Villain clichés I can't get enough of

Continuing the villain cliché theme of the last post, here are some villain clichés I won't get tired of in a hurry. This is not a complete list by any means. To be honest, I'm a sucker for villain clichés, starting with the typical villain look (pale, thin, icy eyes, sharp features). These clichés are just a few of my favourites I can name from the top of my head. If I were to write down every well-worn villain trope I enjoy the moment I think about it, I could easily get material for a follow-up post or two. But that might just be too much like hard work.

"You and I are not so different" I think Arthur Conan Doyle might be the one to take credit for the widespread popularity of the "mirror image" villain, who resembles the hero in all sorts of ways – except he's bad. Certainly, when I think of famous villains before Professor Moriarty, they tend to be contrasts to the hero. The hero is brave, the villain is cowardly. The hero is kind and generous, the villain is mean-spirited and bitter. The hero is good-looking in a reassuringly homespun way (too much conventional handsomeness can sometimes be a red flag), the villain sports the pale, thin etc. looks outlined above (which I consider fairest of them all, but which aren't generally appreciated) or is downright deformed. And so on. The same often applies to heroines and villainesses. The heroines are pure and unbelievably big-hearted, the villainesses are grasping sluts. Look no further than Dickens, or Shakespeare for that matter, for numerous examples.

But then we get Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty, similar in so many ways that it's easy to think of "what-if" scenarios where they might have been friends, either both fighting for good or both becoming experts in villainy. No-one else is at the same level as them. They have a unique understanding for each other. We get a grasp of all this during the span of one single short story. The "mirror image" villain has been a staple of popular culture ever since.

What's more, the "they could have been friends" scenario has often developed to a scenario where the hero and villain actually were friends until things went pear-shaped. Doctor Who's Doctor and Master friendship/rivalry is only one of many highly enjoyable Holmes-Moriarty rip-offs. As I've found out while doing my X-Men homework, there's Xavier and Magneto (though Magneto's case is more complicated than simply "going bad"). Not to mention the countless times we have heard the villain in a Bond movie or similar say "you and I are not so different/more alike than you realise" and the hero respond hotly "we are nothing alike". I know it's a cliché by this time. But as it forces the hero to question his own smugness – after all, aren't the villain's weaknesses the same as his own? – to me, it never gets old.

The hero-villain team-up This is squarely a popular culture thing, seldom attempted in a more literary context, more's the pity. At least once or twice or three times in a long-running TV series, there's a plot line that goes like this. The hero and villain – or heroes and villains, it can be a question of teams joining forces – face a bigger threat; realise that they have to team up to defeat it, sometimes after a little too much pointless squabbling; are successful in their fight because of their different skill sets and then go their different ways again, generally because of some betrayal on the villain's part, but sometimes because both parties tacitly understand that the harmony can't last. 

I'm not too fond of the ultimate villain betrayal cliché, but otherwise I love a good hero-villain team-up. The villain can ensure success by making the hard decisions and, say, kill off an antagonist without the hero getting his or her hands dirty, while the hero can shine when a more understanding approach is needed. You could argue that too frequent team-ups with the good guys can weaken the threat level of the regular bad guy, but I'm not too bothered by that. I'm only sad it always has to end.

Let's twist again (within reason) I'm aware that I'm being a bit contradictory here. Like everyone else, I got sick of twist villains in (fairly) recent animated Disney films and demanded a front-and-centre villain in the good old Scar or Jafar mould. Consequently, it seems that I can get enough of twist-based clichés.

Let me try to explain. Twist villains, and sometimes twist heroes, have a part to play in stories that are otherwise very black and white. Complex characters are always to be preferred to flat ones, but failing complexity, a character with all the attributes of a good guy turning out to be bad or vice versa throws heroes off balance and gives them a reason to reassess their world view, always a desirable goal for a villain-lover. If not everything is at it seems, then there's at least potential for complexity. Plus, I admit, I enjoy a good rug pull now and again – it's a shame so few twists really deliver that. 

The reasons I objected to the Disney twist villains are that there are too many of them in a row, and that the "villain-coded" characters of old (you could see they were bad just by the animation) were so delicious. But there is a case to be made for the much-maligned Disney twist villains too. I may get back to that in a future post.

No Time to Die: Into the Bondverse?

All right, so blogging-wise, 2022 has hardly started with a bang, with this being only the second post so far. In my defence, I have been ill. That's also my excuse for making this a relatively unambitious post.

So, anyway, No Time to Die, the latest James Bond film, proved to be a good choice for an "omicron film": it kept my tired brain entertained, and its length, which put me off watching it in the cinema (it's approximately 2 hours 45 minutes long) is no drawback when you're collapsed on the TV sofa. It's also a solid Bond flick. In my ranking of Daniel Craig's Bond films, I'd put it in second place after Skyfall. Which is not to say that it doesn't have plenty of flaws.

For a film that's been in production for as long as No Time to Die, it's remarkable how little time has seemingly been spent on tweaking the plot so it makes any kind of sense (well, at least in a 007 kind of way). This is especially true of the villain and his evil schemes which just don't add up. Rami Malek is just as creepy in the role of Safin as is required (one might even say he overdoes it, but a Bond villain is a Bond villain: it should be impossible to be too creepy). The problem is, I had no idea what his end goal was, and equally bewildered reviewers reassured me that it wasn't because of my feverish brain. First, he wants to take revenge on the organisation that killed his family. So far, so good: it's a straightforward, functional if not spectacularly original villain motive. But once the revenge plot is done, Safin wants to use the biotech weapon he's got his hands on to... what? Wipe out a large part of Earth's population, and in that case, which part? We never learn the criteria met by the people targeted by the weapon, or what Safin has against them. Make Earth's population compliant? He grows a drug which has this effect, and speechifies about how people don't really want free will, but how can this drug be combined with a virus-thingy that straight up kills people? Or does he want to flog his weapons to rogue nations? The trailers made me think that Bond would be up against a villain with a clear, if mad and reprehensible, vision. But Safin is just a mess. 

There are other examples of the kind of shoddy plotting that dragged down Spectre. The biotech weapon which poses such a worldwide threat consists of a deadly disease which can be programmed by nanotech to only work on those with a particular DNA, which means that not only the targeted victims but also their families can get it. It can be concentrated into a solution, and once someone has been tainted with it they will be the carriers of death to anyone whose DNA the disease is programmed with wiping out. I was prepared to swallow all of this, though it was a little hard (it seems there are no limits to what nanobots and similar can do in action films). But when Q insisted that once someone had become a carrier, there was no way to rid them of the nanotech, and the effect was "eternal", I could no longer suspend my disbelief. No scientist would ever say that. They'd say that there was no solution "as yet", but they'd keep working on it. Instead, Q just shrugs off the question: if you've managed to become a carrier, too bad, nothing to be done. This was such an obvious plot contrivance it had me groaning. Seeing as Bond is trying to be reconciled with Madeleine Swann, whom he dumped because he has trust issues, and she has a cute little daughter who she unconvincingly claims isn't Bond's, there are no prizes for guessing what happens by the end of the film. Also, the film's title makes no sense when you see how things actually pan out.

The question is: what happens now? In the credits, we're promised that "James Bond will return". But how? I suppose they'll have to reboot the franchise again. There's no way the version of Bond played by Craig can return, for various reasons. I'm strangely OK with this. I didn't like that they called the Craig films "a reboot", but now they've bookended the tale of his Bond, I can see them as their own separate thing, telling a continuing story of one specific version of the character, a story that started with Casino Royale and ended with No Time to Die. One reviewer called the Craig films a "pocket universe", and I thought that was a good way of describing it. Now that a future Bond isn't obliged to take over where Craig left off, I can more easily accept that he didn't take over where Brosnan left off.

Let's face it, though, the Craig era has permanently fractured what little continuity there was in the Bond saga. We aren't going to get a version of the character that connects to the life and experiences of Brosnan's Bond now. The best way to make sense of it all will probably be to see each version of Bond as their own thing, living in a sort of multiverse of Bonds where some things remain the same while others are changed around. This would allow Fiennes's M, Naoime Harris's Moneypenny and Ben Whishaw's Q to appear again with a future Bond: they could be "variants" of the same characters that co-starred with Craig, to use Loki speak. It's a geeky way to handle all the contradictions of the Bond films, but I can do geeky.

Ranking the Daniel Craig Bond films

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. 

Ranking the Pierce Brosnan Bond films

It's true I haven't rewatched the old Sean Connery and Roger Moore classics for a while, but I think I can say that Pierce Brosnan is my favourite Bond. I've admitted that I prefer Bond to be suave, and Brosnan has suavity in spades, but he also has more range as an actor than the (admittedly very enjoyable) Moore, and can show signs of crackling veneer when required. His poor Bond has to go through a lot during his four films. He's betrayed by someone he cared for (and thought dead); an ex-girlfriend who actually meant something to him is killed by her own husband; he has his chivalrous streak appealed to and taken advantage of; and finally, he is captured and tortured by the North Koreans - what's more, when he's released the MI5 want nothing to do with him as they're convinced he's squealed when in fact he's been keeping his mouth shut the whole time. By the time we reach The World Is Not Enough (and that's before we even get to the torture in Die Another Day) the strain is starting to show. I think Brosnan's Bond handles all that's thrown at him well, while keeping hold of his essential style whatever happens. It also helps to know that Bond was a part Brosnan really wanted to play - he was disappointed not to get it that time it went to Timothy Dalton because Brosnan was still tied up in his Remington Steele contract. I still don't know why they felt the need to "reboot" the franchise and go with Daniel Craig's craggy hard-man after Brosnan. Bond films haven't been the same since (though I did like Skyfall).

During my two weeks' mini-quarantine I rewatched all Brosnan's Bond films with the exception of The World Is Not Enough, which I'd already rewatched a year or so ago (maybe you can guess why). As a result, I've been able to come up with a highly personal ranking of them, which admittedly has little to do with Brosnan himself and more with how the other characters work for me:

1 Goldeneye The first and the best, it has that special Bond feel which (through no fault of his) was missing from Licence To Kill with Timothy Dalton. The villain twist actually works and gives the villain a half-decent motive for once. Izabella Scorupco is a somewhat shouty but classy Bond girl who manages to be competent without being superwoman. The supporting cast is top notch. We have the late German actor Gottfried John with his expressive countenance as Russian strong man Ourumov - his reaction to Bond crossing a room while taking cover behind a moving shelf filled with canisters of explosive gas is priceless. Famke Janssen is the handsome bad girl Xenia Onatopp who gets off on violence (her own), and then there's Boris, for whom I am prepared to forgive Alan Cumming a lot, including a campy James I in Doctor Who - he truly is invincible. Add to that a triumphant introduction of Judi Dench as the new M and Samatha Bond as Moneypenny, Robbie Coltrane as a fun Russian gangster and one of the best Bond theme songs, sung by none other that Tina Turner. The tank chase dragged a bit for me, though.

2 Die Another Day Most real Bond fans hate this film, and it's probably largely because of its poor reception that the regrettable "reboot" happened. But I think it's a hoot! I've never hankered for Bond films to be realistic. With extravagant ingredients such as an ice palace and a plastic surgeon that can change your ethnicity, you're propelled into a parallel world where it's easier to swallow plot points which would have seemed outrageous in a more realistic setting. Also, I think Toby Stephens does a really good job as the villain Gustav Graves - he plays the part straight, and I appreciate that. Halle Berry doesn't quite work as Bond girl Jinx - why did she kill that doctor, if she is simply an NSA agent? - but she's no disaster, and Rosamund Pike as the icy Miranda Frost is perfect. Yes, the dialogue could be better, the invisible car is a little silly (though it's never really bothered me) and M has to be a perfect fool not to realise who the mole in her organisation is. Nevertheless, this is a hugely enjoyable watch.

3 The World Is Not Enough What, only third place, in spite of Robert Carlyle playing the villain? The problem is, the bad guy in question is an international terrorist with a bullet lodged in his brain which will finally kill him and, as it eats itself in, cuts off his nerves so he doesn't feel pain. I know, ewww. The premise is yucky and even Carlyle has trouble carrying off the bullet-in-brain look. Also, it has to be said, he's not at the top of his villain game in this film, though he does nail a few lines, conveying the pain in "He was a good lover?" and the bitterness in "The world is yours - have fun with it". A waste.

It's still a good film though: Sophie Marceau walks away with it as the, as it turns out, ironically named Elektra. She is very attractive, and boy does she know it - happily, a certain pouting self-regard fits well with the character. Brosnan is convincingly and understandably frazzled, we see quite a lot of M, and Coltrane is back, which is nice. OK, so Denise Richards is not entirely convincing as nuclear scientist Dr Christmas Jones (in mini-shorts), but she's mainly there so that Bond can have someone to get together with at the end, and I did snigger at the Christmas joke.

 4 Tomorrow Never Dies It is a truth universally acknowledged that any Bond film in possession of a villain must be in want of the very best talent villain-actordom has to offer - only to then squander it completely. Jonathan Pryce is another favourite actor of mine, and after a somewhat too scenery-chewing introduction he's very watchable as villainous media mogul Elliot Carver. However, even in a Bond context, it's near impossible to suspend disbelief regarding his motives. That Carver abuses his power in some ways - such as featuring stories of Mad Cow Disease so prominently because he is bribed by the French - I could readily believe. But media moguls, even the far from saintly ones, would not dream of starting wars just to boost sales. This is why villains who are military men, spies or criminals work rather better in Bond films - they have already been taught to disregard human life in a smaller context, so the leap is not as big for them when they branch out and threaten large parts of the world population. This is a plot which could have done with the outlandish settings of Die Another Day, but here, they're mostly unglamorous, though I did enjoy the few glimpses of Hamburg. Michelle Yeoh is a gutsy Chinese agent, but it's entirely unconvincing that she and Bond hook up at the end: they have no romantic spark whatsoever.

Also, I must admit, I'm not fond of Bond bedding the villain's girl at the best of times (though it's OK if it's part of the villain's plan). Here, Bond's ex-girlfriend Paris is married to Carver, and the film does its darnedest to convince us that her adultery is entirely forgivable: Carver seems to have a roving eye; he has his sights on Yeoh; plus, he later has his wife murdered without much compunction. Nevertheless, Paris climbing into bed with Bond fairly easily didn't sit well with me. The film has its highlights - Pryce doing his best, an enjoyable cameo from an expert in making murders look like accidents ("torture is more of a hobby") and well-known English character actors popping up in walk-on parts (is that Hugh Bonneville? And Pip Torrens?). Nevertheless, my overall impression of the film was that it was somewhat dull. Not, in this case, what the people wanted.    

Bond confusion

Partly in quest of blogging inspiration, I watched all of two hefty films yesterday, Steve Jobs and Spectre. So, two men with intimacy issues who make an impact on the world: Jobs and James Bond. Which of them is the better blog subject? I'll take the easy route - it is, after all, still my holiday, for two days more - and choose Bond. I may return to Jobs, and why it puzzles me that we should care whether he was a good dad or not, at a later date.

As I've discussed before, Daniel Craig's Bond doesn't really work for me. Nevertheless, Skyfall was a really good film, and I approached Spectre with cautious optimism. Well, I liked it better than Casino Royale (so tedious, in spite of Mads Mikkelsen, that I've forgotten most of it, which is unfortunate as Bond keeps moping over his lost love from this film, Vesper Lynd) and A Quantum of Solace, but compared to Skyfall it is oddly shoddy. Before I go further into said shoddiness, though, a troubling aspect of the Craig Bond films has to be addressed: the reintroducing of iconic Bond film characters as if they were brand new.

There was talk, I dimly remember, of Casino Royale being a "reboot" of the Bond franchise, which essentially means you start all over again and pretend that previous films with the same hero never happened. It's common with superhero films, where a new team may be anxious to distance themselves from creaky or embarrassingly larky predecessors. I can understand reboots in this context - though they seem to come at an alarming rate lately - but Bond is something else. The only reason there was a Casino Royale were the twenty odd Bond films that had gone before. The Bond story has been a continuous one from the sixties onwards, and surely you expect the hero to be the same and carry with him all the experiences from his previous incarnations.

Yes, this poses a credibility problem, to say the least. Bond and some of the key players - Miss Moneypenny, for instance - take on Time Lord properties: they barely age and sometimes change their faces, but remain essentially the same person although the world around them has moved on from the Cold War to the Internet Age. It is just as well that the time bubble conceit isn't overused. Some secret service staff are simply replaced - M and Q for example, where a new character (often successfully) takes over the function of an old one while bringing something fresh into the mix. Nevertheless, I much preferred the Time Lord-y way of handling Bond's timelessness to the idea that we should disregard all Bond films before Casino Royale - especially since Craig is, in my view, the least Bondlike of all the Bonds, while his predecessor Pierce Brosnan was one of my favourites.

At first, I ignored the talks of a reboot - after all Judi Dench's M was the same who was introduced ticking off Pierce Brosnan's Bond in Goldeneye, so how could it not be a continuing story? That Felix Leiter showed up with all arms and legs intact was not enough to alert me to the possibility that the film makers meant what they said about starting over (to tell the truth, since I'm not a Bond expert, I'd forgotten that he was the one being maimed by a shark in Licence to Kill). In the otherwise excellent Skyfall, though, a puzzling thing happened. A fellow agent of Bond's was revealed to be Miss Moneypenny, who had only just discovered that she was more efficient behind a desk than in the field. Sorry? But Samantha Bond (and the game girls who filled the part before her) was Miss Moneypenny! You can't just write them out of the story. What true Bond fan would do that? I've nothing against Naomie Harris's plucky and attractive Miss Moneypenny, who mercifully has a love life of her own. But does she have to be the Miss Moneypenny? Can't she be Samantha Bond's niece, or something?

In Spectre it happens again: a classic Bond character - one of the villains this time - is reintroduced, and Bond has plainly never been up against him before. (Warning: the subtitles give away his identity and ruin the surprise completely.) The effect is extremely weird: we have a prequel situation - an "origins" story to use superhero-film speak - taking place decades after Bond's first tussles with the villain in question. It doesn't help that the villain role is so underwritten not even Christoph Waltz - a safe pair of hands when you need a baddie, as all Hollywood knows - can do a lot with it. His motives for resenting Bond, not to mention for killing his own dad, are weak in the extreme. (I kept waiting for the reveal that Bond killed his dad - now that would have been a motive.) Let's just say, this particular Bond villain has had more impressive outings.

Here's where the aforementioned shoddiness comes in. Not only is a promising villain-hero relationship thrown away, there are other elements to the plot and characters that don't seem to have been properly thought through. When Bond moves in on the widow of a man he's killed (I did like his explanation: "He was an assassin. He wouldn't have taken it personally") he claims that she "stayed loyal to a man you hated". How does he know what her feelings were? Later, the widow says that her spouse"spent more time with them [his partners in crime] than he did with me". Does that sound like the complaint of a woman who hated her husband? And how does it square with her previous statement that members of the criminal organisation in question only meet rarely?

Later, Ralph Fiennes as M struggles with a speech where he claims the double-0 programme is humane (albeit only in comparison with drones and the like). In the first proper hero-villain showdown, Bond rises fresh as a daisy after a session of gruelling torture and blows up the villain base without much trouble. I know the "why don't they just shoot him?" question is a eternal one and applies to practically all action films, but the dastardly mastermind's reasons for keeping Bond alive are foggier than ever, especially as he must know about what happened to his associate in A Quantum of Solace. If Bond gets the better of you, there isn't even a guarantee that he'll kill you nicely. For the sake of self-preservation, if nothing else, you should just put a bullet though him.

My main gripe is the whole reboot setup, though. Does this mean Ralph Fiennes's M is the original M, and Ben Whishaw's Q the original Q? It fairly does my head in.

"You only live twice, Mister Bond" as, erm, someone said. In fact, Bond and the person in question live a great deal more often than twice. Which is fine by me, as long as they live their lives in the right order.

Bond and Snow White

Yes, I know... Not the greatest blog subject in history. But it's been one of those weeks without any particular cultural highlight. Instead, making use of my local DVD rental's rent-more-than-one-film-and keep-them-for-a-week-deal, I rented A Quantum of Solace  - to get up to speed on Bond's development, with a view to possibly watching Skyfall at the cinema - and Snow White and the Huntsman. I'd already seen Mirror, Mirror and was interested to see what another take on the famous fairy-tale would look like.

When it comes to Bond, I know I'm not a connoisseur. Most of the Bond films I've seen are those I watched when I was still a kid or a teenager, which explains why I feel more warmly towards the flippant side of these films than most. I must be the only one in existence who doesn't double up with embarrassment over Jaws's love interest in Moonraker (why shouldn't he have a girlfriend? At least his redemption means Bond doesn't have to bump him off). I've never felt any need for Bond films to be "hard" and "gritty". Suave, non-thuggish, inner-depths-free Roger Moore was the kind of Bond I liked, as was Pierce Brosnan, especially in Goldeneye.

So, to get to the obvious point, Daniel Craig's Bond doesn't work for me. Yes, those icy blue eyes are attractive, but they don't make you forgive him everything. His looks and manner are definitely not the ones of the Bond of my girlhood. He is a grim, weather-beaten, psychologically damaged muscle-man, not a worldly-wise, witty, vodka martini-sipping gentleman spy. The troubling thing is, Craig may very well be closer to the "real" Bond, the one in Ian Fleming's books (which I haven't read), than the tamer version I've grown up with. I recall how shocked I was when Sean Connery's Bond locked a baddie in the sauna and turned up the heat - after said baddie had tried to do the same to him - in the early Bond film Thunderball, and how Bond actually chuckled with sadistic delight. But wait, he's the hero, isn't he supposed to be a bit more decent than the bad guys? I mean, boiling someone to death, who does that? A Quantum of Solace has a corresponding moment towards the end. Yes, the head villain is ultra-creepy (a bit my type, actually) and ruthless and bent on world domination and has killed one of Bond's squeezes etc. etc. Still, the way Bond handles him - again, who does that? I begin to suspect that were it not for the fact that Bond villains are so unbelievably wicked, there would be no reason to root for him at all. I'm in two minds about watching Skyfall on cinema now.

So, from Bond to Snow White. Get this - the evil queen in Snow White and the Huntsman has a nasty, white-haired brother sidekick. And I still thought the film was yawn-inducingly tedious.

I realise that fantasy - which is what most fairy-tale films resemble most nowadays - is a tricky genre. The attempts at humour in fantasy films (Two Towers, anyone?) can be so woeful that I can see why someone would want to dispense with light relief alltogether and go for straight-faced seriousness all the way. But the end result? Rain-soaked characters spouting earnest twaddle instead of getting on with the plot. Blimey, how dull. Character-building scenes are no good  when you really couldn't care less about the characters. It looks like a good idea, on paper, to big up the role of the huntsman a bit - in the original tale, Snow White does owe her life to him, and he takes quite a risk - but here, he is a dreary, wounded-macho specimen without much to recommend him. Snow White drifts around with a dreamlike, destiny-ridden look on her face (for the record, I thought the evil queen was fairer). The Prince (well, dukelet actually) is at a bit of a loose end, and who can blame him, when there's a rival for the hero part knocking about? We don't even get to know which of them Snow White picks, which some reviewers have seen as something very positive and indicative of the fact that she is a Person In Her Own Right. Is she? Could we please stop pretending that this moony girl will ever be the new Elizabeth I?

In the battle of the Snow Whites, Mirror, Mirror wins, though it can be very silly and the script could have been a great deal sharper (it's still Oscar Wilde compared with the Huntsman, though). It's got great costumes and Julia Roberts having a ball as the wicked stepmother. OK, so she doesn't have a nasty brother sidekick, but then one can't have everything.    

Forget Bond - Timothy Dalton is the ultimate Mr Rochester

The new "Jane Eyre" film with Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender does most things right. It doesn't mess around with the story and tells it effectively. It is well acted and beautifully shot. It certainly beats the feature film with Charlotte Gainsbourg and William Hurt hands down (though she was good). And yet, it can't really replace the TV adaptation from the 1980s with Zelah Clarke and Timothy Dalton in my affections.

One problem is the film format, of course. Films should not drag on forever, so there's limited time to tell the story in. It is easy to get restless in a cinema, where you are a more or less captive audience with limited access to loos. A TV series, on the other hand, can go on for as long as the producer's on board, so there's more time to let the action unfold. Apart from that, though, it's just difficult for any production - on film or on TV - to beat the pairing of Clarke and Dalton.

It's strange that Mr Rochester should be so hard to get right. In the many "Jane Eyre" adaptations I've seen, Jane has mostly been convincing, though it's hard to match Clarke's fairy looks and fiery temperament. But Rochester is trickier. As I've already mentioned somewhere long ago, he is one of the few heroes I really have time for. Ironically, though, his status as "the thinking woman's crumpet" may be part of the problem. William Hurt, Toby Stephens and the latest Rochester Michael Fassbender are all good-looking in a typically brainy way. I'd happily drool over at least the latter two in any role you care to mention, but I must admit they may not be quite saturnine enough for Mr Rochester. I did not care for Ciarán Hinds's Rochester at all, but like it or not, looks-wise he comes a great deal closer to what Charlotte Brontë had in mind than slim and polished Stephens.

Then there's Rochester's manner. Though he should be brainy, he should also be Byronic. Hurt is wet, Stephens is very likeable but not overly passionate, and Fassbender also seems to hold back. They all appear slightly embarrassed by Rochester's Byronic side and tend to downplay his more volcanic outbursts.

Now Dalton, on the other hand, gives them everything he's got. He is not ashamed of his lines and sees no reason to appear apologetic when he talks about cords snapping and inward bleeding. A man who can carry off the gypsy scene doesn't have to be afraid of anything. He also has a good deal of warmth and humour. The disgust with which he pronounces St John's name in his jealous fit at the end - "that man Rivers! SIN-John Rivers" - is unforgettable. Finally, he has the advantage of looking properly dark and wild. He's too handsome for Rochester, of course, but then so is nearly everyone who's played him. Jane's "No sir", as answer to the question whether she finds Mr Rochester handsome, seldom rings quite true (well, maybe with Orson Welles).

There is a lot of carping about Timothy Dalton's take on Bond, and I admit he's not quite my idea of 007, though that is not necessarily a bad thing. (Also, Dalton was hardly to blame for the ghastly "Licence to Kill" which wasn't Bond-like in the least - exploding petrol tanks and drug-dealing instead of cats and eccentric sidekicks? Horror!) But who cares if he nailed Bond? He did one better - he nailed Mr Rochester.