James Bond

Dragonflight

By Anne McCaffrey, 1968

This brisk and inventive breakout novel is a romantic coming of age medieval sci-fi fantasy, which sees a pair of unrelated orphans who’re each cheated of their birthright, brought together by fate to attempt to save their world from a malevolent cosmic spore.

important and influential

Originally published as three short stories, and brought together in one volume in 1968, it became the first in a long series of books by the Irish-American writer who carved out an important and influential space for herself in the genre.

Set on the planet Pern, Dragonflight is an exciting medieval revenge story which is as concerned with time travel as it is with flying fire-breathing lizards, but where the former is a device to explore grief and regret, the latter are a means of allowing surrogate maternity, an experience which is crucial to charting the central character’s emotional development.

gloriously unrepentant

Our protagonist, Lessa, is a highborn young woman who’s introduced as living in serfdom having been robbed of her birthright. Using her wits, courage and resilience, and with the aid of F’lar, leader of the socially disparate dragon riders, Lessa becomes queen of all the dragon riders, which is about to face a cosmic menace which threatens the existence of all human life on the planet.

Lessa is a a masterful creation, a gloriously unrepentant figure who never dwells on the killing she performs to execute her plan of revenge, and who at one point considers infanticide as a means to her bloody ends.

Proud, astute, clever, Lessa constantly confounds the men she meets, proving to be better than than the best dragon riders, who earns respect for her deeds and never coasts on her regal heritage. Unless it suits her purposes.

the book shows its age

Where it’s easy to imagine Lessa as a role model the young Princess Leia, her beau, F’lar, is tall, dark, handsome, arrogant and aloof figure, who combines the swashbuckling of Errol Flynn’s Robin Hood with the emotionally reticence of Jane Austen’s Mr Darcy.

He’s a man of action, but also rational, a thinker, a planner, and frankly a bit dour. And in contrast Lessa acts on her wits and frequently on instinct.

Their contrasting personalities allow for dramatic sparks, and it’s here the book shows its age. McCaffrey has a clear eye for power imbalance in the sexual relations and there is stuff in here that’s uncomfortable to read.

When F’lar considers Lessa disobedient or hysterical, F’lar shakes and slaps her. A lot. And F’lar’s abuse of Lessa is publicly tolerated. A passage where F’lar shruggingly dismisses his own recognition that his sexual congress with Lessa is on a par with rape is particularly egregious.

And where hopefully such brutish and abusive behaviour would now be frowned upon or acknowledged as a bad thing by the author, McCaffrey seems inclined to not even admonish F’lar. Instead McCaffrey at all times emphasises that Lessa is a survivor as well as a potential saviour.

The author’s real focus is on the mother and daughter relationship which is the beating emotional heart of the book. Long before Game of Thrones, Lessa was the mother of dragons, specifically her golden dragon, Ramoth. And in McCaffrey’s world it’s motherhood that’s capable of making life complete and healing society.

leather-clad sword-wielding warriors

Ramoth is Lessa’s surrogate child and Ramoth growth to maturity reflects Lessa’s rise to the top of the social hierarchy, instigating a rebirth in all around her and a flowering of empowerment and growth.

This is a also a very modern story of a young mother coping simultaneously with parenting and a new partner while running a large business imbued with centuries of deeply ingrained misogynistic practices. And having to save the world from the apocalypse at the same time. And Buffy the Vampire Slayer thought she was having hard time of it.

chattel and concubines

McCaffrey’s brutal medieval world of of castles and keeps is fully realised with tapestries, poems, and ballads, and various strands of society rubbing up against each other. The author understands this macho world of leather-clad sword-wielding warriors who treat women as chattel and concubines, and seems to enjoy the testosterone-fuelled attempts of men to assert authority over each other.

There are exciting duels and airborne battles aplenty, and the scenes of the airborne fire-breathing dragons fighting are as exciting as any aerial dogfight in a Second World War movie.

blood, rank and destiny

Yes, Dragonflight could be considered more fantasy than sci-fi, though the author apparently bridled at the suggestion, pointing out her humans are descendants of future colonists from Earth, and who’ve genetically engineered local species to assist them in their new planet. This history is established with a brief Introduction to the novel, and dictates how the story develops in future volumes.

Despite having a fiercely strong woman protagonist, there’s no social commentary as you will find in writers such as Miriam Allen deFord. McCaffrey is happy to create a world of royal bloodlines, and talk of purity of blood, rank and destiny without pause of thought. It’s a striated society with little if any crossing of lanes

In contrast to Ursula K. Le Guin, or Nicola Griffith, McCaffrey’s world is also a predominately heterosexual and mostly white world, though race, class and sexuality are, to an extent, explored in later books.

sci-fi movie, Avatar

Safe to say McCaffrey is determined to tell a barnstorming adventure in the most straightforward manner possible, which is not to suggest she’s not a great storyteller. She rattles along at a fair lick, gleefully swooping about her planet, plotting here and there, dropping breadcrumbs of clues as to how our heroes will win.

McCaffrey puts the reader’s need to be entertained before any egotistical drive of her own to be considered a great stylist or an ‘important’ writer. By a dedicatedly tending to her craft, McCaffrey creates a fabulous living and breathing world.

The dragons are given voice and communicate telepathically with their chosen rider with whom they have an emotional bond. Dragons are a metaphor for animal instincts of humans which must be tamed and unleashed at the correct moments in order to demonstrate one’s maturity, such the sexual experience, where the telepathic bond with one’s dragon heightens the emotionally experience of sexual congress.

convention-defying survivor of domestic abuse

It’s difficult to read McCaffrey’s scenes of the dragons hatching ceremony where they form an emotional telepathic bond with their human rider, and not imagine director James Cameron was not at least passingly familiar with Dragonflight when he wrote the script to his 2009 sci-fi movie, Avatar.

Dragonflight, made McCaffrey the first woman to win a Hugo Award for writing fiction, as well as the first to win a Nebula Award, and by creating Lessa, a rule breaking, tradition-challenging, convention-defying survivor of domestic abuse to rise to pre-eminence in a male-dominated world, it’s the least McCaffrey deserved.

If you haven’t read Dragonflight, please do.

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Read my review of Disney’s fabulous 1954 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, HERE

No Time To Die

Daniel Craig’s much delayed swan song as the world’s most famous spy concludes in spectacular style, proving once again that when it comes to being James Bond, nobody does it better.

Bond has always tailored himself in the cultural clothing of the time and now he’s refit for the #MeToo era, and his latest mission sees him not only saving the world but also being held to account for his litany of misogyny going back to the first Bond film, 1962’s Dr. No.

And the most powerful asset of this globetrotting action thriller is Craig’s willingness to the essay 007’s psychological pain, a bravura performance from a script which leans purposely on aspects of Greek tragedy.

Classical allusions include a scientific project called Herakles, a henchman nicknamed Cyclops, and Ralph Fiennes’ ‘M’ suffering an enormous bout of hubris. Meanwhile the traditional pre-title sequence plays as a prologue setting out the key characters as well as the more standard 007 action set-piece. And later we’re treated to a 21st century spin on a gouging of the eyes.

These elements are no cheap grab for cultural gravitas, but are embedded in the script’s DNA. Nor are allusions to myth and legend new to Bond, feel free to read about Skyfall placing Bond on a pedestal next to King Arthur, here.

Bond suffers emotional and physical punishment which leaves him bruised, bloodied and bereft. And the closer Bond gets to happiness the more his suffering and the dramatic stakes increase. It’s a dilemma which illuminates the dark heart of Bond.

Since Judi Dench’s ‘M’ called Pierce Brosnan’s Bond ‘a misogynist dinosaur’ in 1995’s Goldeneye, the franchise filmmakers have grappled with the sexism of Bond the man, and the franchise. However No Time To Die sees a reset of values, and Bond is made to suffer a series of humblings at the hands of a pair of high-achieving younger female agents.

British star Lashana Lynch and Cuban-Spanish actress Ana de Armas excel as play agents of MI6 and the CIA respectively, they’re equally as ruthless and skilled as Bond, and each essay a very different brand of humour. Plus the former answers the question, could we have a non-white and/or female 007, with a resounding yes.

This is all welcome but I wasn’t expecting for Bond to apologise and then attempt to atone for a lifetime of sexist behaviour. This would be a jaw-dropping move in any popcorn blockbuster, never mind the 007 franchise. Don’t assume this means Bond has gone ‘soft’. When the need arises he remains an absolute cold-blooded assassin.

With Rami Malek’s terrorist mastermind called Lyutsifer Safin plotting biological warfare, this leads to a not-so-subtle allusion to the dangers of Bond’s life of promiscuity. This is a long way from 1987’s The Living Daylights which arrived in during the AIDS epidemic, where the response of Timothy Dalton’s Bond was to keep the number of his sexual partners below three.

Having Bond confront the effect of his long-standing toxic relationship with women is presumably intended to wipe clean Bond’s ledger, a necessary step in the characters reinvention if he wants to successfully navigate the changing cultural landscape.

Billie Eilish’s haunting Grammy-winning title song sets the tone for this emotional smackdown, and the pre-title sequence offers a nod to Dr. No, before updating the long-since retired silhouettes of dancing naked women, with images of a fallen Britannia.

Craig carries us through this process with an extraordinary feat of acting, unlike anything we’ve seen in this franchise before. Having once rashly promised to ‘slash my wrists’ rather than play Bond again, the actor seems energised by the prospect of putting Bond to bed.

He strains every considerable muscle to deliver a performance which is not only hugely physically demanding for a man of our age, but dramatically impressive, wryly funny, and profoundly emotional. Craig gives it all he’s got left in the tank, and absolutely smashes it among the enormous explosions, high-speed chases and ferocious fights.

The car chases have a tremendous bone-shaking authenticity, and the four – spot them – different variations of Bond’s Aston Martin car, will have petrolheads purring with avaricious delight. Plus we have a return to the gadgets that Ben Whishaw’s ‘Q’ once dismissed.

Shot through with all the gun-toting glamour you’d expect, we see 007 gunning for Safin who operates from a secret lair worthy of the great Bond villains. Frankly we’ve been long overdue a proper Bond villain threatening death to millions of people, and the return to world-saving stakes are something of a relief.

Craig was cast as 007 in response to the Jason Bourne series. And having seen off that box office threat, the producers have turned their attention to Bond’s current box office adversaries, Tom Cruise’s Mission Impossible movies.

Similar to Cruise’s agent Hunt, Bond is now the leader of a diverse if undeniably posh and British team, with Naomie Harris, Whishaw, and Fiennes reprising their roles as Moneypenny, ‘Q’ and ‘M’, and they provide plenty of humour as Bond’s surrogate family.

Legacy and family are the key themes of this mission, not least with the return of Christoph Waltz as 007’s foster brother and arch-enemy, Blofeld.

Boy, this film does not disappoint. At an extravagant 163 minutes it’s the longest Bond film yet, and uses it’s running time to bring Craig’s five film 007 tenure to a satisfying climax, and comes extremely close to allowing him to depart on an all time high.

The end credits conclude withe familiar promise James Bond will return, and with Craig leaving the series in the rudest of health I can’t wait to see the face of the future.

Love classic sci-fi? Check out my website HERE

Read my review of Disney’s fabulous 1954 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, HERE

James Bond 007: Top 10 villains

10 Francisco Scaramanga (Christopher Lee)

The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

At 6 ft 4 in tall, Lee brings stature as well a smooth sophistication to his role of a former KGB agent turned world’s best assassin who charges one million dollars per kill.
His favourite weapon is a gold cigarette and pen combination which transforms into a pistol, and he flies a car with detachable wings.
As well as commanding a deadly martial arts academy, he has the murderous butler Nick Nack, played with venomous glee by the diminutive Hervé Villechaize, to assist him. And the lair is an idyllic Far East island armed with a solar-powered laser cannon.
But Lee is too relaxed to intimidate the audience, and the funhouse through which Scaramanga pursues his victims is a too much ‘end of the pier entertainment’, and his underwhelming evil plot to auction off a solar energy device to the highest bidder is less world dictator and more ripoff energy salesman.

9 Tiago ‘Raoul Silva’ Rodriguez (Javier Bardem)

Skyfall (2012)

Many women have flirted with Bond in his career, but none with the same degree of outrageous camp as this former MI6 agent turned cyberterrorist.
We’re never entirely sure if Silva wants to kiss or kill 007, but the film certainly questions just how far Bond is prepared tot go to defend Queen and country.
Silva targets his former colleagues at MI6 in revenge against Bond’s boss, M, against whom he holds a homicidal grudge after a faulty cyanide capsule left him needing some botox and dental work.
Attacking Bond with a tube train demonstrates imaginative theatrical flair, and a logistical ability not normally associated with London transport.
However there’s a handful of henchmen rather than an army, and as his ruined city lair lacks luxurious comfort and a shark tank, it has to compensate with a decent internet connection.

8 Gustav Graves / Colonel Moon (Toby Stephens / Will Yun Lee)

Die Another Day (2002)

Pierce Brosnan’s last outing as 007 sees him go head to head with millionaire entrepreneur Gustav Graves, an extreme sports enthusiast who’s also the alter ego of Colonel Moon, a North Korean military officer who‘s used gene therapy technology to change his appearance. However neither identity are terribly threatening.
His arctic gin and ice palace lair may lack a shark tank and underfloor heating, but it does have some nifty snowmobiles, a soft top car armed with a machine gun, and a deadly ice chandelier.
He also has a deadly henchwoman in Rosamund Pike’s aptly named Miranda Frost.
Diamond smuggling plays a part in Graves’ plot to allow North Korean troops to invade South Korea, and potentially trigger a third World War.
So at least Bond has something else to keep his hands full, when not tangling with Halle Berry’s high-diving CIA agent, Jinx.

7 Dr. Kananga / Mr. Big (Yaphet Kotto)

Live and Let Die (1973)

Roger Moore’s first outing as Bond was very much down to earth compared to the out of this world thrills of Moonraker, and finds himself up against a Harlem gangster, whose grand scheme is to become the monopoly supplier of heroin in the US.
Yes it’s a serious problem but it’s not quite in the same world-saving league as Sean Connery’s movies or even Moore’s later ones.
However the villain’s lair does contain a shark tank, so bonus points for that, and the dastardly plot is backed up by Jane Seymour’s beautiful tarot card reader called Solitaire, a coffin of venomous snakes, a team of henchmen driving speedboats through the Louisiana swamp, and a pool of hungry crocodiles from which Bond must hotfoot it away.
Kotto’s formidably charismatic presence more than compensates for his characters earth-bound ambition, and the deadly prosthetic arm of his primary henchman, Tee Hee, is no laughing matter.

6 Alec Trevelyan (Sean Bean)

GoldenEye (1995)

In his first outing as Bond, Pierce Brosnan has to face a villain who’s not only 007’s equal, but also a former friend and fellow British spy, 006, he allows the film to ask the question, what if Bond were the bad guy?
Bean is terrific as the agent-turned-villain, swapping his native Yorkshire accent for something more upper class, and enjoys taunting 007 as he rockets around post-Communist Russia in a fabulous lair, a nuclear missile-carrying train, from where he plots the theft of the technology controlling a super-powerful satellite-based weapon.
Yes, there’s a conspicuous lack of an army of henchmen, however his formidable henchwoman Xenia Onatopp, is a breathtaking fighter pilot who kills her enemies with her thighs.
Sadly Trevelyan doesn’t want to rule the world or re-start civilisation, and though he’s not the last former spy wanting revenge on the British government, he is the first, which boots him up the list.

5 Auric Goldfinger (Gert Fröbe)

Goldfinger (1964)

A villain so memorable he’s given the ultimate honour of being the first villain to put his name to a Bond film’s iconic theme song, performed by the awesome Shirley Bassey, with a thunderous take-no-prisoners conviction.
Goldfinger does take prisoners however, and enjoys tying them to a gurney and slicing them with a laser. But he doesn’t expect them to talk – or sing – while it’s happening.
German actor Fröbe plays the golf cheat bullion dealer with a carnivalesque energy, and as well as being assisted by a fleet of foxy female assassins led by Honor Blackman’s Pussy Galore, he has the bowler-hat throwing Oddjob, as a henchman.
However, despite having enough gold to drown his enemies in the stuff, Goldfinger has no real lair to speak of, and his lacklustre ambition to irradiate the US gold reserves is closer to a get rich scheme than world domination, making Goldfinger a silver medalist of villainy.

4 Karl Stromberg (Curd Jürgens)

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

A megalomaniac who prefers fish to people and is vaguely based on Jules Verne’s Captain Nemo, Stromberg lives in a luxurious space-age underwater lair called Atlantis.
A city-sized submersible, it comes complete with its own shark pool, to whom Stromberg despatches those underlings who fail him.
I miss the days when Bond villains kept sharks as pets.
However Stromberg’s other toys include a helicopter gunship, a fleet of mini-subs, and an enormous new supertanker big enough to swallow British and Soviet ballistic-missile submarines.
As well as the essential army of henchmen, he’s the first Bond villain to employ Jaws to do his dirty work.
Meanwhile his nefarious plan is to trigger a third World War and then recreate a new civilisation underwater. And that’s the kind of barking mad scheme that the villains which follow could take a few pointers from.

3 Dr Julius No (Joseph Wiseman)

Dr. No (1962)

A mad scientist possessing mechanical hands and a nuclear powered luxury secret lair on a Caribbean island, the very first Bond villain remains one of the best.
Urbane, sophisticated and with a taste for giant fishtanks in the dining room, Dr. No is a former treasurer of Chinese gangsters who after absconding with a stash of gold is now working for SPECTRE, and using a nuclear radio beam to destroy US missiles.
Dr, No insists his henchmen are equipped with cyanide-laced cigarettes so they can suicide if they’re caught, and arms them with a flame-throwing tank disguised as a dragon, as well as more standard weapons such as machine guns and err, tarantulas.
Believing criminal brains to be always superior, Dr. No offers Sean Connery’s 007 a job, before suffering one of the great dramatic Bond villain deaths, boiling in his own nuclear reactor.

2 Hugo Drax (Michael Lonsdale)

Moonraker (1979)

A bearded billionaire entrepreneur with dreams of colonising space seems far more relevant today than it did back in 1979, when this Bond baddie boldly went where no 007 villain had been before.
Roger Moore’s Bond is forced to blast off into orbit to prevent Drax from shooting a nerve agent at planet Earth, poisoning the atmosphere and killing off the human race.
And that’s only part one of the plan. After wards he‘s set to rebuild humanity in space with carefully selected humans, with many of his new ‘master race’ being highly attractive young women.
Helping Drax build this space nirvana is an army of laser rifle-toting astronauts, as well as was one of the greatest henchmen of the series, the metal-teethed giant mercenary assassin, Jaws.
However Drax’s dastardly plan is thwarted when Bond shoots him with a poisoned dart, after which Bond attempts re-entry with beautiful CIA agent, Dr Holly Goodhead.

1 Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Donald Pleasence)

You Only Live Twice (1967)

Boasting an army of henchmen housed in a hi-tech volcanic mountain lair which includes a heliport and monorail plus a pool of deadly piranha fish, the first proper appearance of bald and facially scarred arch-enemy Blofeld, shows him in all his iconic white cat-stroking, and Chairman Mao-suited glory.
The ruthless head of terrorist organisation SPECTRE not only overshadows every following Bond villain, but set the bar for all the world conquering spy villains everywhere.
The Nottinghamshire-born Pleasance brings a wonderfully articulate malevolence to the role, which was written by kids author, Roald Dahl, who knew a thing or two about creating memorable baddies.
And Pleasance’s reward is to have been endlessly copied, spoofed and parodied, most notably by Mike Myers as Dr Evil, in his Austin Powers comedy spy franchise.
Blofeld is being paid by China to provoke nuclear war between the US and the USSR, and what’s his price to execute this evil plan? One hundred million dollars.

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Mike Meyers as Dr Evil

Black Widow

As the titular Russian assassin of Marvel’s latest superhero blockbuster, Hollywood star Scarlett Johansson is given a run for her money by her equally charismatic and talented co-star, Brit actress Florence Pugh.

In what’s intended as Johansson’s swan song in the role, the competitive pair banter to enjoyable effect in a dead pan manner through a stunt and CGI-filled globetrotting spy action thriller grounded by contemporary concerns.

Fans of the franchise will remember Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff died in 2019’s Avengers Endgame, so it’s no surprise this is set prior to that, and takes place just after the events of 2016’s Captain America: Civil War.

There are parachutes, avalanches, facially scarred henchmen, a secret lair a Bond villain would be proud of, and a cadre of female assassins Honor Blackman’s Pussy Galore would be happy to command. This is Marvel parking their tanks on franchise rival James Bond’s lawn, with all guns blazing while pulling wheelies and doughnuts.

Having been memorably dismissed by Judi Dench’s M as a misogynist dinosaur, 007’s next film No Time To Die features the first female 00 agent, a sign of progress from a franchise which celebrates its 60th birthday next year.

Pre-emptively spiking bond’s progressive guns, Marvel provide us with not one but four female agents, adding to Johansson and Pugh’s dynamic duo the former 007 co-star Olga Kurylenko, as well as cannily casting the Oscar winning actress Rachel Weisz. Who happens to be the wife of current Bond, Daniel Craig. None of this is by accident or coincidence.

Brit actor O-T Fagbenle performs the role of ‘Q’ in providing the women with their vehicles, and in case you’re in any doubt where Marvel’s aim is, we’re even given a glimpse Roger Moore’s 007 film, Octopussy on a TV screen.
There are also nods to the Mission Impossible and Jason Bourne series, not least in the casting of one-time Bourne star, Weisz.

This assault on 007’s cinematic space is not only a further demonstration of how flexible and successful Marvel’s ongoing superhero franchise is in aping various genres, but also an example of how attack is the best form of defence.

By aggressively providing what is in essence a gender-flipped Bond film, Marvel deflects justified criticism it’s received by belatedly handing most high profile female Avenger a solo adventure long after Iron Man, Captain America and co. have had multiple films. Even Ant-Man has had two films to call his own.

However Marvel could now perhaps argue ‘we couldn’t make this movie until we’d ‘found’ a Florence Pugh’. i.e. someone who has the requisite star power and screen presence to casually outshine Johansson in her own film.

Having grabbed a best supporting actress Oscar nomination for outgunning Meryl Streep in 2019’s literary period drama Little Women, Pugh’s not the least intimidated by Johansson and is mostly in a playful mood as she steals the film with breathtaking insouciance.

And having chalked up Johansson and Streep as victims during her irresistible rise, it begs the question who else is prepared to be cannon fodder for Pugh’s career?

That said, Johansson is a generous co-star to Pugh, with the screen siblings sharing a squabbling repartee which at one point pointedly echoes that of Sean Connery and Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, a similar estranged couple rediscovering the meaning of family.

Speaking of the former Bond, Connery, you may mock some of the Russians accents in this film, in which case I suggest you check out Connery’s Russian accent in 1990’s submarine thriller The Hunt for Red October, and judge whether such considerations are worth an iota of your time.

The possession of vials of mind control gas power the plot, a deliberate physical manifestation of the exploitation of women by manipulative, violent men, the key theme of the film.

In addressing the issues of the #MeToo movement, the film acknowledges and respects the victims who’ve suffered while emphasising healing and the recovery of independence and self worth, as well as offering a note of optimism.

That said, Australian director Cate Shortland puts confident entertainment at the forefront while spending enough time on character to give emotional weight to the action. If more than one set piece sequence reminds you of 1995’s Bond film Goldeneye, then all that proves is Shortland understands her brief as she brings it all nicely to a boil in a finale featuring a massive aerial assault.

This may sound a familiar ending to seasoned Marvel watchers, but far from being the unimaginative rehashing of a much used idea, it’s best understood as being in keeping with Marvel’s signature finale. It’s not as if Marvel are unaware they keep ending films in this manner.

Exciting, funny and full of in-jokes and references, Marvel fans will find plenty to enjoy, and for everyone else, well, you wait six years for one James Bond movie to arrive and now two are coming along at once.

Love classic sci-fi? Check out my website HERE

Read my review of Disney’s fabulous 1954 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, HERE

Spectre

Director: Sam Mendes (2015)

From the breathtaking beginning to the doom laden finale, the 24th James Bond adventure is an extraordinary explosive and epic episode of the franchise.

The spy filled cinematic year has included reasonably received riffs on the genre including Kingsman, Spy, Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation and The Man From UNCLE.

Now the daddy of espionage returns to slap down the young pretenders.

Returning in his fourth and possibly final film of an extraordinarily successful tenure, the 47 year old Daniel Craig offers an interpretation of Ian Fleming’s alter-ego at least equal to the very best.

Spectre is fresh and ambitious despite the weight of history and expectation.

So spectacular, sexy and superb in all departments, it sometimes feels less than the sum of its magnificent parts.

Yet British director Sam Mendes is playing a bigger game than merely creating a standalone action thriller.

He’s also made a fabulous final chapter in a four film reinvention of an overly familiar character.

Prior to Craig each Bond movie was a self-contained story connected not by story but by character.

It’s now clear we’ve been watching a long form story which began way back with the Englishman’s debut in the role in Casino Royale (2006).

It’s a bold strategic 9 year move inspired perhaps by the 10 year long Harry Potter series and a forerunner of Marvel‘s creation of a cinematic universe.

This approach won’t harm the home entertainment box-set sales.

The famous gun barrel opening sequence is re-installed and few themes create a shiver of expectation as effectively as Bond’s does.

Following on from Skyfall (2012), a message from beyond the grave sends 007 off-piste and outside the law.

As he follows a trail of clues from Rome, to Austria and Morocco, he once more encounters the deadly Quantum organisation.

It’s a procession vodka martini’s, dangerous women, gorgeous locations, terrific stunts, powerful henchmen and a completely cuckoo villain. Bond’s car is quite beautiful even by his standards.

There’s paranoia, conspiracy, betrayal, torture, sex and death.

And as a riposte to those who suggest Craig’s interpretation lacks humour, it’s also very funny.

A trio of European stars add indispensable talent and glamour.

As the oldest actress to be cast opposite Bond, Monica Bellucci’s widow riffs on a character on in The Italian Job (1969).

Lea Seydoux is an excellent foil and Christoph Waltz mercifully keeps a firm hand on his inclination to camp.

An intelligent script works hard to give ample screen time to Naomie Harris, Ralph Fiennes and Ben Whishaw who return as MI6 stalwarts Moneypenny, M and Q.

They also contribute to the two and a half hour running time and if anything was to be trimmed, it would be this extra muscle.

As cinema owners will be forced to have fewer screenings per day to accommodate Bond’s length, it will be interesting to see if this affects the box office.

This potential shortfall may be compensated for by more expensive IMAX tickets. The opening Mexico sequence certainly warrants the extra cost to the cinema-goer.

It’s dynamically photographed by Dutch-Swedish Hoyte van Hoytema. His work on Interstellar (2014) was one of the few high points of Chris Nolan’s pompous ego trip.

But here the rich wreaths of shadows he wraps around the players are more reminiscent of his glorious work which contributed so much to the success of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011).

Sam Smith’s theme song sounds thin on the radio but works well in situ over the sensual opening titles.

Mendes encourages his actors to play every scene as if it’s their last. Which for Daniel Craig, may well be the case.

★★★★★

The mythical James Bond, 007

BOND AND KING ARTHUR

In the 23rd James Bond thriller,  Skyfall, director Sam Mendes sought to elevate super spy James Bond, from Hollywood action star to a timeless heroic symbol of England.

By employing poetry, imagery and story elements of Arthurian legend, Mendes stretches an umbilical cord through time to connect Britain’s most modern fictitious national hero, Bond, with its most ancient and legendary King, Arthur.

In Le Morte d’Arthur (pub. 1485), Thomas Malory codified the legend of King Arthur from disparate sources and established what we now consider to be the definitive legend.

King Arthur
Richard Harris as Arthur

Arthur is an orphan who wields a weapon only he can command and must fight a traitor, his step-brother Modred, to save his kingdom. Arthur is betrayed by a woman, mortally wounded in action and is hidden away from the world by the lady in the lake. There he will await until his return to once again rescue his land at the hour of his country’s greatest need.

In Skyfall these events and all occur, though not in this order, and are there to establish Bond’s mythical status.

Skyfall
007 goes sky falling

In the pre-title sequence we see Bond shot by fellow agent, Eve, before falling into a river and being pulled under water by a godlike female hand. Being brought low by a woman named Eve is obviously a very Christian idea, reminding us how closely Arthurian legend deliberately echoes the story of Jesus Christ, his betrayal, death and his resurrection.

Bond undergoes a symbolic Christian death at the hands of his followers, but remains in limbo waiting to be reborn. He only returns from the dead , when England is threatened by terrorists led by a former British agent.

De la croix
Grave matters

In Skyfall Bond/Arthur are tasked with defending Britain from Javier Bardem’s Silva/Mordred. All are orphans raised to be warriors.

And just as Arthur and Mordred were related, so we have lots of references to Judi Dench’s M as their metaphorical mother.

De la Croix is revealed to be the maiden name of Bond’s mother. De la Croix translates as ‘Of the cross’ and so ties in with the idea of resurrection. This feeds neatly into the conceit of Bond regenerating every time a new actor assumes the role. It’s also a nod to Ian Fleming’s socialite mother, Evelyn Beatrice St. Croix Rose.

Bond’s Merlin figure of course, is Ben Whishaw’s Q. He provides Bond with a pistol registered to his unique palm print so only he can use it. It’s an updated Excalibur, the sword in the stone.

Bond sails through a dragon’s mouth prior to sleeping with the mistress of his MI6 colleague-turned-enemy. Compare this to how Arthur’s father Uther Pendragon has Merlin invoke the Dragon’s breath to seduce lgrayne, the wife of his former ally, the Duke of CornwalI. John Boorman vividly illustrates this in his excellent telling of the Arthurian legend, in 1981’s Excalibur .

Dragon mouth
Enter the dragon

We hear how following the loss of his parents, the barely  teenage Bond spent three days in a tunnel before emerging an adult. An echo of the vigil an aspiring knight had to endure before being allowed to join the chivalric order.

Poet Laureate Alfred Tennyson wrote a cycle of narrative poems concerning King Arthur called Idylls of the King (pub. 1859). This is the significance of Judi Dench’s M quoting Tennyson, as Bond races to her rescue.

Fiennes
Ralph Fiennes as ‘M’

All we’re missing is a character called Mallory to appear and oops, that just happens to be the real name of Bond’ new boss, ‘M’.

I don’t believe a director as erudite as Mendes would incorporate these details by coincidence. It would be almost impossible to do so by accident.

These details in the subtext of the film echo in the subconsciousness of the viewer. They reinforce the idea of Bond as a saviour of the English.

The conflation of Bond and Arthur places 007 at the centre of British literary, cinematic and Christian cultural tradition, so elevating him from the contemporary to the mythical, and crowning Bond as the once and future king of English heroes, and Hollywood.

@ChrisHunneysett