Revisionist Bondage

After my excursion into anti-East Anglian bigotry in the last post, I've decided to tread less controversial ground this time, and instead look at the world of film criticism. (Although I will first pause, briefly, to point out that the suspect they've arrested for those murders in Suffolk is a local man, and the photos they've shown of him tell their own story). I've been struck by the outbreak of cinematic revisionism which has been going on since the release of the latest Bond film Casino Royale (which I still haven't seen). Just about every review of it I've read, whilst praising the new film to the rafters, completely trashes its predecessor Die Another Day, dismissing it as 'a mistake', 'juvenile' or 'overblown'. Now, I seem to recall that when Die Another Day was released, these self same critics were saying how wonderful it was, and forgiving some of its excesses because it was, after all, the fortieth anniversary Bond movie, and therefore had to encapsulate the spirit of the series as a whole. The way they're going on about it now, you'd think it was Moonraker they were writing about!

Perhaps most surprisingly, some critics now seem to be dismissing the whole of the Pierce Brosnan era of Bond. Once again, these same guys were hailing him as the saviour of the series when Goldeneye came out. Indeed, I remember the critical rush to extol the virtues of his films as 'back to basics' Bond movies, returning to the spirit of the early, Connery, entries. My favourite review in this vein was one in my local rag, which proclaimed Casino Royale as the best Bond movie since Live and Let Die! Trashing Die Another Day is one thing, but this is revisionism on a grand scale, ignoring thirty three years of Bondage in favour of the one where in which Roger proves that sometimes Moore means less... Granted, Live and Let Die is better than, say, Man With the Golden Gun, but so is They Saved Hitler's Brain. The fact that anyone could possibly rate one of the most derivative movies in the series (it's a fairly feeble attempt to cash in on the 'Blaxploitation' boom of the early 1970s) above any of the Dalton or Brosnan films speaks volumes as to the average film reviewer's lack of critical faculties.

The bottom line is that whilst Casino Royale might well be a superior entry in the series, critics would be doing it far more justice by judging it on its own merits, rather than by trying to talk it up by trashing Die Another Day (which, although not my favourite Bond by a long way, was still the biggest grossing picture of the series, which must count for something). But then that's something which has always bedeviled the Bond franchise: both critics and fans alike tend to judge the movies in terms of the leading man, rather than trying to asses each entry as an individual entity. Hence the way in which On Her Majesty's Secret Service is often dismissed, simply because it didn't star Connery, instead featuring George Lazenby. OK, Lazenby can't match Connery for charisma and screen presence, but he's more than adequate in the lead, and the film itself is easily one of the best in the series. By contrast, the sluggish Thunderball and ludicrous You Only Live Twice are frequently exalted simply because they do feature Connery! Anyway, I'm going to try and see Casino Royale this week and, hopefully, simply enjoy it as a film, regardless of who is playing Bond!