'The Spectator' Article - The Heckler: Why it's time to kill off James Bond

TheWizardOfIce

AVB wrote: »

I'd prefer that suave agent to the current bisexual emo agent.

Hahahahahahahaha. Oh mercy.

On a serious note, the article is drivel. However, whenever people criticise Man of Steel, Star Wars NT, Indiana Jones and TKOTCS, or any remake of a film from their childhood, they are essentially saying; 'This is not like the film(s) I was raised on, therefore it's wrong'.

I hear that all the time. People can't get over themselves long enough to realise films aren't made to satisfy their boring little nostalgia trips. It's pathetic to read grown adults say shit like,'Bond is all about gadgets, cars, shooting bad guys and shagging Women'.

You might have a valid point if all the films you mentioned weren't absolutely awful.

Has anyone ever seen Mr Plinkett's in depth (ie feature length) reviews of the Star award prequels and Indy IV on YouTube. They really nail why these films fail and not just when viewed against their predecessors through the prism of nostalgia but as films in their own right.

thelivingroyale

ThighsOfXenia wrote: »

Based on the trailer alone, Kingsman looks like shit aside from Samuel L. Jackson's lisp.

I really enjoyed it. Trailers undersold it imo, it's nowhere near as cheesey as the trailers made it look. It wasn't as good as Kick Ass, or the best Bond films, but it was a fun, violent action film that did a good job at paying tribute to the spy genre. It also had one of the best action sequences I've ever seen, the church fight, and I thought the message behind it was admirable. I've seen some say it was very right wing and I guess I can see how it could be interpreted that way (I guess it could be seen as Eggsy leaving his working class life behind and joining the upper classes, and they did blow up Barrack Obama's head) but I thought thought the message of the film was meant to show that a normal working class kid is just as capable, just as intelligent and skilled (well actually moreso, since none of them made it through training) as the posh privileged rich kids, that anyone can make something of themselves if given the opportunity, and given how it showed that and condemned classism and snobbery, I thought it was a pretty liberal/left wing film, which I liked. Some apparently don't like it because the hero of the story is a chav which I think is pretty unfair, to dismiss a film based on the accent and background of the lead character. There's actually a good bit in the film where Eggsy asks Colin Firth if he's gonna teach him to speak "properly" and Colin Firth tells him that being a gentleman has nothing to do with your accent, and then says a quote, which I've forgotten, but which I really liked at the time.

It reminds me of Christopher Eccleston, when he took over as Doctor Who he kept his mancunian accent and he said he did that because people have associated having a posh RP accent with being clever, and he wanted to show that there was no correlation between accent and intelligence.

I don't mind the main character in Kingsman being chavy. I thought it was nice to have an English hero in a blockbuster film that didn't speak with a standard RP "British" accent.

TheWizardOfIce wrote: »

Although the guy does inadvertently make one slightly troubling point. Mexico are paying 14m to be 'portrayed positively'. Is this true?

I can live with product placement up to a point but a line has been crossed if apropos of nothing Bond pipes up saying 'What a lovely country with no poverty, crime or drug problem. I really can't understand why anyone would try to climb over the border in their thousands to leave this idyllic paradise.'

I believe that Mexico did pay to be featured but I've read the script and it's not really anything like your example so don't worry. I wouldn't say it's portrayed positively or negatively, it's just sort of there. Mexico City during a Day Of The Dead festival is the setting of the PTS and it just serves as a backdrop for the action really.