There’s something formulaic to the big screen iteration of James Bond which, on the face of it, ought to make an apparently educated man like me give up on them and devote more time to cinema for grown-ups. But I must confess that 007 remains an addiction I feel unlikely to break free of.
With the 25th and delayed entry, ‘No Time To Die’ due in cinemas on November 12, I’ve found myself approaching the end of Daniel Craig’s time in the tux with a sense of relief rather than anticipation.
Craig has held the Bond mantle two years beyond Roger Moore’s lengthy helm, which in hindsight should clearly have ended prior to ‘Octopussy’.
Craig may have played Ian Fleming’s famed creation on two less occasions than the beloved Sir Roger but no single Bond should be ensconced for as long as any Irish President can occupy that particular office. And having Bond exploring his past, tolerable in ‘Skyfall’ but utterly unnecessary in ‘Spectre’, with our hero also apparently hating his time on Her Majesty's Secret Service, feels like a major misstep.
Fourteen years as Bond is a long, long time for any one actor to be associated with the role, although one wonders what would have become of a 23-year-old Timothy Dalton had he succeeded Sean Connery given that he ultimately assumed the role aged 41.
And what a Bond he was, unfortunately limited to just ‘The Living Daylights’ and ‘Licence To Kill’, the latter which has been welcomingly championed among the online Bond community in recent years. As Robert Davi (Sanchez) has noted, ‘LTK’ enjoyed better box office receipts outside the United States than either ‘Batman’ or ‘Lethal Weapon 2’.
Six years passed between ‘LTK’ and ‘Goldeneye’ which is, by some distance, Pierce Brosnan’s most entertaining and enduring outing during his four-movie run; the interim being a legally entangled period which threatened to knock off Bond, something no villain has yet etched into a CV.
Aged 16, seeing Bond on the big screen was a genuine thrill. Funnily enough, this wasn’t my first cinematic experience with the character.
In 1983, aged just four, I sat in the Regina Cinema in Waterford for the first time (I can still recall a ‘Jaws 3’ poster in the lobby) with my siblings and English cousins for ‘Never Say Never Again’.
I can’t remember a great deal of it – later discovering it wasn’t an ‘official’ Bond movie was a revelation. Discovering that Rowan Atkinson was among the cast was an even bigger eye-opener in addition to Irvin Kershner’s (‘The Empire Strikes Back’) directing of it. Indeed, the only detail I can recall from that first viewing was Sean Connery - whom I’m pretty sure I remember thinking looked very old - in scuba gear.
But I must have spent most of that movie chatting – something I’d scoff at now in my middle age – the chattering child, I mean; I’ve barely stopped talking since, let’s face it. And what are the odds of a four-year-old getting into a Bond screening nowadays?
But 12 years later, seeing Bond (Pierce Brosnan) fixing his tie having just ploughed a T-55 tank through a wall in St Petersburg was just magnificently satisfying. It was big, loud, incredibly silly and a whole lot of fun. It was Bond being Bond - not Jason Bourne.
There was more than a hint of Connery and Moore at work in Brosnan’s take on Bond, although his killing of Elektra King (Sophie Marceau) in ‘The World Is Not Enough’ was Dalton-esque in the decisiveness of the act. The clinical nature of the kill, followed by Bond’s kissing the lifeless King, gave a glimpse of the edgier Bond that the scripts for the Brosnan movies largely ignored.
And it’s no coincidence that both Brosnan and Craig’s best outings were their respective debuts in the role, both directed by Martin Campbell. Some directors ‘get’ Bond and Campbell, just like Terence Young, Lewis Gilbert and John Glen, married the character’s killer/lover blend better than anyone else.
Sam Mendes, clearly a brilliant movie and theatre director, may well have marshalled the financial behemoths of ‘Skyfall’ (beautifully shot by Roger Deakins) and ‘Spectre’ but pursuing Bond’s past feels like a mis-step.
One hopes a course correction for the character emerges when Craig’s successor is introduced to the world’s press, with a renewed sense of fun running through both the character and the storyline – but not to the more pantomime excesses of the Moore era, mind you.
“The blubbery arms of the soft life had Bond round the neck and they were slowly strangling him,” writes Ian Fleming in ‘From Russia With Love’, which I recently read, thus beginning my journey into Bond’s literary origins.
“He was a man of war and when, for a long period, there was no war, his spirit went into a decline. In his particular line of business, peace had reigned for a year. And peace was killing him.”
Whatever fortunate soul gets to write Bond 26, he or she could do themselves a favour by pondering on those particular lines of Fleming’s. Perhaps my future Bond adoration will predominantly lie in the printed word while undoubtedly still retaining interest in the movies, whatever direction they may take.
Either way, I’m glad to have James Bond in my life. Just like many a villain he’s ultimately seen off, I doubt if I’ll ever get rid of him. And I’m perfectly fine with that.
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