The Next Incarnation of Bond
The James Bond franchise is amazing. And not necessarily for the right reasons. Of the twenty-five official movies, I’d posit there’s only one truly great film – From Russian With Love. It’s a grounded spy thriller with brilliant performances from Sean Connery, Robert Shaw, and Lotte Lenya. Then the series becomes more gimmicky, which irked Connery, and which the Roger Moore era truly embraced – perhaps to accommodate an era were movies were growing sensational in their storytelling. Of the other twenty-four movies, I’d suggest there’re a handful of good ones, and the rest are middling, forgettable, and – in some cases – terrible. I grew up when Roger Moore…
Bond, James … Bond?
If the Bond franchise were released today, the first one would be great, the next would be okay, and by the third it’d probably be puttering. That’s the route of a lot of modern-day franchises: e.g. Transformers, the Bourne series, Lethal Weapon. By the third movie, most franchises are starting to look worn, and whenever there’s a fourth instalment, it’s usually positively comatose. That Bond survives is because it’s an institution. It’s fifty-years-old. We just accept that instalments will be released. What’s more, the Bonds have an existent fan-base who’ll sustain them. New fans are made (or at least new fans might trial the franchise) because it’s iconic and they…