The Seventh Art

Casino Royale (2006)
Martin Campbell
Bond, James Bond: Daniel Craig
Arch Rival: Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen)
Bond Girl: Vesper Lynd (Eva Green)

Casino Royale (2006)

Daniel Craig becomes the sixth man to don the role of the British secret agent in Casino Royale. The film follows the early professional life of Bond, just after he has been elevated to the 00 status. He is naïve and trusts women he sees. In this installment he follows Le Chiffre, the investment giant who deals with the money lent to him by the leading terrorist organizations and multiplies it using Poker matches. Bond is sent to play him fair and square and turn him bankrupt, forcing himself to run out of business. He is aided by Vesper Lynd, responsible for handling the huge sum of money sent along with Bond, and Mathis, the local agent for MI6. Sure enough, the ordeal becomes one involving more than Bond’s brawns. Meanwhile, it is revealed that the match is not just between Le Chiffre and Bond, but a third hand too.

Bond is no more (or not yet!) the smooth talking, ever punning, suave gentleman. He is a mean killing machine and lives by his code of duty. Daniel Craig is an instant hit unlike someone like Roger Moore who had to convince us for a couple of movies or three. His USP remains his barely legible accent and I-mean-business attitude. Immensely stylish and high on production value, Casino Royale is still a bit unconvincing perhaps because of the nature of Bond himself. The opening stunt scene easily features in the best of Bond and one only wonders what they will come up with in the next one.

Die Another Day (2002)
Lee Tamahori
Bond, James Bond: Pierce Brosnan
Arch Rival: Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens)
Bond Girl: Jinx Johnson (Halle Berry)

Die Another Day (2002)

Brosnan’s final film as Bond is a mess, to say the least. Strong contender for the title “1001 bad puns”, this installment follows James Bond after he is captured in North Korea following a betrayal by a fellow agent. He is exchanged for a notorious terrorist Zao, but not after being tortured like hell. He gets out of the confinement imposed on him by M and goes on a journey of personal vendetta and tries to get back Zao, in the process discovering an Icelandic diamond giant’s connections with Zao. Bond now travels to Iceland to meet this man, Gustav Graves and his assistant Miranda. He is also aided by another agent Jinx, as he tries to hunt down the person who betrayed him.

Perhaps the worst Bond film ever, Die Another Day goes on and on without even noting that nobody cares beyond the 70 minute point (and that is for the patient viewer). Toby Stephens as the villain seems like a high school kid who has stolen his father’s pistol and is threatening his fellow school kids. And what were they thinking when they put in the invisible car? A monumental showcase of characteristic Bond puns and double entendres, Die Another Day feels like His Girl Friday for its judicious use of runtime, only that it isn’t even half as funny. It feels like the dreaded days of Roger Moore again, for the bond between the films is so evident (oops!).

The World Is Not Enough (1999)
Michael Apted
Bond, James Bond: Pierce Brosnan
Arch Rival: Renard (Robert Carlyle)
Bond Girl: Christmas Jones (Denise Richards)

The World Is Not Enough (1999)

The next piece in the huge series would be The World Is Not Enough and follows Bond’s mission to Europe to investigate the rat in the family of Richard King, the wealthy oil giant with a project of a lifetime on the anvil, after his murder at the MI6 headquarters itself. Bond tracks down the person responsible to be Renard, a terrorist whose accident has rendered him incapable of any physical feeling. As Bond tries to restore the hurt pride of both M and the organization, he stumbles across the truth about King’s murder. Bond, in the process, meets an obviously and phenomenally miscast Denise Richards as Christmas Jones (Get ready for the cheesy gags), the nuclear physicist (cough, cough) who tugs along. Like GoldenEye (1995) Bond is caught in another moral conflict as he has to choose between cold formalities of duty and warmth of relationships.

This version scores on the action sequences with lots of eye-candy involving both incredible computer graphics and genuine stunts. However, Renard’s character, which could have been converted into one of the best Bond villains, is wasted primarily to share his screen space with his sweet heart.  One of the best soundtracks of the series features a spectacular title track by Garbage (!).This one definitely shows that Bond is not an anachronism and is inching towards the new generation.

Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
Roger Spottiswoode
Bond, James Bond: Pierce Brosnan
Arch Rival: Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce)
Bond Girl: Wai Lin (Michelle Yeoh)

Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

Pierce Brosnan would don the role of James Bond for the second time in Tomorrow Never Dies. In this part of the series, A Media Mogul named Elliot Carver, whose wife had been one of Bond’s many old flames, plans to induce war between the British and the Chinese governments in order to win the exclusive broadcasting rights of his satellite channel in China, the only country he hasn’t yet been able to get his hands on. He creates his news and executes them, thereby becoming the first one to publish and broadcast them. To gain advantage in China, he rigs up attacks on the defense forces on either country in order to trick them into believe that the other government had started the war. Enter Bond, who teams up with Chinese media official (?) Wai Lin to blow Carver’s cover and destroying his offshore operations and prevent war before things go out of hands.

There is a marked difference between Tomorrow Never Dies and the previous films in the series. Bond undergoes a much needed makeover and it works. The way issues and characters are handled is more refined (save Carver) and so is the suavity. The actions scenes are intact and issues handled are more pertinent to the age. It is refreshing to see no Soviet characters running all over. One of the better films of the series.

GoldenEye (1995)
Martin Campbell
Bond, James Bond: Pierce Brosnan
Arch Rival: Alec Trevelyan (Sean Bean)
Bond Girl: Natalya Simonova (Izabella Scorupco)

GoldenEye (1995)

It is now time for the fifth actor to step into the shoes of the world’s greatest secret Agent. It is not just Pierce Brosnan who is new to the world of Bond, but even the new M is a lady, played by the no-nonsense Judy Dench. GoldenEye follows Bond’s adventures in Russia just after the collapse of Communism as he tries to dig into the mysterious character Janus, whose agents destroy the GoldenEye control center and steal its powering source. As the identity of Janus is revealed in the process of tracking down the criminals, Bond’s past is dug up. Bond meets up with Natalya, a programmer who luckily escapes n the massacre at the control centre, and both of them go to Cuba to trace out the other GoldenEye control centre. They have to stop Janus, who is planning the biggest bank robbery in history, from disrupting the computer systems of all the Banks in England. With Bond’s guilt plaguing him, can he act by the mind and not the heart?

Golden Eye remains the most delayed bond film ever, releasing six years after the previous installment. Yes, both Bond and M have changed, but the Russians still speak English among themselves with a Russian accent. Wittier and funnier than many bonds, GoldenEye tries to shed Bond’s macho image to an extent and delve into his personal life of harsh loneliness. Brosnan is good with his lover-boy looks and gives Bond a much required makeover in this otherwise regular Bond fodder.

Licence to Kill (1989)
John Glen
Bond, James Bond: Timothy Dalton
Arch Rival: Franz Sanchez (Robert Davi)
Bond Girl: Pam Bouvier (Carey Lowell)

Licence to Kill (1989)

Timothy Dalton takes up the role of James Bond for one more time in the sixteenth offering in the series. In this one, Bond must avenge the murder of Della, wife of Bond’s CIA friend Felix Leiter and that takes him on the trail of a Mexican drug lord Sanchez, who has established a huge scientific base for the production of narcotic material and has planned to expand his control to as far as East Asia. Bond, with the help of CIA friend Pam Bouvier, flies across the country and infiltrates Sanchez’s loyal group, virtually becoming one of them. He is also helped by Sanchez’s beautiful mistress Lupe Lamora, who seems to have fallen for Bond. He starts his double crossing game and puts down his rivals using Sanchez himself. But Sanchez isn’t as big a sucker as he seems.

Timothy Dalton gives a one-two punch with Licence to Kill after immensely impressing with The Living Daylights. It is a pity that Dalton didn’t play in more Bond films, for he is the best Bond after Connery. The film brings back Bond’s off-the-cuff humour back and it usually helps. Action scenes are all top-notch and make the Roger Moore flicks seem like cartoons. Sanchez makes a great villain and just his stare seems enough to tell that he means business. Look out for a young Benicio Del Toro as Sanchez’s personal assistant. A worthy Bond.