys - M is a tough old bird and not noticeably motherly, so it's no wonder they're emotionally scarred. A solid foundation for future Bond films is laid by bringing in Ralph Fiennes as a traditionally enigmatic male M, Ben Whishaw as an endearingly nerdy Q and Naomie Harris as an attractive and capable Eve Moneypenny (I still say she should have been the original Moneypenny's niece or something, though). Other from introducing a new Miss Moneypenny as if we've never seen one before, this film almost entirely dispenses with the "reboot" idea. Bond is clearly not a rookie - there are even hints that he's starting to be past it - and he doesn't mooch around mourning Vesper Lynd. Speaking of Bond girls, there aren't that many in this one. There's the usual disposable one that gets killed by the villain, but not one he's still with when the credits roll. But it works, and there's a passably tense scene where Eve shaves him (I have seen even more erotically charged shaving scenes, though - well, one, at least).
2 Spectre I wonder if this film would be further down the list if I've watched the films in a different order, because it's certainly no Skyfall. But what with the ground work Skyfall pulled off and the renewed feeling of Bond-ness it brought, I was more favourably disposed towards the next instalment of the saga than I would otherwise had been. I've already discussed this film's shoddiness, and the plot details that bothered me last time I watched it are still an issue for me now, not least the lamentably weak motives of Christoph Waltz's Blofeld. Nevertheless, there are villains that are even less well served in the Bond franchise (we'll get to that). Waltz is still eminently watchable. I'm glad he's returning for the new film, albeit in what appears to be a smaller role with someone else as the head villain. It beats me why Blofeld was always recast for every film in the old days. (Charles Gray and Donald Pleasance were both great - but hardly the same guy!)
I can't say I found sulky blonde Madeleine Swann (her alias is the wittiest thing about her) to be much cop as a Bond girl, nor a convincing choice as someone the agent Truly Comes To Care For. Still, she is the daughter of a bad guy, at least - in fact, a bad guy highly involved in the much-talked-of Vesper Lynd's betrayal of Bond and later in her death. I'm not sure if I find the idea of Bond shacking up with Mr White's daughter sweet or vaguely troubling.
3 Casino Royale How on earth can this film be so well-regarded? I don't understand it. It's so boring. The "reboot" idea, which tries to sell us Daniel Craig as a rookie Bond who's only just starting out as a 00, doesn't work at all, is disrespectful towards the Bond legacy and makes no sense seeing as M is the same person as when Brosnan was Bond, and we're in modern times, not in the Cold War. In a strong field, Mads Mikkelsen is the ace villain actor who has the most to complain about when it comes to the bad guy he's been handed by the Bond people. I wonder if ex-Bond villain actors ever meet up and compare the rubbishness of their parts. In that game, Mikkelsen would certainly have the trump card: he could counter "my guy had a bullet in his brain", "my guy wanted to start World War Three to boost ratings" and "my guy killed his dad because he was nice to Bond" with "my guy had no personality traits whatsoever". Honestly, we learn absolutely nothing about Le Chiffre. A little smirking at the Casino table is all the fun Mikkelsen gets. As for Vesper Lynd, I don't know - Eva Green has allure, but I didn't really buy her and Craig as having a special connection. But the parcours chase at the start of the film wasn't bad - I liked that the guy Bond was chasing was evidently much better at skipping over roofs than him, so the agent had to struggle to keep up.
4 Quantum of Solace Does Quantum of Solace really rank below Casino Royale? It's a tough call, but I'd say Mikkelsen, even when playing a cipher (Ah - I see what they did there), and the glamorous Casino setting put Casino Royale marginally higher. One thing that can be said for Quantum of Solace, though, is that it's considerably shorter - it must in fact be one of the shortest Bond films, if not the shortest. Another thing that can be said for it is that Mathieu Amalric is memorably slimy as corporate villain Dominic Greene. And... that's it, really. The film doesn't feel as if it's really trying. Bond doesn't even get it off with his sultry main female sidekick. Gemma Arterton is sweet as Fields aka the girl who sleeps with Bond then gets killed, but she's only in a few scenes, and she should have had the bottle to own that her first name (as shown by the credits) is Strawberry.
With the exception of an Opera visit, which was suitably elegant, the settings weren't much to write home about. There seemed to be a lot of desert and rock scenes. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the film was cut and released in something of a hurry. Also, I was grateful to have seen Casino Royale so recently, otherwise it would have been really hard to follow this film, as it picks up exactly where Casino Royale left off and presumes we remember everything about it. In view of the fact that it was released two years after Casino Royale, this is not ideal. I'm all for continuity, but Bond films aren't episodes of a TV series.
That's it for Craig - I'll be curious to see how his last film, No Time to Die, will rank compared with the others. Somehow I don't think it will be a new Skyfall - but the villain looks (comparatively) promising.
