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I was excited to buy the book to take on my vacation in the summer of 2008 and right off it just seemed more like fan fiction than a professional continuation of a Bond adventure set in the '60s with a stereotype villain with a physical deformity, a sport to test Bond and so on that smacked more of the expected formula of the film series than the tribute to Fleming as it was supposed to be. I finished the first few chapters, set it aside and have never to this day revisited.
Horowitz’s books feel like sincere attempts to make Bond thrillers, Devil May Care has the slightest whiff of an author sneering at the material and, ironically, failing to match up to it.
As to the question, I think on balance contemporary. I do really like historical fiction as a genre, having hindsight can be quite rewarding, it's one of the reasons I think Trigger Mortis is the best of Horowitz's run. I think with Bond especially, it's the same argument we have with the film series, they were written as contemporary thrillers and if want a 60s set Bond, I'll re-read Fleming rather than something that's 60 years divorced from that context.
I think it'll be interesting to see how Bond is handled in Hurricane Room, obviously he's going to be playing second fiddle to the other 00s but it'll be the first adult Bond since On His Majesty's in print, and there's First Light's new take a couple months before that. Exciting times.
It's one of the only things about the book that stuck with me. You get this weird twist where it's revealed the Bond girl is a 00 and, under M's orders, has been pretending to be involved with the main villain and posing as twins the entire time.
Personally, I find the implication that M's gone completely mad and is sending his agents on these weird (and rather pointless) side missions unknown to each other quite funny.
Would you rather watch Dalton's Bond get revenge in LTK Or Craig's Bond get revenge in QOS?
Many hold Tim's second movie in high regard. Bond isn't on a mission for Her Majesty. This time it's personal and Bond is undertaking a mission for a friend. This was the Bond movie that earned a 14A rating. It was a quantum leap from AVTAK in a short 4 years. This Bond movie broke the mold!
OR
The revenge movie from the Craig era. After the devasting loss of his love Vesper. Bond is full of steam and ready to avenge her death. Bond hunts down leads and it all leads to a mysterious organization called Quantum. This Bond didn't get the girl and didn't crack wise.
So which revenge based flick are you throwing on the TV?
This: folks misunderstand QoS by calling it a revenge film, but Bond keeps telling us he’s not out for revenge, and he doesn’t get it. He also doesn’t go rogue: “I never left”
License to Kill is great fun, and a MUCH better movie.
LTK.
The funny thing is that I think QOS is exactly what LTK was criticized for back in the day, but LTK is more Bond-like in my opinion.
She puts a stop on his cards but only because she doesn't trust him: he's doing nothing but his job at that point- she told him to follow the money and find the organisation and that's exactly what he does. He goes rogue for less than a minute, when he beats up all the MI6 guys in the lift and escapes- he then chats to M in the corridor and she realises he's onside and lets him do his job.
Quite why he never talks to M beforehand is a bit of mystery: maybe it's just his nature not to care what others think about him and doesn't think he can convince her or it's just not worth his time. Maybe it's actually a slight lack of respect thing for M at that point: he doesn't consider her opinion of him important- that he does later perhaps shows some growth in him. It could be better.
There's certainly a revenge theme, but Camille is the one who is out for revenge. Bond however is the one who says "the dead don't care about vengeance".
I don't love either film to be honest. Both QoS and LTK lack that certain Bond feel for me somehow; something's not there. And although LTK has a few elements I like and is written better than most Bond films in some ways (the action scenes actually have repercussions throughout the movie and what different characters know and don't know is vitally important all the way through- and adapting the 'Bond joins the villain's gang' plot from Fleming well) in others it's pretty clunky, with Della just existing because they didn't have the balls to kill off Felix, and being dispatched in an unnecessarily cruel way. QoS has more ideas in terms of what the story is about, it has actual themes and in parts is actually quite clever about that, but fails to form it all into something totally coherent, and it doesn't really end up having a very important storyline for Bond; even if Craig is a much more effective lead than Dalton for my money. Both films could be better directed too, although QoS is the one which gets actively damaged by the direction in parts.
License to Kill is more like a generic action flick, and I can understand people saying it doesn't feel like a Bond film. I remember it being on at the cinema, and there was hardly any buzz around it. Even the posters looked cobbled together quickly, compared to Daylights.
I love LTK, but it's always felt like 'cheap Bond' in a way, (which is ironic, seeing as he has more money in that film than any other!)
Sanchez though, brilliant villain. Even nastier when I saw the DVD version!
I think for all of QOS’s flaws, it’s actually quite a simple story. In many ways it’s too simplistic for all the ideas in there! The extent of revenge on Bond’s part is him finally discovering Yussief is alive and a honey trap agent (this is the only figure Bond can conceivably take revenge on, but apart from the implication he’s alive he really doesn’t go after him directly throughout the film). He sees how empty Camille is after avenging her parents, he concludes the dead don’t care about vengeance, and this reinforces him doing his job, presumably getting some solace in stopping any further cycle.
To be fair, LTK isn’t perfect either. You can tell it’s trying to reinforce this idea that Bond’s personal vendetta has consequences, but apart from the Hong King agents we get a pretty limp (and bizarrely invisible) subplot about stinger missiles and Pam investigating this or something. And then Bond just kills Sanchez and him and Leiter have a laugh over the phone. It reminds me of Batman ‘89 (which of course came out later the same year). The hero vows revenge, and there’s this implication we’re going to get some sort of turn in the story or beat which makes the character rethink something. But no, the hero just kills the villain and that’s it.
I don’t like the term ‘arthouse’ (we’re not talking about a David Lynch film here) but I think Forster has this weird tinge of artistic ambition in his direction. But it doesn’t work, and you get the sense he’s not quite able to tell the story. The cutting back to the horse race during the White interrogation is quintessential first year film school student nonsense (spoils a perfectly tense scene/performance with editing ‘tricks’).
Yeah I absolutely get what you mean, it does feel a bit cheap, even though I can't quite put my finger on why. The 'big lair' at the end feels very half-hearted, it's all set in the same place with locations rather than cool designed sets; I guess it's that sort of thing. Even though it's obviously a very expensive blockbuster!
Agreed on Sanchez too though: he's got the charisma to be a proper baddie and they even dare to make him oddly honourable and close to likeable at times (he actually makes more impression on me than Bond to be honest).
Yes, that's what I was driving at when I said it was clunky above. It's so straightforward, it kind of has nothing to say. The actual plot of how Bond goes about his mission is good, but the story of the characters is dull old stuff, and Bond doesn't really learn anything and neither do his friends change their opinion of him. The story of him basically betraying M and his duty is never addressed or even really resolved, and the film is named after it!
QoS on the other hand is at least trying to get to the bottom of something as regards the characters, and to say something about the themes it raises (it actually aligns more with FYEO on the whole 'dig two graves' stuff than it does LTK) even if it doesn't quite get there. It's a more thoughtful script.
Agreed; as I say, I think it might be the only Bond film where you could say it's actually badly directed; not least because some of the storytelling points just aren't really communicated to the audience, along with some of the action beats and jokes as we've discussed before- having moments which leave the audience wondering 'what actually happened there?' is not a good sign!
Some other Bond films might be directed with no flair, like LTK really (and I think it could really do with a lot more punch), but they only ever reach the low of being workmanlike, not actually poor, like this one.