To celebrate the
DVD/Blu Ray release of Skyfall, and
the 45th anniversary of Daniel Craig’s eviction from the womb, I
take a look at the current state of James Bond.
If you watched 2008’s Quantum
of Sony Product Placement, you witnessed the ageing James Bond franchise
lose its battle with Alzheimer’s- finally forgetting everything that
makes a Bond film a Bond film. His sense of humour was the first thing to go,
quickly followed by many staples of our semi-centennial spy’s heritage; the gun
barrel intro, Moneypenny banter, Q gadgetry, coherently directed action, dodgy
double entendre. In this gritty post
9/11 era where no one can have any fun ever, Bond constantly struggled to stay
relevant.
Though Casino Royale
was his first decent film in years, he couldn’t say hand on heart it was a proper Bond film. He lurched around Quantum in a confused state, every
judiciously edited action sequence a perfect reflection of his fractured psyche.
In his final days, answering only to the name “Jason Bourne”, he kept mumbling
some bilge about jetpacks, cello skiing, space skirmishes and tsunami
surfing. He lived long enough to see his
previous adventures bestowed more politically correct titles like Dr No Smoking, Live And Let's Diet, Never
Say N***er Again and The World Is Not Diverse Enough. The traditional
post-credits “James Bond Will Return” seemed more like a misjudged epitaph, rather than a promise.
Then Skyfall was
released, to the tune of $1 billion worldwide box office and laden with superlative
reviews. Critical acclaim is frankly something new; like the family dog with occasional
bouts of faecal chafing, Bond has always been beloved, but never really
respected. I’m surprised that general audiences twigged Skyfall was a Bond film at all, being that the title is uniquely comprised
of two syllables and doesn’t have violent verbs like ‘Die’ or ‘Kill’ in it.
Thankfully Adele cleared up any outstanding confusion by crooning the word ‘Skyfall’
at least thirty times in her Oscar-winning theme song.
