What makes Casino Royale so good is that it's a deconstruction of the formula and a haunting character study of what being James Bond might actually do to a person. James is kind of a monster who hates everything about what he does, but doesn't know how to live any differently. The tragedy is that when he finally meets someone who can rescue him from this, she betrays him and hardens his heart even further. It's perfect. Quantum of Solace, despite its flaws, provides a pretty good epilogue to this tale during which Bond forgives Vesper altogether. So we have this fully developed Bond, who understands love and death and the weight of his actions ready to face a larger world. Awesome.
So why do Skyfall and Spectre spend so much time trying to drag Bond back to where he was in the sixties? Skyfall starts by saying Bond is past his prime, which is just ridiculous since the last two movies were spent explaining how Bond arrives at his prime. He learns the last lesson he needed to, just to become old hat. He regresses into the same smarmy, self-righteous asshole the first two movies were actively trying to portray as a coat of armor. And while Skyfall is going out of its way to call James Bond old, it introduces archaic tropes like Moneypenny and Q Branch, which immediately feel outdated in this new Bond environment.
Spectre is the worst offender. The idea that Casino Royale, a pretty self contained film, was just the machinations of a hackneyed villain like Blofeld is incredibly insulting, to the movie, to Vesper, and to Bond. I want to punch this movie. It's like Sam Mendez watched Casino, thought it was stupid and just wanted to make From Russia with Love Parts 3 and 4. It's infuriating.
Feel free to disagree below. I just rewatched Casino Royale so I got riled up, but it's entirely possible I completely missed the mark regarding Skyfall or Spectre. I haven't seen those since they were released.
Submitted May 30, 2018 at 12:11PM by distephano87 https://ift.tt/2IYKl3z