A View to a Killing (But is it really James Bond?)

By Steven Zeitchik

The Quantum of Solace's recordbreaking weekend proves many things: the vitality of the Bond franchise, the ability of headline writers to conjure up every bad pun from a previous Bond title, the strangely beneficial effect an inscrutable title can have on box office (c.f., "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," "Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death").

It's worth noting that some of the box-office comparisons to "Casino Royale" shouldn't be made without some context. The first Daniel Craig-starrer opened against a strong Warners push for "Happy Feet" that siphoned away some of the Bond-loving parents, as well as against a still leggy "Borat," which took away many of the college students.  And adjust box-office for past releases and some of the movies drive circles around some of the newer Bond installments; three titles -- ""Goldfinger," Thunderball" and "Live and Let Die" -- earned more than $750 million worldwide in 2008 dollars.

Still, the $71 million U.S. opening is undeniably impressive, and won't be sneezed at by anyone, least of all MGM, which couldn't be taking over sole distribution of the franchise at a better time. ('Get that thing fast-tracked' has an M-like ring, doesn't it.)

But the creative side is worth looking at.

Bond, like all franchise characters, can and should evolve. And true, like all new iterations of a franchises, the newest Bond retains some of the timeless trappings of the original (he's still dispatched all over the world to find out information and knock people off, even if he does so with less joie de vivre than his predecessors).

Plus it's nice to darken up the character and link him emotionally to previous movies; this one is in mourning, after all.

But push the arc a little further -- and we'll see if that happens with #23 -- and he doesn't really look like Bond, not only because he has fewer gadgets and frivolous romances but because in giving him an air of such seriousness the character has lost some of the point of the whole enterprise: to gently poke fun at the very idea of an all-powerful spy, and at spy movies.

It's no accident that "Solace" is based on just a short story from Ian Fleming, and not really based very closely on it at that.

Some ink has already been given over to the Bourne-ification of the series -- the globehopping hit man, the frenetic action, the character's innate loneliness, the fact that Marc Forster used, well,  the second unit from Bourne.

All of this is not a bad thing; series need updates all time, and this one has style to burn. It just may not be a Bond thing.

Comments

[james]

I have often wondered why Bond has never had a weekend to itself and it was so great to not open up against another high profile release and then be forced to come in at number 2. Thanks to Harry Potter moving out of the way, I'm glad it didn't have to open up against Madagascar because it would have taken some of its record breaking box office.

[Doug]

I'm one of the minority who can't wait for the Craig Bonds to be over and for the series to return to some semblance of the 007 films that came before. I watched two of Pierce's Bonds this weekend and they deliver everything I want in a Bond film. I was smiling through most of the running times. "Casino" and "Quantum" have removed all the fun and left us with a morose spy who I don't think anyone wishes he could be.