Oddly I think Craig was at his best since Casino Royale here. He seems to be the direct opposite of the usual Bond actor; they usually wind up moaning that the films don't give them a chance to do "Proper" acting and develop the character. Craig on the other hand, as a self confessed Sir Rog fan, has always given the impression in interviews he'd rather be shooting lasers in space and doing "I thought Christmas only came once a year" jokes.Warcry wrote:That's sort of the problem, though. The script was highly silly but nobody seems to have informed the actors or director of that fact, as they seem to have done their absolute best to take the thing 100% seriously. Craig himself is a big part of the issue, because he does a great job of making Bond a brooding, world-weary hollow shell of a secret agent but his portrayal of the man just doesn't fit in a movie where he slaloms down a mountain in a wingless plane or deploys flamethrowers from a sportscar.
I think the tailers might actually have helped with the mixed reception by promoting it as a completely different kind of film. They made it look like it was going to be another Very Serious Bond and instead we got the most unashamedly fun one since Tomorrow Never Dies. And yeah, that and ones like Octopussy don't tend to top anyone's favourites list but they're still a great watch.
You might say that... nobody does it better.Oh, don't pretend you don't love it.
Nah, I think you're making it more convoluted than it really was. Quantum/SPECTRE (actually, let's just call it The Organisation when talking specifically about CR so as not to get confused by the subsequent retcons) definitely didn't set Bond and Vesper on Le Chiffre, Bond finds out about his involvement before the airbus bomb fails so there would have been no need for them to set a trail for him to follow because his original plan hadn't gone tits up yet.I never got the impression that Le Chiffre was a member of Quantum, though. Did they say that in QoS?
He worked for them in the same way that he worked for the African lunatic with the machete, I thought, laundering and investing their money. But it felt like he was an independent contractor rather than a part of their group. That's the only way the plot of the movie makes sense. They arranged for Bond and Vesper to go there under the assumption that they'd win and Quantum could make off with the cash, then killed Le Chiffre for his initial cockup that lost them their money to begin with.
If Le Chiffre was one of their own, then the whole thing winds up being a very overcomplicated scheme that ends with them burning one of their own operatives for failing at a plan that they actively ensured couldn't succeed.
So Le Chiffe, on behalf of his organisation, takes the money from the African guy (who it's reasonable to assume doesn't know much about the bigger organisation considering he goes straight to Le Chiffre for his revenge) and invests it in shares designed to gain in value once the airport disaster happens.
Then when Bond kills the original bomber hired for the event and gets his phone, he's able to follow the trail, find out about the Le Chiffre connection and stop the bombing.
This failure makes Le Chiffre desperate (and perhaps one aspect of the book that isn't made clear in the film is he's so desperate he still goes ahead with the card game even though he knows SIS, CIA and Deuxième Bureau are all on to him and in the room) enough to organise the card game before either the African catches up with him or his own people take him out for the massive failure.
They know MI6 are sending someone (presumably because "We're everywhere!" as we subsequently learn), and Le Chiffre arranges for Vesper's boyfriend to be grabbed (retconned by the following film) so they can have an insider who can be forced to try and stop Bond interfering.
When this fails, the organisation have had enough and send someone to kill Le Chiffre and arrange to use Vesper to get their money back (one area it improves on the book as it means Mr. White has a reason not to kill Bond, the SMERSH man in the novel doesn't kill him because he doesn't have orders to).
All fairly straightforward and ends with doing for "Organised Nebulous Terrorism" what the book did for SMERSH as far as Bond is concerned: These bastards have to be made to pay.
That's why I still think CR is comfortably the best Craig still, the plot works, very few holes in there. As you'd expect for a story that has its core based on something Ian Fleming tried (and failed) to do for real during the war.
Indeed, it's hard to think of the last Bond film before it that has a plot that works as well... Licence to Kill I suppose, whatever that film's other flaws everything flows logically and there's a sensible approach taken to Bond's taking down of Sanchez.
I would guess the relative failure of The Man From UNCLE would stop them considering that for the present. Plus a 60's set Bond would always struggle to escape from the shadow of the Bond films actually made in the '60's. Plus imagine the budget needed to recreate all those period foreign locations! SPECTRE is, amazingly, already the joint most expensive film ever made and they only had to film places that were already there for the most part.A part of me hopes that after Craig is done, they'll stop with the whole "updated for the modern world" thing and just make a bunch of period films set in the 1960s. Complete with evil Russkies, sinister SPECTRE agents and the whole shebang.
On a similar topic, I was surprised to read the explosion of the SPECTRE base is apparently the biggest boom ever done for a film. It really doesn't feel like it does it?
It was an attempt to introduce some Ian Fleming level bigotry by suggesting Mexicans don't wash.I'd assumed the same thing, that the ring had had all of their DNA on it. But that doesn't make any sense, since several of those men died nine years ago now and I'm pretty sure the guy Bond killed would have washed his hands a few times since then.
The real question is, what is going on with train drivers in the Craig films? The chap at the start of Skyfall keeps on going even though the entire rear of his train is being destroyed, and here Bond and Madeline get let off at their stop as if they haven't just been involved in a massive fight that wrecked this expensive old train.Makes as much sense as anything, I suppose. Especially since this movie tells us that your country is an Orwellian police state!
I know! I mean, I only looked up Blue is the Warmest Colour to check out Seydoux's acting talent prior to the film and, as it's a three hour movie, of course I made do with the 20 minute highlights package avalaible on certain sites. Which certainly gave me an idea of her talent, but if David Cameron were to look me up now it would give him quite the wrong idea about me. And I wouldn't want him to have that.Seriously? That would be hilarious if it wasn't so backwards and wrongheaded. But then again, it is the same country that decided it knew better than it's people what pornography they should be allowed to access.
Pure SPECTRElation on my part, but I would guess they've started him off fairly low key so they have somewhere to go with him in terms of following his arc in the books where he starts off fairly normal, even dull by Bond villain standards and then completely loses his shit thanks to two consecutive massive defeats from Bond and winds up walking around his self made Japanese suicide garden dressed as a samurai.Well, if he does recur I certainly hope he shows a bit more interest in what's going on than he did in this movie. He was practically sleepwalking through it.
Oh, and whilst I can't see it being the title of the next one (three S titles in a row seems unlikely), Shatterhand (Blofeld's identity when hiding in Japan) would be a cool name for a future film.
I think the problem with Tanner is he's basically redundant to the films. In the books what usually happens is M gives the broader points of Bond's mission and then "Chief of Staff" takes over and briefs him on the exact specifics. Which makes sense--the head of MI6 really wouldn't have time to go over every detail of a mission with one agent, but the movie's streamlining it (as they did when they basically made Bond's succession of secretaries and Miss Monneypenny the same character) so M just handles it all himself moves things along quicker.You're talking about Robinson, right? He was cool enough as a background guy but I don't remember him ever actually doing anything. I only know his name because he was in one of the old N64 games.
Which leaves Tanner just sort of following M about with a puzzled expression and making suggestions that are immediately shot down like he's some sort of Worf.