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Obviously we all judge things differently, but I wouldn’t compare any Bond film to the likes of American Beauty.
Yes, I liked that it wasn't afraid to be fantastic, and I think it worked well. I just wish it had embraced a bit more silly here and there, or had a bit more wit. I've said it before so may be repeating myself so apologies, but partly I think the reason the Bond theme almost never got played is because the film never earned it. He didn't walk over the arm of a digger into a train, he didn't surf a plane fuselage down a ski slope. He just drove an old Toyota and bashed it into things. Y'know: Bond.
You can't really have a Bond film without a mystery. Fleming's novels were partially inspired by Raymond Chandler books and Bond functions similarly to a hardboiled detective in how he investigates what's going on/how he attains information and pieces things together - it's literally baked into the DNA of the 'Bond formula'. The only difference is whether the audience are made aware of the villain's plan before Bond or along with him.
I agree. It skewed towards fatalism and those 'darker' ideas, especially in the latter half, but I generally liked how everything was brought together. It has some of the darkest moments of the series (like I've said a few times now the opening and the SPECTRE agents being 'nanoboted' seems straight out of a horror film) alongside some notably breezy and lighthearted moments.
The Fleming novels generally have that effective mixture of serious and fantastic, but arguably integrated together a lot better. Bond can fight a giant squid inside a weird super villain's lair but it feels genuinely real - there's a sense that despite its otherworldliness everything is grounded and our hero genuinely gets badly wounded. I do wish the films could harness that properly - y'know, give us that sense of otherworldliness/fantastical escapism while grounding it in some form of plausibility.
That's a good way of putting it. I get the sense some people think Fleming's Bond novels are simply 'down to earth' or at least all are in the vein of CR. There's some pretty wild stuff in there. DN ends up playing out like this strange fairy tale (albeit with a mechanical 'dragon' and a villain with metal 'pinchers' for hands), LALD has all these references to voodoo and fortune tellers... there's countless other examples but the novels genuinely felt like Bond was in these exotic, unusual and strange environments, often with the villains creating their own little worlds.
That's why I like the Cuba sequence in NTTD so much. It felt like Bond was stepping into that type of place. Again, I do hope the films are able to harness that sense of outlandishness while grounding it in a much more human, Fleming-esque way.
There's a story about when The Big Sleep was being adapted. Howard Hawks and his writers had to hold long, rather drawn out meetings to try and work out the plot of the book. Turned out no one was entirely sure who killed a certain character. They wired Chandler and he claimed he had no idea either. So yeah, I'd say you're right. Fleming's novels do tend to prioritise the climaxes though just because they're meant to be more 'pulse racing' and action filled. I get what you mean though: why the drawn out mystery of Blofeld/Bond's past, of Safin's to a lesser extent? etc. Bond doesn't really do all that much investigating either - he knows who Blofeld is and Safin's backstory is revealed pretty quickly without his efforts.
If anything I'd like to see Bond function as that detective-like figure in Bond 26. Again, slowly uncover these odd characters and this hidden world.
That’s what I mean when I say a well written plot where characters intention are valid, credible, interwoven and revealed in a manner that builds and milks suspense.
The last three films were more focused on reveals with minimal set up and ambiguity, just like the second half of GoT, that half show runners wrote themselves.
Reservoir Dogs is a great example of how to unveil a mystery, as is GoT season 1. Snatch is a great example of how to develop a story with a premise that is fully clear to the audience.
Even if CR and QoS made the investigation secondary, they handled it very well.
The train sequence in FRWL is tense specifically because we know the blonde dude is a double agent in advance. Different setups aren’t fatal if you adhere the rest of your decisions to them.
I also enjoyed how CR didn't follow the normal three act adventure structure.
Not sure if the reverse is true.
Ah, who killed Owen Taylor? Maybe the most fascinating plot hole of crime fiction history. Nobody knows for sure, but many have an idea. In my old American literature course in college we had a huge and sometimes fiery debate about it.
Off topic, but I suspect Vivian. I think Marlowe suspected her too.
If that's what his audition would look like his supporters must be cringing.
That's the one! I do find it funny that in theory the film adaptation could potentially have come up with an explanation but just... didn't, at least from what I remember. As you said though, the strengths of these stories are in the investigation.
https://www.myleaderpaper.com/lifestyles/entertainment/barbara-broccoli-prince-william-perfect-candidate-for-james-bond/image_79e7b201-dd74-59eb-9f63-eb1a8015ac59.html
https://www.gq.com.au/entertainment/film-tv/next-james-bond/image-gallery/7e27e20a76916d758c15e76c22feb902?pos=8
My question with him and many of his generation: can he look manly without stubble?
https://www.esquire.com/uk/culture/a25723722/who-will-be-the-next-james-bond-an-in-depth-analysis/
Plenty of the regular names on this list
Those types of lists in publications like Esquire are rather useful because it gives a sense of who likely won't get the role. I'm actually surprised to see Jack Lowden starting to appear more and more in them (he was actually one of my second choice picks for some time, mainly from seeing him in things like Dunkirk and Benediction... ironically having seen clips of him in Slow Horses as an MI5 agent I'm not sure the interpretation of Bond he'd likely give in a modern film would suit the role).
You've quoted a post with a photo of him without stubble.
Interesting article. I do feel Esquire is jumping the gun as, to my knowledge, Eon hasn't exactly announced the next film yet. I'd love it if Eon were in the planning process of the next film, but I think I'll take Barbara at face value that it's going to take time.
Although it's fun to speculate on this forum and so forth, I gather the casual reader who glances at this article will be left under the impression B26 is coming out sooner than later.
Poor bastard.
She wouldn’t need to be Bond just the new 007.
Well she already was for a movie but no.
As I’ve said, I hope they don’t reject someone because they’re an “ obvious “ choice. TG : Maverick proved that there is a hunger for a film that harkens back to a character’s iconic roots.
Where? Are they behind the Clive Owen 2.0?
Exactly this. People are also increasingly sick of 'woke', whatever it's called, so 'left field trendy' choices wouldn't be appreciated by the grand public I reckon. Time to go back to the roots of Bond, which I have been advocating for way too many years as it stands. TG: Maverick has raked in over a billion, says enough.
People are sick of censorship and a shortage of endearing and humorous content not of ethnically ambiguous actors lol. Top Gun would have never succeeded in the box office if there had been any real competition.