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Maybe it's just the way things are – eventually people will get tired of any successful film franchise. It happened with the superhero genre when George Clooney pulled on the cowl in Batman and Robin, Brendan Fraser's Mummy went downhill after the first film; even the Star Wars prequels were beginning to tire. So what luck does an archaic, womanising British secret agent have at a time like this? Reboot, reinvent, update. And so did Bond.
Timothy Dalton may have dressed like an off-duty policeman, but when he appeared in the Living Daylights in 1987, we don't know if people were happier to see him or just plain relieved at having to not suffer the ageing Roger Moore anymore.
Superspy becomes dirty old man
Dalton's portrayal of the secret agent was different, for better or worse, from his predecessors. His Bond was a darker character compared to the suave, iconic secret agent that Connery created or the moronic, old womaniser that Moore tried to be in his seven outings as the British spy. George Lazenby's reluctant rendition of Bond (On Her Majesty's Secret Service) is too insignificant to deserve anything more than this passing mention.
Pierce Brosnan's Bond was a composite of the ones that Connery and Moore played, so he began well in The Goldeneye (1995) and ended becoming insufferable by the time he whispers, "I thought Christmas only comes once a year," to nuclear scientist Denise Richards in The World is Not Enough.
His last film Die Another Day (2002) was probably the worst Bond movie ever though it raked in more than any previous Bond film at $432 million till Casino Royale ($594 million) bettered it in 2006.
A new breed of spy
Funnily enough, 2002 was also the year that The Bourne Identity, the first of the Jason Bourne films starring Matt Damon hit the screens. Now this was a different animal altogether. Damon's Bourne was a complex character – cold-blooded yet vulnerable, a man totally driven by instinct. No gizmos, no fancy cars, no tuxedos for him.
Bourne improvised, fought like how real men fought (this is your cue to recall Moore trying clumsily to aim a kick at Sandors' belly in The Spy Who Loved Me) and had no time for corny one-liners or acting fresh with every woman that crossed his path.
The success of the sequel, The Bourne Supremacy and the emergence of Vin Diesel's XXX and Ethan Hunt (Mission Impossible series) introduced audiences to a younger, fitter, grittier hero – a break from the dated, cliché-ridden 40-year-old 007 films. It may have been the most successful series since Star Wars, but the material was going stale.
Granted, James Bond was a more well-rounded character – he was fashionable, played cards and tennis with well-heeled businessmen, travelled business class and looked like he spent time going through the grooming section of men's magazines. But at a time when audiences were being exposed to more realistic cinema, it seemed a bit ridiculous to have us accept a hero so rooted in the 60s.
The reboot
It was no surprise then that Eon productions announced a reboot of the Bond franchise and roped in Daniel Craig to play the British icon. Consider Casino Royale's brutal bare-knuckles action sequence in a Prague public toilet – Bond's first 'kill'.
Can you imagine any of the previous Bonds getting down and dirty in an action sequence like that? This was more Jason Bourne than James Bond.
Craig's character was younger, the action was gritty and grimy and the pace frenetic. And when Bond answers, "Do I look like I give a damn?" to an incredulous waiter who asks him if he wants his martini shaken or stirred, you knew the Bond franchise had changed forever.
To give you an idea of how things are going to change, run your eyes to the name of the assistant director on Quantum of Solace – Dan Bradley, the man behind the action sequences of the The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Identity.
So, is James Bond more Jason Bourne than Bond now? Graham Rye, the editor of the online magazine 007magazine.co.uk, and the author of the book James Bond Girls, certainly doesn't think so.
"If you're making a multi-million dollar state-of-the-art 21st century picture you want the best available talent that's around, both behind and in front of the camera. Dan Bradley is certainly someone who's at the top of his game. I don't think there's any other parallel other than that really. The new 007 pictures with Daniel Craig are certainly more grittier, and all the better for it, but the Bond series stands alone from any other kind of cinema whether that be Jason Bourne, Harry Potter or Star Wars."
Why fix it?
The franchise has changed. In Quantum of Solace, Bond never utters his trademark introduction – "The name's Bond, James Bond" – since director Mike Forster and script writer Paul Haggis felt that this was too dated. Rye explains, "The slightly tired ritual of watching a Bond movie, along with the banter between Bond and Moneypenny and 'Q', but it had all become rather corny and strained, and certainly unnecessary in a more realistically written script, which both Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace are, and which has more than a little to do with Paul Haggis being involved in both pictures."
Part of the reason why serious movie buffs have always scoffed at Bond films is that they tend to be formulaic – the familiar opening action sequence, the gadgets, the cars, the women, the villains and their henchmen. But Rye thinks that's what works for Bond.
"By their very nature the Bond films are formulaic. When that successful formula was first hit upon in 1962 and continued to work for many years after, the natural thought process in making those films must have been, 'If it 'aint broke why fix it!' which seems pretty sensible to me.
But I don't think anyone believed or could ever have imagined that the James Bond films would have still had audiences queuing to buy tickets 46 years later," defends Rye before adding, "Only by changing with the times have the producers kept these films alive, and it is to their credit that they took the very brave and bold step to reinvent the character in 2006 with Casino Royale, and with someone who I believe is the best actor to ever play Bond."
In the end, there's actually only one way to settle this – who would win in a face-off between Bourne and Bond? If this was in the 80s and we had Roger Moore's Bond slugging it out against Richard Chamberlain's Bourne, this would be a no-contest – Bourne all the way. But after Casino Royale, Daniel Craig's Bond might just take the fight to Matt Damon's Bourne.
Rye, understandably, disagrees. "No contest – Bond every time! Unlike Bourne, James Bond knows who he is inside and out, making him a much more stable and controlled character, and all the more deadlier because of it." However, video camera footage from the US consulate in Zurich that shows Bourne taking out the security chief and two armed guards in seconds may suggest otherwise.
Live the 007 life
The stunt
Recreate 007's jump from Goldeneye. Jump off the Verzasca dam wall in the south of Switzerland. The Lake behind the dam is the Lake of Vogorno, the closest city is Locarno. http://www.trekking.ch/eng/bungy/info_007.asp
The drive
Drive the 6.0-litre, V12 Aston Martin DBS. Now, available at Al Habtoor Motors. Dhs1.2 million. Call 04-2956232.
The dinner jacket
Bond now wears Tom Ford, but Savile Row has traditionally been where Bond goes for his dinner jacket. The Walk, Jumeirah Beach Residence, 04-4233813.
The escape
Being Bond is not only about the good life. Here's how you can recreate (for a fee), an escape from a former Soviet military prison. http://www.balticadventures.co.uk/
Soviet-Military-Prison/index.htm
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