The James Bond movie Roger Ebert hated with a passion: “Don’t ever let this happen again”
James Bond is certainly not without its detractors.
The recent acquisition of the brand by Amazon has once again drawn up a long list of people wishing to bid adieu to the polarising figure of 007. But while admonishing the misogynistic and outright sexist attitudes of the earliest movie’s lead character is worthy, much of what made Bond brilliant is still in effect.
He is still a lethal secret agent, a smooth talker, a witty man with a wonderful dress sense and he still has enough gadgets to tickle the itch our inner children have been trying to scratch ever since they first let go of a Newton’s Cradle. But while Daniel Craig’s most recent iteration of Her Majesty’s most dangerous weapon can undoubtedly be considered one of the best, not all movies are made equal, and not all Bonds can deliver the balance of power and panache the character deserves.
One man who seemed to be able to see through the different incarnations of Bond was film critic Roger Ebert. Now, there’s a good chance that on another day a laboured metaphor about how Ebert can be considered film’s equivalent of the devastating hired hitman would have been the way to go, nut in honour of the respect writer I’ll just make it passively.
However, the seriousness with which Ebert approached the art of cinema is not to be discounted. Ebert was perhaps the greatest lover of movies in the world, and while he was happy to take a few shots at those who fell below his watermark for adequate viewing, on the whole, he approached every new movie with the respect it deserved. Until, of course, that respect ran out.
One such Bond movie would fall foul of Ebert’s acerbic wit, and shockingly, it came from the only blonde member of the 007 fraternity, Daniel Craig. “Please understand: James Bond is not an action hero!” is a simple yet direct line from Ebert and it perfectly capture the hyper-designed, hyper-stylised Daniel Craig bond movie Quantum of Solace.
Craig had quickly put himself on a new level of Bond by being the most rugged and action-packed iteration in memory, but this seemed to upset Ebert who claimed: “He is too good for that. He is an attitude. Violence for him is an annoyance. He exists for the foreplay and the cigarette.” Ebert’s issue begin with the fire-powered first scene that winds across perhaps the most beatuiful stretch of road, as France turns into Italy: “The chase, with Bond under constant machinegun fire, is so quickly cut and so obviously composed of incomprehensible CGI that we’re essentially looking at bright colours bouncing off each other, intercut with Bond at the wheel and POV shots of approaching monster trucks.”
The awkward thing is, what made people love the new version of bond portrayed by Craig was exactly what Ebert hated. It would seem that Bond had grown up too quickly for this critic: “There is no Q in Quantum of Solace, except in the title. No Miss Moneypenny at all. M now has a male secretary. That Judi Dench, what a fox. Bond doesn’t even size her up. He learned his lesson with Plenty. This Bond, he doesn’t bring much to the party […] I repeat: James Bond is not an action hero!”
Approaching the end of his writing days in 2008, it might have been that Bond had simply changed too much. The comparison of Sean Connery’s first movies to the modern-day version of 007 is so far apart that it is expected that lovers of the first films would be bemused by Craig and his dour persistence to be a troubled but brutal killer. However, this is exactly why the series continues to entice new audiences.
The new Amazon purchase had countless groups groaning: ‘Here we go, Bond is about to be Bezos’d. He will be a frictionless logistical experience that will arrive at our doors in 24 hours without a hint of personality.’ But things have to evolve and if Roger Ebert can be wrong, so can you.
