Big Trouble for James Bond

So recently the new Mission: Impossible movie Fallout came out in cinemas and I absolutely loved it, it’s a terrific thrill ride with exciting action, a great villain and a story that is about its central hero Ethan Hunt and the kind of hero he is.

What also came to mind is that not only must I try some of those amazing helicopter stunts on GTA Five (It didn’t quite work out as planned but I’ll keep trying) and also that Fallout and Rogue Nation make a great 2 parter but I also thought of the James Bond franchise.

For you see with these 2 films and the 2 Kingsman films the 007 series finds itself on the back foot of the spy genre and risks looking out dated and out of touch to a modern audience and it used to be said of James Bond that Nobody Does It Better and it makes you feel sad for the rest.

Well I certainly am not sad for the rest for much like in the late 80s the competitors of James Bond seem to have finally caught up thanks to the like of Christopher McQuarrie and Matthew Vaughn and allow me to delve more into those 2 groups of films in more detail.

In both Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation and Fallout you have:

- Tom Cruise defying death to do all of those amazing stunts be it hanging off the side of a plane, holding his breath underwater, doing motorcycle chases with no protection and leaping from one building to the next in a foot chase that would make Quicksilver blush.

- Christopher McQuarrie staging some impressive action set pieces while also crafting espionage stories that are exciting to follow, are driven by character and stimulate your imagination.

- A proper reinvention of Ernst Stavro Blofeld in Solomon Lane and a proper reinvention of SPECTRE in the Syndicate/Apostles and like that group they know how his opposite number ticks and is intelligent, resourceful and ruthless in its goals for global chaos and domination.

- And lastly a leading lady in Rebecca Ferguson who could legitimately be a Bond leading lady as she is sexy, beautiful and able to kick ass with the guys.

Now lets swim across the pond to the 2 Kingsman movies:

- Both films have colourful and lavish sets that are eye catching and reminiscent of the sets Sir Ken Adam would design for the Bond films of the 60s and 70s.

- Colin Firth’s Harry/Galahad has properly redefined the gentleman spy with his Manners Maketh Man attitude and sharp suit that fits not only with the period film characters that helped make Firth a successful actor but also brings in a new audience for him that may not have seen his earlier work.

- Villains that like Auric Goldfinger could be petty crooks but see a legitimate grievance in modern society and seek to stamp it out even if it costs millions of lives which as Thanos would say is “A Small Price to Pay for Salvation.”

- And lastly like the Mission Impossible films I talked about above there are some wildly exciting action set pieces that play out like these energetic music clips that would traditionally be the title sequence of a James Bond film.

Now if you were to put those elements together into a handy little list like so:

- The stunt set piece that made you sit up and go WOW!
- The lavish and elaborate sets
- The beautiful women
- The exciting villains
- The espionage plots that threaten the world

And the gentleman spy risking life and limb to win the day and all of those are what you used to go and see a James Bond movie for and increasingly since Casino Royale in 2006 it feels like the Bond series has lost its way a little bit.

And this has happened by the films becoming more and more serious in tone which the Fleming novels and the best of the Bond films balanced well with humour, the navel gazing of “Is Bond still Relevant” which has been going on over and over since Goldeneye in 1995 and the elements of the Bond character that made him so popular such as the overt masculinity to name as one example are coming under increasing scrutiny.

But I still maintain the hope for Bond as one of the great strengths of the film series has been its ability to adapt with the changing times and refit the character to suit them to a certain degree and Danny Boyle is a good director who can bring a real kinetic energy plus Daniel Craig seems keen to end his tenure in the role on a high note hopefully they can deliver the goods and reorient Bond to be back on top and prove once more that Nobody Does it Better despite the comers.