Are you satisfied with the Craig era so far?
blueman
PDXPosts: 1,667MI6 Agent
Someone started a thread like this on another board, thought I'd give it a shot here. There were forum members here (and gone) who were very vocal against Craig when he was first announced, curious how all that has shaken out for them a couple of films in.
For me, Craig was all the Bond I'd hoped he'd be and more in CR. Nailed the character and brought back some necessary toughness and just plain cool that'd been missing since Connery IMO. And the love story, wow.
QOS tightened up the disjointed narrative of CR IMO, and gave us - finally! - the nearest we'll likely get to Fleming's excellent revenge story in YOLT. Loved the pulpy "like a bullet shot from a gun" approach, and the more realistic and integrated action.
Morgan writing the script and now the Mendes rumor has me very geeked for 23 and hopefully more of the same. Definately feels like Bond is back! :007)
For me, Craig was all the Bond I'd hoped he'd be and more in CR. Nailed the character and brought back some necessary toughness and just plain cool that'd been missing since Connery IMO. And the love story, wow.
QOS tightened up the disjointed narrative of CR IMO, and gave us - finally! - the nearest we'll likely get to Fleming's excellent revenge story in YOLT. Loved the pulpy "like a bullet shot from a gun" approach, and the more realistic and integrated action.
Morgan writing the script and now the Mendes rumor has me very geeked for 23 and hopefully more of the same. Definately feels like Bond is back! :007)
Comments
Yes, I am satisfied with Graig (so far), even though I do have a few reservations: He is too old to be a "freshman" angent new to the 00-section and he IS blond (no that it matters that much).
I think I have more to criticize about the movies than I have about DC in the movies: I still don't like the editing of the QoS, it is just too choppy, much like 1st season NYPDBlue on speed. Ian Fleming's Bond (IMHO) was a product of a public school and a snob, he would not have been seen dead at a casino on his shirt sleeves, and sticking to Tom Ford, a "designer" for c's sake, for all things clothing is something that Ian Fleming's bad guys do, not Bond. Remember, Bond is supposed to be anonymous.
But these are only nuances, I still believe that CR and QoS together earn a strong B (I'll throw CR an A- and QoS a B- respectively) I do hope, that in the B23 we'll see Bond return more to the investigative side of espionage.
-Mr Arlington Beech
I am okay with Craig in the role now, I accept him, but I don't think they're quite doing right by him and he has fouled up my appreciation of the old classic Bonds thanks to the new approach. So far I feel the trajectory is much the same as Brosnan's first two movies, and Bond 23 will be another TWINE.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Well I have agree with you on that cooler part, but let's face it, champagne with scrambled eggs, roughing up women, both remedial and recreational use of drugs and overabundance of both alcohol and cigarettes!? I would not go as far as calling literary Bond sophisticated and elegant.
Don't get me wrong, I still value literary Bond over any of the cinematic ones. But the sad truth of this all is, that if we were to see a truly faithfull reproduction of literary Bond on the silver screen, in this misguidedly pc age, the greater audience would bury the francise!
-Mr Arlington Beech
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Difficult one to answer. I think the key is in your question.
So, "Am I satisfied with the Craig era so far?"
Well, generally not.
Although Craig himself is fine, he looks the part and acts it fine, the problems that beset the Brosnan era are re-surfacing.
Brosnan and Craig have both started with a "revisionist" look at 007. In PB's case it wa sall to do with the double-0 agent being not of his time, the ultimate irony if you like. GE reflected this really well. Meanwhile CR went for the modernist "reboot" which in some respects was excellent (the return to Fleming's books, the torture, the villian, the girl) but in others shared the same grandiose action spectaculars as GE.
Similarly the follow up movies are very samey. TND and QOS are both a bit of an editing mish-mash, very noisy, quite violent, and present a 007 who was a little more than an automaton.
It is saying something that I feel more satisfied with TND, despite the wishy washy love scenes and the very dull climax, than I do wth QOS, which for me doesn't even have the benefit of an acceptable villian and leading girl. Even the moments of reflection feel strained and out of place.
So basically, I don't think the franchise is any better or worse off than it was in 1998 .
I'm with Napoleon; I'm really worried the next film will be something like TWINE, which is a film I really really struggle with.
As much as I love Craig in the role, my answer, unfortunately, is "no". After the brilliant start of CR, I found QOS to be a massive disappointment which did absolutely nothing to advance the character or the series. IMO (and I know there are many here who will completely disagree with this) the film may as well not have been made, so much did it involve running in place. It's not a "bad" movie in the vein of DAD, but I found it incredibly nondescript.
Had the quality of the two Craig films been reversed in my eyes -- i.e., on an improving trajectory rather than a declining one -- my answer to your question would probably be different.
At this point, the only thing I am hanging my hat on is that, for all the actors who did more than two films, I found their third outings to be their best ones. That is probably nothing more than a coincidence, but I am hoping it applies once more, so that when you ask this question again in two years, I can give you the "yes" answer I would much rather give.
Again, great question -- well done.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
TND is actually in my top 10 Bond's, while GE isn't, so despite my earlier post, I am hardly consistent! The point for me is that I am spotting a trend.
In fact even Dalton's second film had a tougher, nastier, edge to it that I particulalry disliked. QOS certainly has a heavy vicious undercurrent.
TND doesn't quite have that (for me, like TB, it is a splendid example of pure 007 style over substance) but it did lead to the producers into something of a blind alley; eg more action interspersed with curio scenes of Bond philosophising, too many innocuous characters cropping up for no reason and a considerablyn more active M.
Sound familiar?
Hmmm, about time I watched QOS again.....
However, these are the issues I have; Craig looks nothing like the Bond I imagined when reading the novels, all the other Bonds IMO had some resemblance. Craig has shown the ruggedness of Bond, but none of the suave debonair aspects I enjoy. I miss some of the lighter side of Bond, not one liners, more like Bond stealing Goldfinger's girlfriend, Bond racing Onatopp and then seducing the shrink in GE. Those type of scenes made me smile, not many smiles in Craig's Bond. Bond's relationship with M is agonizing to watch, I prefer the M the boss Bond the employee relationship, rather than the M the parent Bond the child relationship we have now. When I watch the Craig Bond movies I keep feeling like something is missing and I think it is style, this Bond has no real style. He is an action hero, more like John McClane from Die Hard than the gentleman secret agent James Bond
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Good thing those Yahoos are gone, huh? We can't have people who don't think like us among our ranks!
Well anyway, my son gave in and watched Sherlock Holmes a 2nd time because it was the unanimous selection among his buddies last weekend at the cineplex. Both of us are fans of the original short stories/novels and the Jeremy Brett series, so I asked him how he liked Sherlock Holmes and he said it was a great period film and action movie that overall was made well visually.
That's what I think about the Craig Bonds so far. They are fantastic to watch (which I do A LOT) and he is a fantastic hero/leading man who I like very much, but to me they feel neither like movie Bond nor book Bond. I have to admit that the experience of watching TWINE a couple of weeks ago showed the many weak points that I haven't seen before, due in large part to Craig's sincere performance, but TWINE still had that Bond swagger so to speak, that even the weakest of the series had, just as the literary Bond at its weakest rendered a unique kind of flair over most popular fiction writers. I think it's easy enough to work in a Fleming plot into the script, when the filmmakers want to, down to the very lines, but the soul and style of Fleming's writing does not automatically carry over. Some one can point out, "but in CR and QoS, they do this, this and that... " but in the end, it just doesn't do it.
You have completely nailed it on the head. Craig is a fantastic actor (clearly), and is being surrounded by great actors with a production team clearly intent on raising the quality of the series.
Unfortunately, CR or QoS still lack that spark that makes it a true authentic Bond experience. Sorry, but "I can't seem to find the uh, stationary. Could you come help me look?" is not my idea of how Bond should seduce a woman.
That last bit is indicative, to me, that words simply weren't necessary to complete the seduction, and the fact that both Bond and Fields laughed at those words was a very effective simultaneous acknowledgment that their sleeping together was a fait accompli B-)
For my own part, I am quite satisfied with the Craig Era so far. To me, the most important Fleming attribute Craig brings to the franchise is the physical punishment his Bond endures; this is very much in the spirit of the books, and quite different from the cinematic superhero of previous incarnations. Craig is the Bond who finally got the torture scene from CR---IMO, that's the moment when he took full and complete ownership of the role. Daniel Craig is the Bond who might actually get his pinky finger broken, as in the LALD novel, or have to use a blowtorch to cut himself out of ropes, or suffer the dreaded steam hose from MR. This is a brand new, heretofore untapped vein of Fleming gold that up to now has only been touched upon, and I sincerely hope that there's more of this to come before Bond #7 steps in to assume the tux...and hopefully after.
The Bond from the books isn't as unflappable and 'charming' as his cinematic alter ego, which is often forgotten (or at least disregarded) when comparisons between these two vastly different media are made. Is Craig Fleming's Bond? I once wrote an article here on AJB posing this question...
http://jamesbond.ajb007.co.uk/daniel-craig-the-literary-bond/
...and ultimately, of course, it's subject to individual interpretation. I think Craig is a very welcome bridge between novel and film---even if he's not an ideal servant of either one---and I look forward to the remainder of his Bond tenure with happy anticipation.
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
Interesting points.
Two things: I never (and still don't) got the "stationery" line. It is neither amusing nor sexy. It is frankly an annoying misnomer of a line, a bit like the infamous "delicatessan" sentence in FYEO.
If anything, this is the moment Bond-Fields relationship is solidified. A line more akin to "Tell me why M sent you here again?" would be more appropriate.
Fields is murdererd rather nastily for what appears no particular reason. It is a bit mean of Bond to leave her at the mercy of Greene's party though. Problem is, the audience has to work all this out; not even a subtle hint in sight.
The writers seem to take Bond's cruel nonchalence too far.
As re: CR torture scene...
effective as it was, why is it played for laughs among the viciousness? Craig saying things like, "A have an itch, can you scratch it?" or whatever hardly raised a ripple of laughter from the cinema audience I watched it with. I know we are meant to be shown that Bond is a pretty tough guy, but I don't think he has to make jokes when his testicles are being thumped to billy-o. Come on, 007 hardly flinched when he was about to be cut in half by a laser beam and Goldfinger had all the funny lines in that scene.
The torture in CR harks back to Wade and Purvis' other rather effective bit of Bondage, TWINE's antique chair, where Brosnan swaps one-liners with Elektra.
Not entirely sure where I am going with this as I seem to be slipping off topic.
Perhaps it just sums up my dissatisfaction with Craig's era.... everything's going off-topic.
I agree with Loeffs, that the gist is that Bond is such a ladykiller, let's dispense with the formalities shall we? Let's cut to the chase. But it also can seem a bit desultory. It's like, Bond has to sleep with someone at this point or he wont' get laid in the film, maybe the writers didn't get a chance to fill it in. There's certainly no clever writing in terms of a spark between the two of them up to that point, in fact you could argue it's remarkably similar to the Brosnan seduction of Jinx in DAD, which is kind of 'Hey good looking, I'm good looking too, let's get it on' where the audience is left feeling like a gooseberry, not even getting the forestaste of a bit of decent wit and flirtation before the leads get to it.
I see Loeffs point about Craig taking physical punishment - well, you wouldn't want to get in a fight with him would you, he's uglier than you -
The joke in the torture scene, I sort of got but the dialogue didn't quite fit like a glove for me, any more than the 'little finger' joke, it seemed a bit actress said to the bishop to me but there you go.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Bond's defiance in the torture scene---cracking a joke whilst in agony---is simply the character's sardonic fatalism taken to the extreme, and it's done to provide a bit of relief in a groundbreaking and otherwise fairly shocking moment in Bond history. It actually got a very positive reaction in the room when I saw it, and IMO it leaves Brozzer's 'one last screw' in the dust in terms of effectiveness. But that's more subjective taste than anything.
One thing about dissatisfaction with a particular era's Bond---it doesn't really go away, in most cases. It might be lessened, slightly, on a picture-to-picture basis...but there will always be a number of nagging annoyances in each of the actor's films...and if a Bond doesn't work for a particular fan, it won't work until the Bond actor changes. Exhibit A: Roger Moore
That said, Eon's challenge in following up CR and QoS cannot be overstated.
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
For me CR was a complete write-off that failed as entertainment on almost every level. I've written volumes on what I hate about that movie but at the end of the day it struck me as a pretentious entry that went out of its way to the point of distraction to show everyone how much more grown up and different it was than its predecessors.
QoS fares better; despite its overt ties to CR it is still a more recognizable James Bond movie to me with a better cast and more interesting story. Bond himself isn't nearly the incompetent screw-up he was in CR.
Craig's Bond has shown improvement between CR and QoS but continues to be a tough sell for me. He has too big a fatalistic streak to him and his interactions with other characters are often stiff and wooden, his attempts at humor usually fall flat. I also don't care, nor will I ever care for making him a rookie 00 and robbing him of his history and experience.
I don't care at all for how M has been handled with the producers essentially turning her into Bond's surrogate mother who feels the need to constantly appear, assess his performance and seemingly second-guess his every movie. I miss the exchanges with Moneypenny and Q, which always succeeded to bring a respite and bit of fresh air between the bouts of bloodletting. Even Bond's interactions with secondary characters like Tanner and Leiter still don't feel right to me; Tanner being a complete non-entity (I didn't even know it was supposed to be Tanner until my brother pointed it out to me) and Leiter coming across as a jaded cynic, especially in QoS.
The lack of fantastic stunts and cool gadgets has really gone a long way to reducing Bond to just another generic action hero in the last couple of films and he doesn't stand out from the crowd to the extent that he used to. I'm sure the decision to go that route was due as much to controlling costs as it was a creative one but it has lessened the mystique of the Bond universe for me. It is no longer 15 minutes ahead of the real world; it now struggles just to keep up.
Are the films worthless? Of course not. They are well made productions for what they are. But do they approach the best that Connery, Moore, Brosnan and even Lazenby gave us? Nope, not even close for me.
I keep waiting to see a little more of the Bond I grew up with...maybe next time.
Come to think of it I'm sick of cell phones and attempts to make pictures"edgier"
I'll restrict my opinion of QOS to one sentence. Watching it gave me a migraine.
I'm really interested in what we see after this two movie story arc. My answer, Ye.No.
"Your contact?" "Not well."
Introduce yourself in Comings and Goings on Off Topic so we may get the measure of you....
(Kidding, welcome chum, a bit lengthier on the posts on this site though, we're not mi6.co.uk)
Roger Moore 1927-2017