Christopher Nolan has a lot to answer for.
Read any review of the new Bond movie, and I’ll bet 50% will reference the Dark
Knight. Whether you think this is a positive or a negative, everyone seems to
agree that the new Bond is basically Batman without the Bat.
What that essentially seems to mean, is
that rather than Bond being the wisecracking charmer who kills or shags
everything in sight…he’s the wisecracking charmer who kills or shags everything
in sight. Except now we’re supposed to muse on Bond’s motivations and his inner
demons while he’s doing it. What both
New Bond and New Batman actually share in common is the desire to take an
essentially unrealistic character, and then to target their unrealistic and unsavory
characteristics through some heavy introspection…and then have them win anyway
through some ridiculously unrealistic plot. It’s basically having your cake and
eating it. You still get the sexism, the casual, fascistic violence and the
foiling of ridiculous plots through ridiculous means, but because Bond seems
actually traumatized and compromised by all of this, it’s a deep and meaningful
piece of serious film making.
This is, obviously, bullshit. It’s still a
sexist, fascistic and unrealistic film, and the fact that Bond still wins for
no other reason than being Bond means that being a sexist violent psychopath is
never actually a problem. But while you might be able to forgive a film like
that if it happily aims at nothing more than titillating your baser impulses (and
I do like old Bond, and many other casual throwaway thrillers), the rules are a
bit different if you’re trying to be taken seriously. If you’re going to make a
‘serious’ or ‘realistic’ Bond (or Batman) you have to open yourself up to ‘serious’
or ‘realistic’ criticism. And neither character is ever going to stand up to
that scrutiny.
So I completely understand my friends’
feelings (summed up by David Mitchell HERE) that they miss the escapism of the
wisecracking light hearted Bonds. So it might come as a surprise to learn that…..I
still enjoyed Skyfall.
Why? Well, for the same reason I actually
enjoyed the Dark Knight (the other two films were pretty awful). Because of the
villain. Javier Bardem is menacingly charismatic and totally twisted, and he
makes the film. Not only because, as the villain he can openly revel in the
violence and abuse in a way that the new serious Bond can’t, but because he
openly mocks the whole notion of Bond in the film.
From the constantly resigned exasperation
as Bond escapes again through some ridiculously implausible act of physical
daring, to the last frustrated growl as he finally succumbs at the end, Bardem’s
villain is one who knows his place. He knows how the film has to end, with Bond
on top, and finds this as dreary a possibility as the audience. Scenes such as
his grand entrance to the final sequence in a helicopter blasting out ‘Boom
Boom’ are exactly the kind of ridiculous, over the top campness that Bond used
to excel at. The fact that every move like this is countered by the new, surly,
aging Bond causes appropriate levels of irritation to him, and to some extent
undercut and counterbalance the pretensions of new ‘serious’ Bond.
For many people this won’t be enough. Bardem
alone doesn’t quite balance Craig’s brooding, and you still have the sexism and
pointless ultra-violence thing to deal with. But just like the Joker in the
Dark Knight, he provides enough charismatic turns to lighten the load of an
otherwise overlong film.
But, I’ll leave you with a happy thought, at
least we can be grateful that of all his films Nolan’s influence seems to have
come from the Dark Knight. Just imagine what the Bond equivalent of the Dark
Knight Rises would be…..
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