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So Bond is back, yet again, and this time “he’s never been
cooler,” or at least so goes the tagline.
Well sorry, but that’s nonsense. Bond hasn’t really been
cool since the heyday of the Cold War, back when a virile
young Scotsman chased skirts, dodged bullets, and killed commies
with a style and aplomb that really hadn’t been seen before.
Back then 007 wasn’t your conventional white hat; he was different,
and he really was cool. Now, his dry sense of humor is standard
issue for all action heroes, his womanizing ways have been
curbed for our politically correct times (only two women!),
and his gadgets and cars have become commercial fodder for
cross promotion. Bond is now just another action franchise.
That said, this is actually one of the better recent installments
in the series. It starts off in North Korea, where Bond engages
in one of his trademark chase sequences, this time on a hoverboat
over a mine field, and it’s surprisingly good. From there
he’s taken prisoner and tortured, while at the same time the
audience is similarly tortured with a lame Madonna
theme song. After a year or so he’s traded for a North Korean
agent, Zao (Yune), who has been scarred from a previous
encounter with Bond and is left with diamonds embedded in
his face (“expensive acne”). Upon returning Bond learns that
he’s been suspected of cracking under pressure so he is forced
to find the real culprit and clear his name. His quest takes
him to Cuba and Iceland and of course along the way he runs
into a few beautiful women and a wealthy young diamond merchant
who isn’t what he seems. The first half hour is surprisingly
dark, shades of the Dalton era, but after that it turns
into the kind of fast-paced comic book style that has characterized
the Brosnan Bonds.
Generally, I haven’t been a fan of the Brosnan Bonds, partly
because I never liked Brosnan. He’s too foppish to be an action
hero, too stiff to be a ladies’ man, but at least in this
one he seems more comfortable with the role, or maybe I’ve
just come to terms with his flaws and no longer dwell on them
any more. As the sexy female agent Jinx Johnson, Berry
is a real disappointment though. It’s hard to believe she
won an Oscar when the decorative demands of Bond girl seem
completely beyond her. Her flirtatious bantering with Brosnan
falls flat because she can’t deliver her lines with the right
kind of comic zest. It also seems the writers have gone for
more puns and innuendo than they’ve ever done before in the
series. It’s almost as if they’re trying to keep pace with
the Austin Powers series.
On the whole it’s a decent Bond, there’s some nice stuff
with an ice palace and a giant space laser, and Zao makes
for a memorable baddie, but there’s really no denying the
rust at this point. What the Bond series needs is a new Bond
and a new vision, or maybe just a retirement, but so long
as it’s the only cash cow for the beleaguered MGM/UA, Bond
will likely live to see another day.
—Edward Rholes
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out of 5
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