FILM PREMIERE: Is the new Bond a beautiful corpse?

The 22nd Bond film to hit the streets is only the 2nd vehicle for Daniel Craig, the most recent screen incarnation of Bond. Quantum of Solace premiered in London yesterday, on October 29th, with both English crown princes, William and Harry, in attendance. Well, that's one way of assuring a good public turn-out in England. And who reaped the most screams from the little girl tree? Critics are already harping that Bond is dead, and Daniel Craig is a beautiful corpse. More action, less humour, darker, too hard-hitting, so their moans and groans.

Haven't we been through all this before, with the Timothy Dalton phase? In retrospect, the manner in which Dalton embodied Bond was actually quite good, and the films well made, they just weren't serving up the Roger Moore formula that people had gotten used to. Dalton should have been given another chance. But there you have it, with box office returns not on a par with expectations, he was dropped, and fed to the harpies. Then Pierce Brosnan finally became available, and the Bond films segued into a brilliantly written series of ironic, well-made and exuberantly sarcastic films, until Brosnan – the best Bond ever to grace this series – was torpedoed, and this high-flying phase ground to an abrupt halt, allegedly because of Brosnan's age. What a load of rot, Brosnan could have played Bond at any age.

Quite apart from that, an ageing Bond supervising and sending younger agents out into the field, perhaps even having to step into the shoes of M during an unforseen crisis – against his own will, of course – might very well have made for some fascinating psychological conflicts and scenarios.

To have Bond "grow up" need not necessarily mean forfeiting the escapism that used to be the most important ingredient of the series, and mixing both, plus a dose of dark humour, might very well work. It would of course be the end of Bond as the virile killing machine and escapist product placing lifestyle icon we have come to know him as, but it would also give screenwriters everywhere the chance to re-develop a cultural icon.

Has the wheel now come full circle again? Or will the public continue to want seeing Daniel Craig, no matter how unoriginal the action mush he must wade through, that Bond plots seem to have degenerated into? Is the Bond series surging into an unequivocal replay mode? That would be a waste of a good actor, now that the Daniel Craig syndrome seems poised to give the World of Bond a further lease of commercial life.

some LINKS of many:
007 website

video trailers, etc.

Review by Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian