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Revenge. Timothy Dalton had his taste back in ’89. The film was License to Kill, the 16th installment of the 007 movie franchise. In it, Bond forsakes his MI6 badge to pursue the drug lord who killed his best friend, offs said drug lord, and tosses a teenaged Benicio Del Toro into a rock-crushing machine.
With this month’s Quantum of Solace, one can’t help but draw parallels between dangerous Dalton and Danny Craig. Granted, License to Kill did not exactly light up the box office. But it did something interesting to our favourite superspy. It showed that beneath that polished tux and cool bravado, Bond was human.
And if you hit him where it hurts, you’re basically dead. Before Craig’s steely eyed fury exploded onto the silver screen two years ago, one thing was certain about our beloved spy—no matter what the era, Bond would always be linked to a world of silly gadgets, nonsensical scenarios and the kind of dialogue that would make a real villain laugh (right before painting the walls with your brains, of course). But put all of that stuff next to Craig and something just doesn’t seem right.
Bond rose to fame fighting on the frontlines of the Cold War. Back then, good and evil were simple polarities. You’re either with us—or with them. But this is a different world we live in today. The enemies who plot against us have modified their methods. Passenger jets are being used as missiles. Anyone with an Internet connection and a cell phone can build a bomb. The age-old line between good and evil has been blurred. We need a real hero, not some suave escape artist with witty banter and gimmicky gadgets. While some will argue that Craig’s brutality is simply a reflection of a movie-going society obsessed with violence, the real reason Casino Royale saved the Bond franchise is that it gave people what they really wanted: a hero to suit his era. When Brosnan’s smug lines would no longer cut it, the new Bond used his fists, his wits, and a slick-looking silenced submachine gun to dispose of those who bedeviled him. It’s hard to imagine Roger Moore maiming a man in his driveway out of quiet, seething rage. Instead of a witty retort, “The name’s Bond, James Bond,” is all Craig says in the final scene of Casino Royale, after putting a bullet in the nefarious Mr. White. Extreme times, extreme measures, and so on.
Quantum of Solace picks up just minutes after Royale’s closing, with a bereaved Bond out for blood to avenge the murder of Vesper Lynde, the lover who betrayed him and died in Venice. Bond is given a lead on a traitorous MI6 agent, which sends him to Haiti. Once there, he’ll have to go through a whole gauntlet of evil suits bent on ending him before he finds the man (or woman) responsible for his lady friend’s demise.
This time, unlike License to Kill, or any of the other Bond films of the last century, there will be no shark tanks, no lasers, no freakish henchmen. Instead, there will be vengeance, of the grittiest bare-knuckle sort imaginable, wrought by a man whose side of the good/evil line gets blurrier all the time. After all, art imitates life. Or is it the other way around? Pah, who cares. Get him James. Get him good.
