It occurred to me over the weekend (on seeing some promotion for and some reviews of the DVD of QOS) that this movie has almost done for the Craig series what Licence to Kill did for Dalton's tenure as Bond. I was almost going to post a thread on the subject, but I think it can be dealt with here.
Consider: When Dalton took over the franchise, it had become tired, stale and parodic, with Roger Moore way too old for the role and the movies playing for laughs. Personally, I like Brosnan's swansong, Die Another Day, but many people felt that with the invisible car etc, his turn in the tux had also veered into self-parody. Brosnan was a lot younger than Moore was in 1985 (not to mention an infinitely better 007) but he was a middle aged man compared to Matt Damon's youthful assassin or Christian Bale's beginner Batman. Just as in the 1980s, action heroes like Indiana Jones, Rambo and Arnie's Commando made Bond look tired and creaky, the Bond of the noughties looked irrelevant alongside Bourne, Batman and even tv's Bauer.
Despite his short spell as Bond and the divisiveness he now provokes, Dalton's initial movie, The Living Daylights was enthusiastically received, as was his performance (something sadly often forgotten now). The general consensus was that he had given Bond back his credibility, was the closest actor to the Bond of Fleming's books and the best since Connery. Of course, I'm assuming all of you have long enough memories to remember that Craig received a similar, probably even more effusive, response after Casino Royale.
With the new darker and grittier Bond having proven so popular, Eon decided to make Dalton's second movie darker and grittier still and to throw away much of the Bond baggage. Out went one-liners, Russian generals or madmen seeking world domination and (for the most part) the gadgets. The producers were influenced by movies like Die Hard and Lethal Weapon (indeed, Robert Davi, LTK's villain, was an FBI agent in Die Hard). In came realistic baddies - drug dealers - and a revenge story. Much like has been done with the most recent 007. In fact, the resemblances to QOS are legion: (SPOILERS FOR BOTH MOVIES ABOUND!)
- both are set in South America;
- both feature Bond seeking revenge (LTK, revenge for the death of Felix Leiter's bride and the mutilation of Leiter himself; QOS, revenge for Vesper Lynd's death)
- both start off with what might be called as the extraordinary rendition of a bad guy by Bond;
- each features a rather down to earth bad guy's plot - LTK's villains want to flood the market with their drugs, QOS's villains to take over a utilities company after a military coup. Not quite taking over the world!;
- both movies have Bond losing his licence to kill and scenes where he must evade capture by his own side;
- both movies climax with the villain's lair being set on fire;
- in LTK, Robert Davi tries to kill Bond with a machete, in QOS Mathieu Almeric swings at him with an axe;
- each villain meets his end in the desert;
- petrol/oil plays a part in the death of the villain in each movie. Davi's Sanchez is covered in it and immolated by Bond, while Green's autopsy reveals oil in his stomach, after Bond left him in the desert with nothing else to drink;
- Felix Leiter plays a pivotal role in each movie;
- In LTK, Bond is assisted by Sanchez' mistress and by a female CIA agent. In QOS, he is helped by a woman who also had a relationship with the villain and with a female British Intelligence agent;
- each features a scene with Bond at the helm of an out-of-control plane.
The response to each movie has by and large been that they have gone too far in stripping away the Bond-isms. One criticism of LTK was that it was like a feature length episode of Miami Vice - QOS has also been criticised for being a generic action movie and not feeling like a Bond movie. No gadgets, few one-liners, sparing use of the Bond theme, etc.
Of course, the main difference is that QOS was still a big hit, whereas LTK underperformed at the US box office (even if it did well in other territories). Poor Dalton got the blame for this, even though other should-have-been-surefire-hits sequels such as Star Trek V and Ghostbusters II also flopped in 1989 (the juggernauts of Batman, Indiana Jones and Lethal Weapon 2 pretty much mopped up the competition that year). With Bond having avoided summer blockbusters since Goldeneye's autumn opening, QOS faced no such opposition and was still a hit. So Craig is safe in the role, because money is the bottom line in Hollywood.
Still, I suspect that the producers will respond to the underwhelming critical and fan reaction to Quantum in how they make the next movie. It won't be Moonraker, it probably won't even be as traditional Bond as Goldeneye was (and I still hold that movie up as a bloody good example of how to relaunch a series, without recourse to the dreaded 're-boot'). But I think we'll get Q, we'll get Moneypenny, we'll get more humour (Bond has to get over Vesper's death at some stage), we'll get more girls and sex. And I don't think we'll be seeing any more of the Quantum organisation.
And hopefully we'll get more of James Barry's Bond theme!
Screams the blathering fanboy. I take it you want the return of the invisible car as well? IMHO, Craig surpasses Connery as the best Bond. Something I never thought I'd ever say in my life.
