"No Time to Die, and James Bond's Superhero Complex"

I just came across this article. 

"No Time to Die, and James Bond's Superhero Complex"

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a37871063/no-time-to-die-james-bond-superhero-complex/

Full article quoted below:

"The last three films have taken a turn into unimaginative terrain—by which I mean, into overt Batman territory—ultimately undercutting the qualities that make Bond exceptional in the first place.

James Bond has always, to a certain extent, been a superhero. While 007 may not have been bulletproof or leapt tall buildings in a single bound, his aptitude with a gun and high-tech gadgets and his talent behind the wheel of an Aston Martin marked him as a fantastical man of action, capable of taking down megalomaniacal villains and their wild henchmen without besmirching his tuxedo or spilling his martini. Whether in the dashing and rugged Sean Connery and Timothy Dalton outings, or the more outlandish Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan installments, Bond was an idiosyncratic (and, eventually, iconic) larger-than-life super spy who, in the face of cataclysmic global threats, got the job done with panache, wit and a playfully brash twinkle in his eye.

Alas, with No Time to Die (in theaters now), the fifth and final installment featuring Daniel Craig in the lead role, Bond has now conclusively become something else: a special agent cast in a decidedly familiar, modern superhero mold. Beginning with 2012’s Skyfall and continuing with 2015’s Spectre, this 007 run has sought distinctiveness through derivativeness, and the source of its inspiration has been the blockbuster comic-book movies that presently dominate the landscape. Taking a page or three from Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy as well as the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the films imagine Bond in rote terms that drain him of his vital uniqueness, and fashion a mythic interconnected narrative that doesn’t suit his fundamental spirit. In trying to hitch their post to current cinematic trends, they undercut the very qualities that make Bond so exceptional, and entertaining, in the first place.

When Daniel Craig made his debut in 2006’s stellar Casino Royale, his Bond was a breath of fresh air. A rampaging bull of an MI6 agent, he could play the part of a suave gentleman but, beneath his composed surface, was a bit closer to an angry brute. That ferocity both provided a novel twist for the protagonist, and helped sell his ensuing romance with Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), the beauty whose love could tame his beastly heart. Though this Bond looked good in evening wear while sitting across from adversaries at a Montenegro card table, and he won the hearts of virtually any female that came into his orbit, he was a new breed of 007, one whose muscular no-nonsense attitude was epitomized by the film’s combative opening chase sequence. It was an inventive new take on a well-established standard, and the fact that director Martin Campbell still delivered the glitz, glamour, and slam-bang set-pieces that fans craved made it one of the franchise’s all-time greats.

Since then, however, creative focus has wavered considerably. Quantum of Solace was a directionless mess full of convoluted plotting and even shakier camerawork, and immediately squandered much of its predecessor’s momentum. To most, its follow-up, Skyfall, was a triumphant course correction, and to be sure, director Sam Mendes’ chapter supplied the sort of bracing scale and style that the material deserved. Nonetheless, despite being the series’ most profitable entry to date (with a global haul of $1.1 billion), it was here that things took a turn into unimaginative terrain—by which I mean, into overt Batman territory. Bond, we learned, was a man tortured by his past, which involved growing up with a wise English caretaker (i.e. butler) at a remote mansion that was full of secret rooms where, as an orphaned child, he hid in order to deal with the trauma caused by his parents’ death. As if those parallels weren’t enough, it depicted Bond as a brooding, wounded crime-fighter who has to come out of retirement to battle a bold enemy (shades of The Dark Knight Rises). Skyfall boasts plenty of traditional Bond elements throughout, but in myriad respects—including its grim-dark atmosphere—Mendes’ film resides in the shadow of Nolan’s Caped Crusader trilogy.

Such imitation wasn’t simply depressing in its own right; it felt inherently wrong for Bond, running counter to his persona. While it was reasonable to try to make the decades-old spy more complex, there are limits to how far the Bond template can be stretched. Which is to say, if Bond becomes a sullen, agonized, vicious bruiser tormented by guilt and loss, he’s not really Bond anymore. Whether one takes as their standard Connery’s roguish charmer, Moore’s cartoonish ladies’ man, or Brosnan’s debonair do-gooder, Bond is a character whose appeal stems from his witty, charismatic, ****-of-the-walk confidence in circumstances both dire and romantic. No matter the degree to which particular personality traits are emphasized, he is—by his very nature—sexy, sturdy, self-possessed, a little silly, and most of all, fun. It’s no surprise that Craig’s patience with his Bond duties has waned over the years.

Skyfall’s success, however, made such complaints largely moot, proving that a contemporary superhero approach was a means of maintaining franchise relevance. Consequently, Spectre (also helmed by Mendes) retained the dour tone and added an MCU twist—namely, a retconning plot bombshell which revealed that the events of the Craig-led sagas were all connected, courtesy of master baddie (and Bond half-brother!) Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Christoph Waltz). Tying together those previously stand-alone ventures into a serialized narrative thus finalized Bond’s transformation into a British Avenger, which the filmmakers undoubtedly assumed would further enhance his—and the series’—grand, rousing eminence. The effect, though, was the opposite, burying Bond beneath mounds of ill-fitting emotional and psychological baggage, as well as tangling him up in a vast multi-movie conspiracy that reduced him to just another big-screen badass navigating a web of deceit, treachery and apocalyptic peril.

It’s no surprise that Craig’s patience with his Bond duties has waned over the years, since the series has largely drained the character of the individuality that made him popular in the first place. That reaches its zenith with No Time to Die, which leans so heavily into Spectre’s mythology (and attendant romantic and familial hand-wringing), and away from Bond trademarks, that it forgets to do the basic things a Bond movie must, like stage memorably spectacular centerpieces, exude some breathless sexuality, or exhibit a trace of humor. Instead, we get a Bond-Blofeld meeting that’s right out of The Dark Knight playbook, a dully crazy villain (Rami Malek) who shares a deep, bleak history with Bond’s girlfriend Dr. Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux), and so much pining for escape, atonement, forgiveness and love that director Cary Joji Fukunaga and company lose sight of Bond’s essential, lighthearted magnetism.

This isn’t a plea for merely rehashing the Bond of yesteryear; reinvention has long been the name of this franchise’s game, and there are definitely a few things about the classic Bond—namely, his casual sexism—that are best left in the past. Nor is it to suggest that Bond should forever stay a two-dimensional hero with no real inner life or room for growth. Yet it is an argument in favor of returning the character to some semblance of his intrinsic self. Bond has endured on the big-screen since 1962 precisely because of his winning combination of macho toughness, elegance, poise and cheekiness. He’s a figure defined by his ability to laugh and quip in the face of danger, to effortlessly shoulder the fate of the world, to woo any knockout whom he encounters, and to be the calmest, most collected, and coolest person in the room, be that a swanky soiree or the torture chamber of an evil stronghold. Without those virtues, he’s someone else.

At the conclusion of No Time to Die, Craig’s 007 completes his conversion into a noble, angsty, Dark Knight-esque martyr. In doing so, he cements his legacy as the most self-serious—and least authentic—of all the big-screen Bonds. Where he goes from here is anyone’s guess, since speculation remains rampant about who’ll next assume his license to kill. But no matter the new path undertaken, one hopes that what comes next is—for the sake of the character’s, and series’, identity—something a little more old-school."