The good thing about the new James Bond film, Quantum of Solace, is that this time around people won’t be saying what a bad choice Daniel Craig was even before having seen the movie. That’s like saying John McCain would not make a good President before giving him a shot at it.
Personally, I thought Craig was fantastic as Bond in Casino Royale. His character was able to run the gamut of emotions, something we haven’t seen in Bond since Connery. (Moore’s hair never moved even when he was fighting people, and Lazenby wasn’t around long enough for anyone to care.) I might even go so far as to say Craig was as good as Connery. (Hear that? That’s the sound of Bond purists planning on never clicking on MonstersandCritics.com again after reading such rubbish. And since they’re mostly English they do say things like rubbish).
Casino Royale has become one of those movies that sucks you in no matter when you turn it on. I think I’ve seen the film about six or seven times now on cable. Whenever I’m flipping around after having watched some nudity heavy trash on Cinemax, I find Casino Royale and end up watching it until the end. Then I usually flip over to watch Top Design or Top Chef or some other show on Bravo where producers have managed to take the most boring concept possible and turn it into a competition.
The Bond producers managed to reinvent a franchise that was 40 years old in a way that made it both relatable and entertaining. I would think most of the credit is due to Martin Campbell. He has saved this franchise twice. The first time was when he directed Pierce Brosnan in Goldeneye and loaded the film with so much cool action Roger Moore wondered if he was too old at 68 to return for one more film where Bond could bed Jessica Tandy and fight Hume Cronyn. Goldeneye proved that Bond still had an audience if you delivered the goods. Casino Royale proved that Bond could actually have an audience and tell a great believable story.
This time around they have handed the reins to Marc Forster. He’s the well known director who made Finding Neverland and Monster’s Ball. Two films that don’t exactly scream franchise action pic. Maybe the Broccolis saw something in him and felt he could deliver a cool film. A lot of indie directors like Bryan Singer and Jon Favreau get hired to direct big budget movies, and hopefully Forster will bring something to Bond that we haven’t seen yet. But will he be able to deliver on the action front? (And by action I don’t mean Halle Berry and Billy Bob Thornton getting it on in Monster’s Ball). We’ll have to wait and see.
The truth is that James Bond films are always entertaining, even with ridiculously stupid plots that involve invisible cars like Die Another Day. It’s just nice to know that they were able to return a franchise that had gotten away from them to being both entertaining and believable. So when Quantum of Solace opens this week there is a good chance that I’ll be there with my Twizzlers and Coke awaiting the latest adventure that I’ve been following since I was a kid.
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