Call it irony,if you will. Watching the opening scene of the 21st installment of the latest James Bond flick, I was struck by a scene from an earlier big-budget actioner that was,in essence an homage to Agent 007. I refer to James Cameron's True Lies, the Schwarzenegger vehicle that told of a super-spy trying to keep his true occupation a secret from a long-suffering wife.Not it's plot thread,which was ripped off by last summer's "Mission Impossible 3" along with its famous bridge blowing scene. I refer,specifically to a brutal bathroom brawl between the Governator and an Arab terrorist. After clobbering the swarthy killer,Arnold proceeds to bash him repeatedly on the head with a hand-dryer ripped from the walls and then ramming him head-first into a urinal. A scene whose brutality is tempered in the very next second by Arnold turning on the urinal tap and quipping to the now comatose assailant "Cool Off!". It's the sort of throw away line Bond, in his various incarnations as Connery,Lazenby,Moore,Dalton and Brosnan would have tossed of with insouciant panache.And yet, Casino Royale, which opens with a similar brutal fight between Bond's 6th Avatar,Daniel Craig and an unnamed antagonist in an anonymous Men's Room,offers no such relief. The scrape ends viciously when Bond drowns him in a sink.The man slinks down to the floor, Bond looks at him and ...nothing. Just grim exhaustion etched on his face.
So, we've come full circle in the now 43 year old franchise. The Bond films,once the hall mark of big budget,high testosterone action, then widely imitated( and subsequently parodied) by movies which upped the budget and boosted its testosterone level by substituting humour with increasing levels of violence,now have to ape its successors' rough-edged brutality to stay current.
That the opening scene is shot in black and white and DOES NOT begin with the famous Opener of Bond staring down a gun barrel to John Barry's signature surf-guitar laced theme is the first warning shot director Martin Campbell fires at you,signalling loud and clear, that this Bond is a very different creature indeed. It's a Back to Basics approach, this Bond re-tooled and re-jigged for an audience far more accustomed to the travails of that other spy who shares his initials. It's James Bond for the Jason Bourne crowd,a Batman Begins-style franchise Re-Boot that not so much invigorates it as wipes it clean of Memories of Bonds Past.
Forget what you know of Bond, is what Campbell tells you. This is a Bond who,as the movie opens has just earned his 00 Licence to Kill via the bathroom and another less messier kill (it takes 2 you see) .As embodied by Craig's tough visage and sapphire blue eyes,this Bond is in the words of M(a returning Judi Dench) "a blunt instrument",a killer just earning his stripes but at this stage already demonstrating the steely determination to get his prey at any cost, as a virtuoso action set piece that opens the film post credits demonstrates superbly.
In Madagascar,Bond gives chase to a bomb maker on foot, not an easy task as his quarry is an expert in the sport known as "parkour" or free running, dodging,jumping and vaulting over obstacles with effortless ease. As choreographed by the actor playing the bomb maker,Sebastian Foucan, it's a stunner of an action set-piece, 100% stuntwork undiluted by CGI.As Foucan clambers over walls,construction sites and mile-high cranes, Bond keeps up a relentless pursuit,ending in an embassy where he cold-bloodedly executes his prey and blows up the building for good measure. That he overlooks the numerous security cameras which lovingly record his "wet work" is the first intimation this James Bond is a diamond in the rough,albeit one who even at this early stage demonstrates the type of collossal cheek we all love,by breaking into M's apartment no less!
Given a dressing down and sent to the Bahamas where he continues to track down the bomb makers contacts, Bond worms his way into the confidence(and arms) of Solange,wife of the shadyAlex Dimitros, and discovers Dimitros' plot to blow up an airliner,which he promptly foils after another explosive action scene. The plane's failure to go up in flames puts La Chiffre,Dimitros's boss, firmly in the red. The fact that the money used by La Chiffre,international "banker to the terrorists", to speculate against the airlines' stocks comes from a homicidal Ugandan warlord means the money must be recovered in record time, leading to a prolonged poker match in Montenegro held in the titular casino where he hopes to win back the lost moolah, and where Bond must beat him at the game to stop that happening.
The fact that La Chiffre(played with oily relish by Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen) is not some megalomaniac bent on world domination and is instead a shadowy money man is one of the movies' numerous nods to gritty realism, as is its penchant for putting Bond through ordeals that see him getting punched,kicked,slashed and in the movies' most uncomfortable scene,brutally tortured,his Cojones getting a wince inducing workover.
This Bond is a Bleeder who gets cut and scars that are still visible several scenes later,an effective kiss-off to the perrenially unruffled Brosnan.Thankfully for us, he's also a Bruiser who gives as good as he gets and the movies single biggest success is in depicting his ice-cold determination and pig-headedness that would make him MI6's most lethal weapon in future adventures. Bond may,at this stage, be uncomfortable wearing a tuxedo and NOT give a damn whether his vodka martini is shaken or stirred,but can still brutally dispatch assssins,change his shirt and resume play. He's poisoned to have a heart attack,but is still resourceful enough to stumble to his Aston Martin, retrieve a de-fibrillator from the glove compartment,get shocked back to health,get back to the table and quip "Sorry but that last hand almost killed me".
Bond afficionados,used to ticking off items on the Bond Checklist had best prepare toUN-check a few of them this time around.
With Moneypenny and Q nowhere in sight, Bond is largely Infatuation and Gadget free although the ubiquitous use of cell phones and laptops more than compensate in the latter department. Just don't hold your breath hoping to see the Aston Martin DBS go invisible.
The Babe quotient is way low on the Bond Shag-O-Meter starting from the Female Silhouette free opening credits to 007 only sowing his wild oats with the main Bond Girl, Vesper Lynd played by the beautiful Eva Green, and its not a one night stand but a full blown love affair,one that is tainted by treachery and sets the tone for Bond's rakish behaviour with subsequent women.
Both Craig and Green walk away with honours; one for invigorating Bonds' iconic persona with a rough-hewn and complex edge, the other for giving us one of the most fully realised Bond Girls ever to strut across 007's field of vision, and she does it without once donning a bikini!Vesper is intriguing,smart,complex and vulnerable, the last adjective being the only one previous Bond girls could lay claim to.
There are jarring tones: the movie goes on a good 30 minutes more than it should,made more difficult by the protracted romance sub-plot coming right after the protracted poker game before getting back to familiar territory in an action-packed finale set in a rapidly sinking Venetian mansion.And the odd bleeding eye aside, Mikkelsen's La Chiffre lacks the singularity that marks your traditional Bond Baddie.
Still, the odd discordant note in no way ruins this Re-Energised Symphony of Action,Sex and Exotic Locales.
As the final scene unspools and Bond stands over his fallen enemy and finally mouths the line we've been waiting a 144 minutes for: "The Name's Bond,James Bond" and the Signature Bond theme, heard only in teasing snatches throughout finally erupts into it's Full Throttle Orchestral Roar,we sigh with relief and say, "Indeed you are. Welcome back 007. Looking forward to your 22nd outing"
BOND BEGINS!
