Re: Universal Exports - The James Bond Thread

[stanmore]

I'd've given the theme to Goldeneye too.

I haven't seen Casino Royale or Quantum of Solace either. All the murmerings I here are that it's Bond reimagined for a Bourne audience - and I've always found the Bourne films as tedious as shluck. Perhaps I need a Patrick review to turn me.

[Patrick]

Ask and you shall receive, Stanmore. I finished my review last night, but, uh, owing to some extenuating family circumstances, didn't get the chance to post it. I'll do that when I get home from work tonight.

[Patrick]

Tied at second place for the longest break between Bond films is the interval between Die Another Day and the series’ twenty-first installment. And as is usually the case, a lot of the reason for the hiatus it came down to more protracted litigation. It seems that with the success of GoldenEye, Kevin McClory decided to re-make Thunderball under the working title “Warhead 2000.” As script development was getting underway at Sony, MGM launched a $25 Million lawsuit, and Mr. McClory responded by claiming a portion of the $3 Billion in profits the Bond franchise had amassed. And something of a game of outlast ensued- who was more willing to continue down the road of a prolonged court fight? Sony blinked first, and settled, and Mr. McClory eventually ran out of legal avenues to pursue. As part of the settlement, MGM acquired the rights to Ian Fleming’s very first Bond novel for $10 Million, a title that had come into Sony’s possession when they acquired Climax! several years before.

As for the actor playing the title role, Pierce Brosnan had originally signed a contract to do three movies, with an option for a fourth. With the production of Die Another Day, that contract was fulfilled, and negotiations commenced on the possibility of signing him to do more movies. But almost immediately, speculation began to emerge that EON was looking to replace Mr. Brosnan with a younger actor, and Brosnan, keenly aware of the fan and critical reaction to Roger Moore remaining in the part until he was 57, bore that in mind as he approached those negotiations. During the making of Die Another Day, he was 49. But the negotiations did not go well, and in July, 2004, Mr. Brosnan announced he was leaving the role.

That cleared the way for all sorts of rumors as to who would be the sixth actor to portray the world’s most famous gentleman spy. Among the names under consideration: Eric Bana, Hugh Jackman, James Purefoy, Dougray Scott, Henry Cavill, Julian McMahon, Gerard Butler and Clive Owen.

But what no one was appreciating was the fact that once again, the world had entered a new paradigm. Its exact date was September 11, 2001, roughly 14 months prior to the release of a Die Another Day. Suddenly, the entire world’s attention was drawn to just how much carnage could be unleashed by a group of shaggy-bearded Islamic extremists, exploiting those un-protected back doors in the open societies of the west. Indeed, in retrospect, while fears of terrorism were still fresh in everyone’s minds in 2002, it seems a bit silly that the Bond franchise, usually so perspicacious about adapting real world circumstances to stories, would have given us a film about an evil billionaire and his death-ray satellite.

What audiences wanted were dramas that explored the new fears terrorism had instilled in us, and if the Bond films didn’t cotton onto that after 9/11, others certainly did. The Jason Bourne film series came into existence, with all its cinema verite shaky-cam realism (and this reviewer can’t stand the shaky cam style of filmmaking.) On television, audiences were getting a weekly dose of the terror-fighting exploits of Jack Bauer in the series “24.” Audiences craved to know that there were heroes waging war against terrorists. It took a while, but the Bond franchise eventually figured that out, and ushered in the Fourth Age of Bond.

But it’s how they did it that makes this Age of Bond so intriguing. If anything, the First Age of Bond was characterized by a very close association between the plots of the movies and the plots of the original Ian Fleming novels. In later ages, the filmmakers simply used Mr. Fleming’s titles, dumping much, if not all, of the stories contained within, or simply made up titles that sounded vaguely Fleming-esque. Now, they had a chance to not only use an original Ian Fleming title they’d never used before, but also to actually incorporate the plot of the novel into the film itself- something that hadn’t happened since 1969, and the production of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. And if the goal was make this Fourth Age of Bond a bit more like the First, the filmmakers decided to take their cue on how to do it by borrowing an idea frequently used in comics: re-boot the franchise in its entirety and take Bond back to the beginning.

Welcome to the Fourth, and current, Age of Bond.


Casino Royale
UK Release: November 14, 2006
US Release: November 17, 2006


“So you want me to be half monk, half hit man.”
The official announcement that Daniel Craig had been signed to portray Bond did not occur until October, 2005, more than a year after Mr. Brosnan’s departure from the role. And immediately, hard core Bond fans and aficionados went into an uproar, launching internet protest campaigns such as “DanielCraigIsNotBond.com.” One newspaper in the UK ran an unflattering article about Mr. Craig with the headline “The Name’s Bland – James Bland.” Why the outrage? The most consistent description Ian Fleming gave of Bond was his dark hair color, a factor that had influenced the casting decisions of all Mr. Craig’s predecessors. Really, all this fuss because the new Bond is blond? This strikes me as proof that some people simply have too much time on their hands. Why not wait and see how he does in the role first?



Which begs the next logical question: how did he do in the role? I’ll give you the long answer first. Daniel Craig wasn’t playing Bond, at least not the Bond we are familiar with. In the pre-credits sequence of the film, he isn’t even playing a Double-Oh agent. What we’re seeing throughout this movie is a proto-Bond, a Bond not yet fully formed into the spy we’ve known for 44 years. And Mr. Craig’s attention to detail in reinforcing that fact goes a long way to selling the idea that this film is showing us Bond Year One. Let’s start with his physicality: the fight he has with Dryden’s contact in some anonymous public bathroom during the pre-credit sequence is about as intense a fight as we’ve ever seen. His chase of the parkour expert Mollaka, jumping from cranes and running around a construction site, revealed an interesting contrast: Mollaka was the graceful runner, hopping, skipping and jumping from point to point, while Bond simply ran through walls and shot up construction equipment to keep up with him. He has a brief knife fight with Demitrios, and then an extensive fight with Carlos in an attempt to save the SkyFleet airliner. At the Hotel Splendide, he’s forced to choke one of the Ugandans with his bare hands. If Sean Connery’s Bond was the predatory brute in well tailored clothing, Daniel Craig is simply the predatory brute, the blunt instrument M accuses him of being. He isn’t quite Sean Connery’s Bond yet, but you get the sense that’s where he’s heading.



He also has this knack of being unable to see the big picture. Sent to Madascar to capture Mollaka for questioning, the operation is botched (in fairness, not Bond’s fault), but when Bond is unable to get Mollaka out of the embassy he’s taken refuge in, he kills Mollaka, detonates a propane tank to make good his own escape, and causes an international incident. The whole point of his assignment was to learn what Mallaka knows about how a terrorist organization is financed, and Bond dismisses the killing with “I thought one less bomb maker in the world would be a good thing.” He has a chance to capture Carlos at the Miami airport, but instead attaches Carlos’ own bomb to one of his belt loops- another dead terrorist without any information gained. When Vesper refuses to give Bond the $5 Million buy-in he needs to continue in the card game, Bond snatches a knife off the table and heads after Le Chiffre, with every intention of killing him, even knowing that M wants him alive. The Bond of Casino Royale is one who resorts to lethal force first, a big source of concern for M. Speaking of which, what kind of poor judgment is it to break into your boss’ home in the middle of the night?



There are other details that give us clues that Mr. Craig’s Bond is not yet fully formed as a Double-Oh. He doesn’t know how he likes his martinis. Vesper has to teach him how to dress to move in the social circles his new responsibilities will require of him. He crashes his Aston Martin. He incorrectly concludes that Mathis is the one selling him out to Le Chiffre, because he can’t accept the possibility that it could be Vesper. And he’s not particularly good at surveillance, either. Okay, the incident with Mollaka wasn’t really his fault, but Demitrios spots him at the Body Works exhibit, Carlos identifies him on the airport tarmac in Miami, and the Ugandans instantly realize that it’s a bit too convenient that Bond and Vesper just happen to be standing in the stairwell door, kissing. It isn’t until the very end of the film, when Bond injures Mr. White, rather than kill him, that we see Bond has learned to grasp the bigger picture, and the implications of resorting to lethal force first.

But there is another aspect of his character that I find highly interesting: his deductive skills are very much on display. “Someone talked,” Le Chiffre says, figuring that Demitrios’ wife must have said something that ruined the plans to destroy the SkyFleet airliner. In fact, no one talked. Bond figured out Demitrios’ last minute trip to Miami on the last flight out had to have been to make contact with another bomber. He stays on Carlos’ trail by calling him from Dimetrios’ phone, and figures out what “Ellipsis” means. He knows immediately he’s been poisoned, and very quickly improvises a salt and water ipecac to try and get the poison out of his system. These are great qualities to have if you’re a professional spy, and it’s nice to see them at the forefront.



Mr. Craig is also not burdened with outrageous quips, and the result is that to the extent this film has humor in it, it’s underplayed quite nicely by a performance that relies on simple facial expressions. The small upturn in Bond’s smile when Carlos’ bomb detonates, for example, produced one of the biggest laughs in the movie, and yet Bond uttered not a word.

So, the short answer to the question of how Mr. Craig did? In a role that required a lot of him to sell the notion that he was a pre-Bond Bond, he was outstanding. And I'm reliably told by sources who pay attention to this sort of thing that he fills out a pair of swimming trunks rather well.

“I’ve got a little itch, down there. Would you mind?”

For anyone whose read Mr. Fleming’s novels, one of the great things about seeing one of the films from the First Age of Bond was the knowledge that a particular favorite scene of yours from the books was about to presented to you on film. Sadly, once we got into the 1970s, that sense of anticipation the best scenes from the books would make for memorable scenes in the movies was lost. Not so with Casino Royale. This film was quite faithful to the source material, even if it did have a big set up before it got to the actual book. And that set up is actually true to the Fleming spirit of the story, expanding its dimensions and giving us some character development for both Bond and Le Chiffre. Case in point, I knew that at some point in the film, we were going to see Mr. Fleming’s rather inventive torture scene with Bond tied to a chair that’s had the seat cut out of it. How were they going to accomplish that? The answer is “brilliantly.”



Sure, a few of the details are changed (Vesper Lynd is British, rather than French. The card game is seven card Texas Hold ‘Em, rather than baccarat. Le Chiffre is a banker to international terrorists, rather than a paymaster working for Smersh.) But even those changes were done in service to the basic story, so that it could be updated for an audience more than 50 years after the book was first written.

Right from the start, you can tell there was a conscious decision to make it clear to audiences that this was a complete re-boot of the franchise. There is no gun-barrel opening, and both the scenes between Bond and Dryden, and Bond’s fight with Dryden’s contact, were filmed in black in white. Our expectations were completely thrown out the window with that, until we get the point of Bond’s fight with Dryden’s contact where he has to shoot him- and that turns out to be the origin of the gun barrel opening. Very clever, that. It’s at that point, as the opening credits start to play, that you really know you’re watching a Bond film, albeit one consciously underscoring the notion that this film is intended to be completely different to anything that’s come before from EON.



Vesper uses the line, “Just because you’ve done something, doesn’t mean you have to keep doing it.” That line not only speaks volumes about the goal the producers had in mind when making this film, it neatly gives us our theme of Bond having to undergo his transformation into the spy we’re familiar with by learning to be less of the blunt instrument who’s first inclination is to shoot. It’s as though the producers were saying “we heard you!” to all the fan and critical backlash from the excesses of Die Another Day.

For one thing, the stunts were entirely realistic. There were no gadgets in play, just the gritty determination of Bond and his adversary. Those jumps from crane to crane at the construction site felt entirely real- you actually winced when Bond misjudged his landing and fell hard to the side of the crane. Bond’s fight with Carlos over control of the gas tanker was similarly realistic. Look at how cut up his face was at the end of it.



There was also a conscious choice to avoid using CGI. I was certain, for example, that the scene at the airport where a police cruiser was blown off its wheels by the jet-wash from a Boeing 747 was re-touched with CGI, or that Bond’s flipping of the Aston seven times had been computer enhanced. According to the documentaries, I was completely wrong. All of those were well coordinated stunt scenes done by the second unit. And I should mention that rolling the Aston Martin seven times actually set a new world record. In fact, the only area where digital enhancement occurred that I can point to leads to something you didn’t actually see: in the crane jumping scene early in the film, there was actually a third crane which both of the stunt men engaged in the chase were tethered to, and that crane was digitally removed from the shot. A clear case of less being more.

But where this film positively sparkles is in the scenes between the big action set pieces- normally the parts where a Bond film can have a tendency to get bogged down. Here, that doesn’t happen, because the dialogue is so good. You believe the characters because the dialogue makes them sound like credible, real people. And let’s not forget, the source material for a lot of that dialogue came from Ian Fleming, himself. All of the characters are treated intelligently, with perfectly rational motivations. Even Felix Leiter, a character more often than not tacked onto a film script as an appendage to merely make Bond look good, has a specific reason for being at the card game, one that sees he and Bond have a confluence of interests, and knowing he’s not going to last much longer in the poker tournament, he makes the logical choice to stake Bond. That is a refreshing change, indeed.



The interesting thing is that this somehow came as a surprise to a lot of fans and critics alike. The Bond franchise has had a history of retrenching and presenting some of its finest efforts immediately following a film that was guilty of going too far off course. They did it with On Her Majesty’s Secret Service after the mess that was You Only Live Twice. They did it with For Your Eyes Only after the science fiction wretched excess that was Moonraker. And they did it here.



Casino Royale marks the second turn in the director’s chair for Martin Campbell, after having made GoldenEye 11 years earlier. It has to be said Mr. Campbell’s ability to construct a story, shot by shot, so that’s visually comprehensible and yet capable of inspiring awe in the viewer is wonderful. His confidence is such that he’s in a league with Terrance Young, Guy Hamilton and John Glen. I really hope he agrees to make another Bond film.


“Do you believe in God, Mr. Le Chiffre?”
“No. I believe in a reasonable rate of return.”

In many of the Fleming novels, scars and physical abnormalities were present in the villains, a metaphor for the fact that since they were the bad guys, they had some existential scar on their soul, as well. And so it is with Le Chiffre, Fleming’s first ever foe for Bond. He has a derangement of the tear ducts that can make it seem like he sheds tears of blood. He’s also an asthmatic, frequently needing his inhaler.

But Le Chiffre has a marked aptitude for math, making his role as the worldwide banker for terrorist riches all the more credible. And all of this is wrapped in a very tightly masked bit of arrogance. He’s no show off, and he’s certainly no megalomaniacal multi-billionaire plotting the world’s demise. He’s got a plan to increase the value of the funds he controls on behalf of his investors that involves shorting the value of the stock for the company responsible for the next big thing in passenger air travel, the new Skyfleet airliner. If he can manipulate circumstances to ruin Skyfleet’s inaugural launch of the new plane, their stock will plummet, and he and his clients will benefit by virtue of his having betted against the success of Skyfleet. When Bond foils those plans (something Bond really isn’t aware of having done at the time), it puts him in a big financial problem: he’s now lost more than $100 Million of his clients money, and they are almost certainly going to be coming after him to get it. So, he arranges a high stakes poker tournament to recoup his losses, making that card contest a game he simply must win.

Danish actor Mads Mikkelson very effectively portrays Le Chiffre as a mask of complete control. Even in the scene where his nearly silent girlfriend is about to get her arm chopped off by the Ugandans, you can see in his eyes that rather than protest, he’s evaluating probabilities, calculating odds, determining best possible outcomes for himself. All of this is very true to the character Fleming wrote, including his death to climax the second act of the movie- and not even at Bond’s hands. In fact, it’s interesting to note that the only real tete-a-tete scene Bond had with Le Chiffre in the film is the “ball scratching” torture scene that ends with Le Chiffre taking a bullet to the forehead.



There’s always a danger when you kill off the villain in the middle of the story. Where’s the story going to go from there? In this case, what the filmmakers did was use Le Chiffre’s death to plant the seeds of an idea that there was an organization behind him that had decided to cut their losses and rid themselves of an operative that was very likely running out of options before he surrendered to either the British or the Americans. Shades of Dr. No being an operative for SPECTRE.


“How? It’s tailored.”
“I sized you up the moment we met.”

We don’t actually meet Vesper Lynd until the start of the second act, as we settle in properly to the events in the novel. But by the conclusion of the film, you feel you know her better than most Bond girls, and that’s down to both the excellent dialogue between Bond and Vesper, and a deftly underplayed performance by Eva Green. But there’s another factor in play here, too. The character of Vesper Lynd has a clear back story that’s only revealed to us a little at a time that underscores, and explains, many of her reactions.

It seems she was in a very intense relationship with the man who gave her the Algerian love knot she wears around her neck, until he was kidnapped. As a result of his kidnapping, she was forced to provide information to the organization that hired Le Chiffre, something she was in a unique position to do because of her position within the British government’s Treasury office. And she’s been keeping all of that a very tightly held secret, not just for her sake, but for her boyfriend.



Re-watch the film, and ask yourself this question: in the shower scene, in the scene where Bond is extricated from the wreck of his Aston Martin and put in the back seat of Le Chiffre’s car, and finally in the scene where’s she’s trapped in the elevator after its plunged into the water, is she showing fear on her face, or is she showing guilt? As the events are happening, Bond thinks its fear, and he finds that endearing. So much so that he’s actually able to open his heart up to her. Bond appears to like emotionally scarred women- he even married one once (or, since this is Bond Year One, perhaps will marry one in the not too distant future.) We think she’s showing fear. And when its revealed that she had been the one betraying Bond all along, we – and Bond – change that impression to think she was actually revealing her guilt, or as much as she could without drawing too much attention to herself. Then M tells Bond that it must be obvious, she had cut a deal to spare Bond’s life. So is there a third possibility? Was she conflicted about the fact that she was in love with Bond, too?

There are some critics of Casino Royale who claim that the film’s third act, as Bond convalesces at a hospital, and then the two of them go boating around the Mediterranean together, bogs the film down. I disagree. First of all, this is perfectly in keeping with what happened in the novel: Bond and Vesper do go tooling around Europe. In the film, we need these scenes to lull us into a false sense that things have wrapped up. Le Chiffre is dead, Mathis is being interrogated, there are no more dangers on the immediate horizon we are lead to believe, until Bond gets a phone call from M while simultaneously checking a text message on Vesper’s phone. “Are you ever going to deposit the winnings?” sends a jolt of adrenaline back into the story, as Bond comes to the horrible realization that he’s been betrayed.



Bottom line: Vesper Lynd is about as complex a character as we’ve ever seen in a Bond film, with the possible exception of Traci Di Vincenzo. And my only minor complaint about Ms. Green’s performance has to do with her affected British accent. Some of it felt a bit a forced at times.

“You’ve got a bloody cheek!"
If this is Bond Year One, how is it that Judi Dench could be Bond’s boss, when she was clearly the new “M” in GoldenEye? Well, let’s not go too far down that line of thinking. The fact is, Judi Dench is the perfect M to Daniel Craig’s Bond. She correctly sees that he is a blunt instrument, one with what she describes as an overly developed trigger finger. She is genuinely angry with him- for causing an international incident that she’s had to go to Parliament and answer for, for botching his assignment in Madagascar, and most importantly, for breaking into her home. And her anger is intended to start molding Bond into the Double Oh she needs him to be.



But there’s a bit more to it than that. Look closely at her eyes after she spots that her laptop is still switched on. She knows Bond is up to something, and she knows he won’t let it go until he gets to the bottom of it. Those are qualities she likes in Bond, even if she is a bit surprised at just how capable he is of breaking MI-6’s security. She expresses her doubts about Bond, but has to grudgingly admit she has no choice but to put him into Le Chiffre’s poker tournament. This proto-Bond has skills she knows she needs, but liabilities she needs to temper out of him. It isn’t until the film’s end that you get the sense that she’s given her endorsement to Bond, when she tells him he’s learned the lesson on trust that he needed to learn.

And because it is Judi Dench, the performance is marvelous.

“I should have introduced myself, seeing as we’re related. Felix Leiter, a brother from Langley.”
Predictably, the part of Felix Leiter was rather small in Casino Royale (it was a bit small in the book, too.) But we’re treated to a Felix Leiter who isn’t some sort of appendage, this time. He is on his own mission, one that has a goal parallel to Bond’s. And when he sizes the two of them up, he realizes that while Bond’s strength may be in winning the poker tournament, his strength is the financial backing he can give to keep Bond in the game. So he cuts a deal that benefits both of them.



It was good performance by Jeffrey Wright, and we know we’ll be seeing more of his Felix soon. So let’s just hope, if this is truly Bond Year One, that this Felix can find a way to avoid swimming with the sharks.

“…I won’t consider myself to be in trouble until I start weeping blood.”
This film was, in fact, the third time Casino Royale had been adapted for screen. In 1954, the CBS television network attempted to launch a series featuring an American agent known as Jimmy Bond (played by Barry Nelson), a British intelligence office known as Clarence Leiter, and an old flame of Bond’s known as Valerie Mathis. It was made for the bargain basement price of a $25,000 production budget, and was so bad, it lasted only a handful of episodes before it was mercifully cancelled.

In order to make that series, Climax! had purchased the rights to Fleming’s first Bond novel, which is why it wasn’t available to Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman when they formed their partnership in the early 60s.

Cut forward to 1967, a spoof under the same title was released. Listen to this cast: David Niven, Ursula Andress, Peter Sellers, Orson Welles, Woody Allen, Charles Boyer, William Holden, Deborah Kerr, and John Huston. Couldn’t possibly have been a bad movie with a cast like that, right? Wrong. It didn’t succeed as a spoof. It didn’t succeed as outright comedy. It was two hours and eleven minutes of sight gags, farce and send ups. And, if you’ve ever seen it, I regret to inform you that it’s two hours and eleven minutes of your life you’ll never get back.



So luck with the name “Casino Royale” was not exactly on EON productions’ side when it came their turn to adapt it to script form. But a bit of good fortune arrived to assist Messrs. Purvis and Wade in the scriptwriting duties this time around: a writer by the name of Paul Haggis. Thank heavens he did. Mr. Haggis was awarded for his contributions to Million Dollar Baby (directed by Clint Eastwood) and Crash (which he, himself, directed.) With Mr. Haggis collaborating on the script this time around, the story flows well, even as it adapts the original source material. Best of all, this film is so tightly scripted, there are no discernible plot holes.

Now, take that well written script and put it in the hands of a director you already know can make a great Bond film, and you have a formula for success. One of the DVD documentaries had an interesting segment about the continuity challenges they faced during the poker tournament scenes. It came down to the chips, and ensuring that the stacks remained the same from shot to shot. That’s harder than you might imagine, when you have players going “all in” with their chips, and then you have to re-stage the scene for another take, or a reaction shot.



One final note about this film: in the past, the Bond films would usually revel in the establishing shots they’d use to promote the glamorous globe-trotting locations Bond was visiting. They’d give us the animated postcard snapshots of the Eiffel Tower or Taj Mahal. Again, in keeping with the goal of doing things a different way, that was significantly watered down. In CR, a place like the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas was a backdrop for Bond’s arrival in Nassau. Montenegro was presented as a charming mountain village. And those were in stark contrast to the jungles of Madagascar, or the urban settings of modern day Prague at night.

“Vodka martini.”
“Shaken or stirred?”
“Do I look like I give a damn?”


One little bit of trivia for you. Bond orders his martini during the card game, eventually deciding to call it a Vesper. The recipe is three measures of gin (Gordon’s was Bond’s choice), one measure of vodka (Bond prefers grain vodka, so likely something along the lines of Absolut), and half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shaken over cracked ice until cold, and then served in a cocktail glass with a slice of lemon peel for garnish. All of this was taken, wholesale, right out of the Ian Fleming novel, and it presents us with a slight anachronism, one which I, as something of a martini aficionado, am able to point out. Kina Lillet is a type of dry white wine vermouth, made by Lillet, a distillery based in Pondensac, France. There’s just one problem: they haven’t made Kina Lillet since 1985. The closest product they have to it today would be Lillet Blanc. So, the bartender perhaps should have asked Bond if using Lillet Blanc as a substitute would be acceptable. Or am I being too pedantic? (Don't answer that.)



And a word about the opening credits. Since GoldenEye, all the opening credit sequences to Bond films have been done by Daniel Kleinman. With the exception of Tomorrow Never Dies, which I found a bit a bit flat and uninteresting, his opening credit sequences have done a fantastic job of weaving some of the motifs of the film into the opening visuals. Casino Royale is no exception, with his deck of cards design. What you may not know is that the inspiration for that very likely came from the cover art on the first British print edition of Ian Fleming’s book. Again, being very faithful to the source material.



So, the Fourth Age of Bond has commenced. Its opening statement, Casino Royale, is returning the franchise to the First of Age of Bond in more ways than one, and delivered a solid script that avoided gadgets, the over-use of CGI, and Bond’s usual puns. What it did give us were breath-taking stunts, a story with believable characters, and some superb performances from the cast, especially Daniel Craig in his debut as the sixth Bond in Bond Year One. Which is why Casino Royale gets an enthusiastic five rolls in an Aston Martin DBS out of a possible five.

James Bond will return in “Quantum of Solace.”

[Rich Flair]

Spoiler from the new League of Extraordinary Gentleman comic:

Spoiler:

[Patrick]

Do you all mean to tell me that in the week since I posted my review of Casino Royale, no one has any reaction to it?

[The Co=Ordinator]

Still haven't watched it!

[barnaby morbius]

i think you said it all Patrick- a fantastic film and in my top 3 bond films along with goldeneye and live and let die. very much looking forward to Skyfall

[Patrick]

I was hoping I'd convinced Stanmore to rent the movie. I mean, C=O is old and set in his ways, no amount of argument is going to convince him. But I'd hoped Stanmore might have at least been tempted to see CR.

Oh well. Quantum of Solace will be ready for posting soon.

[stanmore]

It's now downloading! It's on my to-watch list after Men In Black 3...

[Patrick]

Why aren't you watching them in chronological order of release date? MIB3 before Casino Royale. That's just wrong.

[Patrick]

The lessons from the history of the Bond franchise are generally that after they make a movie guilty of excesses (You Only Live Twice, Moonraker, Die Another Day), the next one out of the barrel is usually a re-trenching movie that goes back to basics (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, For Your Eyes Only, Casino Royale.) And it’s usually a far better film, in terms of story, than the one that preceded it. History has also shown that these films tend not to do as well, in terms of box office sales, as their immediate predecessors. That was not the case with Casino Royale, whose total box office gross actually surpassed that of Die Another Die.

The producers knew they had a good movie on their hands once Casino Royale was through post-production. So confident were they that they announced, even before Casino Royale had debuted in theaters, that pre-production on Bond 22 had already started. Could lightning strike twice, in such rapid succession?

Recall the ending to On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. The death of Traci di Vicenzo-Bond was a watershed moment for our gentlemen spy, providing him with the perfect excuse to seek revenge. Yet, other than globe-hopping Bond on the hunt for Blofeld at the start of Diamonds Are Forever, once he thinks he’s dispatched Ernst in a pool of super-heated mud, Bond’s quest for vengeance comes to an end in the pre-credits sequence. Perhaps the producers had figured out that this rather anti-climactic resolution to Traci and James’ tragedy was a bit odd, because it seems the very first creative decision made was to have this film deal, openly and honestly, with the aftermath of Vesper’s betrayal of Bond, and her death.

Quantum Of Solace
UK Release: October 31, 2008
US Release: November 14, 2008


“It’d be a pretty cold bastard who didn’t want revenge for the death of someone he loved.”

Daniel Craig’s second appearance in the role gave us much the same as we saw in his first. He is still very much the blunt instrument, the predator and shootist we met in Casino Royale. And outwardly, his Bond appears every bit as cold and aloof as when we first met him, but the context is different this time. In Casino Royale, he was still on a learning curve, figuring out what it meant to be a double-oh agent, and prone to making rookie mistakes. This time, he’s still processing the death of Vesper, a woman he did truly love but won’t bring himself to admit. And the first thing he feels is anger, in the form of vengeance.



There have been only two films in which Bond has had revenge as a motive for his actions. License To Kill, obviously, sees Bond go after a Central American drug lord to atone for the injuries to Felix and the death of Felix’s bride. And Goldfinger, where the death of Auric’s card cheating accomplice right under Bond’s nose clearly rattled him. The Bond of Quantum Of Solace, however, is repressing his need for revenge, attempting to make it nothing more than another outward facet of his job. That’s denial and anger, two of the five stages of grief, right there.

Certainly M recognizes this. While she may have satisfied herself that Bond’s skills did indeed warrant a promotion to Double-Oh status, here, she’s clearly worried about what impact Vesper’s death has had on him. And that leads to the open question: can she trust Bond to do his job and not be the unpredictable live wire for which he has shown a penchant. Two scenes underscore this: the first is the scene where Bond has just brought Mr. White to be interrogated by M. She rather bluntly states her case, telling Bond she needs to know she can trust him. “You don’t?” is Bond’s reply, clearly angry at the professional accusation, but unsaid in that passage is that Bond really did love Vesper, and her betrayal and death have clearly wounded him.



The second scene involves M confronting Bond at the hotel in La Paz. The dead body of Fields, dipped in oil and left on the bed, is apparently all the confirmation M needs to know that Bond has become an unstable, untrustworthy liability who has to be taken out. It’s only after Bond effects his elevator escape and confronts M, insisting that her report include how Fields had shown true bravery, that she realizes she had misjudged Bond- he truly was onto something.

But this movie also offers Mr. Craig the chance to show some real emotional depth. Case in point: Mathis’ execution scene showed the beginnings of Bond coming to terms with how his actions have personal consequences. When you combine that with the knowledge that Bond killed a member of special branch, as well as Fields’ death (in visual in direct homage to Goldfinger), you then arrive at Bond’s conversation with Camille as he’s dropping her off at the train station near the movie’s conclusion. This scene showed just how far Bond had come on his emotional journey, finally coming to terms with Vesper’s death. And it must be said that Mr. Craig pulled these scenes off quite effectively.

We also have a Bond, in Quantum of Solace, who is still very much a Double-Oh. Little details of his performance happen quite quickly, so it would be easy for a casual viewer to miss them: Bond ringing the bells of the tower to mask his entrance as he trails Mitchell, or challenging Felix once he’s sized the CIA Agent as being opposed to their deal with Greene, for example.



All told, this is a solid second appearance in the role for Mr. Craig.

“James, move your ass!”

There were rumors after this film came out that this was the second part of a trilogy, introducing us this mysterious organization called QUANTUM, likely the re-boot’s effort to establish a modern day version of SPECTRE. I never saw it as part of a trilogy. This movie was essentially the wrap up to all the dangling threads that had been deposited in front of us at the end of Casino Royale. It was always intended to conclude with Daniel Craig’s Bond becoming the 007 we know.

I think to the extent there is merit to this rumor, it had to do with the film’s length. At one hour, thirty nine minutes, it’s one of the shortest Bond films ever made (more than an hour shorter than Casino Royale.) And that left some viewers in 2008 thinking this film was merely marking time for the big third installment. For me, the only reason the shorter than usual duration of the film was an issue was that it felt, rather consistently in places, like it was rushing through events to get you to the meeting between Bond and Yusef, Vesper’s scheming (and supposedly dead) boyfriend.



Let me give you a couple of examples of what I mean. This bit of dialogue from near the end of the first act is intended to provide the link between Mitchell, the MI-6 bodyguard who tried to kill M, and a hired assassin currently in Port-au-Prince (note: the bits in parentheses are my editorial reactions):

Tanner: “Craig Mitchell, 45 years old. No living family, gave generously to charity.”
M: “Tell me you have more than that.”
Tanner: “Our moneymen went through every bill in Mitchell’s wallet and house.”
M: “How much did he have?”
Tanner: “Less than one hundred pounds, and about the same in dollars and euros.”
Currency Investigator No. 1: “Excuse me. Excuse me, ma’am. We’ve done a complete forensic analysis of every note and its traceable history.”
Tanner: “Not in the mood.”

(What?! Not in the mood? Tanner, you’ve just been explaining to M that you sent Mitchell’s currency to the MI-6 investigative unit, and now they have report to give. And you’re NOT in the mood to hear it? What a fatuous remark!)

Currency Investigator No. 2: “This particular note from Mitchell’s wallet may be of interest. We introduced tagged bills into Le Chiffre’s money laundering operation by intercepting illegal payoffs. We traced money through several of his accounts around the world.”
M: “That’s pretty thin. At the rate money changes hands, you could probably find a tenner in my wallet with a tag.”
Currency Investigator No. 2:[b] “That’s true, ma’am. A single bill could be a coincidence. But what about a whole stack? These bills, from the same series as Mitchell’s…”

(That’s the tenuous connection. Mitchell had five twenty dollar bills, which apparently had tags on them. They were part of a larger- presumably ten thousand dollar- stack of bills, that’s shown up elsewhere. That point got awfully glossed over.)

[b]Currency Investigator No. 2: “…were just scanned at a bank in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, deposited in the account of a Mr. Slate.”
M: “Impress me.”
Currency Investigator No. 2: “We have a Mr. Edmund Slate, returning to Port-au-Prince from Heathrow this morning. His entry documents have him staying at the Hotel Dessalines. He’s in room 325.”



That whole scene lasts approximately one minute, twenty seconds in screen time, and the whole time it’s playing, the audience is being dazzled by the computer graphics the Currency Inspector is manipulating. This is a pretty thin piece of evidence to go on, but the graphics help play a bit of a shell game, getting you to overlook the logic, and just go with it. So in the space of less than a minute and half of computer graphics “style” over dialogue “substance,” we’re off to Haiti where Mr. Greene’s part of the story can now come into play. You see what I mean about feeling rushed?

And speaking of going to Haiti, another aspect of the movie that I detested were the stylized logos intended as place setting informational markers. Why did they need to be so elaborate? At first, seeing the fancy script for Sienna, Italy, struck me as odd, but I ignored it. Then we go to London, and see the word “LONDON” in block lettering with extra spacing between the letters, as it appears on a rain-slicked street briefly, just before a car drives over it. Whatever happened to using an establishing shot? A two or three second glimpse of Big Ben would have made it perfectly clear where the action had moved. Why did we need to have the 18th Century style typesetting for “Port-au-Prince”, or that industrial logo for “Brigenz”? The dialogue had already told us where the action was about to transition us. If it was necessary to underscore that point with some on screen text, why wouldn’t simple white lettering at the lower corner of the screen have worked? It certainly seemed to work in the black and white opening of Casino Royale.




Near the film’s climax, we get a throw-away line of dialogue between General Medrano and the Colonel who will be assisting him in his coup, to explain the hotel (Perla de las Dunas) is powered by hydrogen power cells. At no point do we get any kind of look at them, to establish their location or future significance. So it’s rather an unexpected event when the Land Rover driving the Colonel backs up into the power cells and sets off an explosion. Again, would taking a moment to show the power cells, as a seed shot, have hurt? More evidence of the movie rushing itself along.



All of these, of course, are directorial choices. But after considering this, I can’t lay all of the blame at Marc Forster’s feet. Prior to making Quantum of Solace, Mr. Forster had worked primarily on small budget, independent films. This was truly his first big budget foray, and from some of the interviews he offered while on location during filming in the DVD extras, it seems his style of movie making was a bit more ad hoc than those of his predecessors. So at least a portion of the blame has to go to the producers who hired him.



Mind you, not every choice Mr. Forster made was bad. The opening of the film, as you move across the water toward the mountain road, followed by a series of shots of Bond’s eyes, the spinning wheels of the Aston, Bond shifting gears, with shadow and light playing across them, and then the roar of the exhaust pulls you right into the car chase. That was really quite well done. And in the same vein, the way he handled the fight between Bond and several of the henchmen at the Tosca performance was very artistic- the operatic music and vocals swelled and soared, as you visually cut between the performance on stage, and the fight happening in the restaurant and kitchen. You very clearly got the fact that this fight was happening right in the middle of a very public gala event.



One other place where this film excelled was in the characters. Taken as a direct follow-on from Casino Royale, what these two films have in common is that they are very much character driven. Bond is not a superhero, the bad guys are not hyper rich uber-villains. All the characters are drawn as three dimensional, and play off one another quite well. Much of that again comes down to good dialogue which allows the actors to find dimensions on the characters beyond what may be simply on the printed page. So let’s have a little discussion on character.


“There is something horribly efficient about you.”



For the second time in two movies, the expectations we have a Bond girl are done away with. Camille is no mere arm candy for Bond. She is a Bolivian Intelligence office, the daughter of a ruthless Bolivian official and his wife, a Russian dancer. And Bond stumbles into her own quest for vengeance against the man who murdered her parents and older sister, and then set the house on fire. It’s her quest for revenge that gives her and Bond something in common, and that gives her the unique ability to be Bond’s emotional compass. She expresses the feelings they both share, but that Bond is suppressing. When she confides to Bond that finally killing General Medrano did not give her the solace she was seeking, Bond’s lesson is complete. “I don’t think the dead care about vengeance,” Bond tells her, finally coming to terms, himself, with Vesper’s death.

Olga Kurylenko plays Camille with a sort of soft vulnerability that is endearing. Certainly Bond thought so, because there’s absolutely zero sex between them. By the film’s end, she’s become keenly aware of Bond’s vulnerabilities, too, expressing her wish that she could set him free of his prison. What she doesn’t realize is that she already has.



It’s also interesting to see her interactions with Greene. Camille is clearly a woman not opposed to using sex to get what she wants, and in the case of Greene, it was to put her in a position to take out General Medrano. But she clearly doesn’t trust Greene, as evidenced by the fact that she tried to hire someone to kill him. Nor does Greene trust her. Perhaps the most interesting interaction between them happened at Greene’s party. She shows up, pretending to be drunk, and sabotages a potential donation to his environment fund. “You can’t put a price on integrity,” she tells Greene. “I can try,” he responds, just before trying to break the railing she’s leaning against so she’ll fall to her death.

All told, this is a pretty well rounded character, right down to the childhood trauma she relives at the hotel as it’s going up in flames.


“There is nothing that makes me more than friends talking behind my back. Feels like… ants under my skin.”


What we can deduce about Dominic Greene, and the rather slick, modern day playboy performance from Mathieu Amalric, is that, first and foremost, he has something of an anger management problem. He’s also the suspicious type. The story he relates to Camille about having developed a crush on one of his mother’s piano students when he was 15, only to find out she making fun of him when she thought he wouldn’t find out, is pretty telling about what pushes him over his tipping point. And he’s telling Camille this as their standing at the edge of a pier, looking at the drowned body of the geologist Camille had just hired to kill Greene.

Indeed, his tipping point is reached in the fight with Bond that climaxes the movie. He becomes so unhinged in his efforts to plant an axe in Bond’s head that he isn’t paying attention to what he’s doing. Greene ends up putting the axe between the toes on his foot.



Greene poses as a legitimate business man, whose enterprise, “Greene Planet,” is supposedly a utilities provider to third world countries. Your first indication that that’s all a front is his pier-side conversation with General Medrano, as he finalizes a deal to help Medrano stage a coup d’etat in Bolivia and return the General to power. Why would a utility provider be doing that? And for that matter, what’s with the impenetrable firewall around Greene’s website? Then we see Greene, and his rather inept henchman, Elvis, board a private jet with Felix Leiter and Leiter’s boss, where they discuss a deal to give the US any oil found in the Bolivian desert in exchange for not interfering in the coup Greene is planning. But we’ve already heard Medrano tell Greene no oil has ever been found in that desert. So he’s clearly pulling the wool over CIA South American Section Chief Gregg Beam’s eyes.

What Greene is after, ultimately, is control of the water supply. His line, during the conference held while Tosca was being performed in the background, is very telling: “This is the world’s most precious resource. We have to control as much of it as we can.” Clearly, Bolivia is not the end of Greene’s (and QUANTUM’s) ambitions. And you have to give it to Greene, he’s not altogether wrong. There’s an old saying about he who controls the water, generally wins. To do this, he’s created an artificial drought by damming up a series of underwater rivers, creating reservoirs he alone controls. Think about that for a second- if he could do that in a sufficient number of third world countries around the world, he puts QUANTUM very quietly in a position to be the power behind all those governments. If they don’t act as QUANTUM wants, the water can very easily be turned off.



So he’s obviously a fraud, and he uses his cover as a concerned environmentalist to convince naïve wealthy donors to contribute to him. That was the whole point of his fundraising party, and despite Camille’s interference, her largely appears to have gotten away with it.

But he does give us one important clue about the functioning of QUANTUM beyond the fact that they like to meet in public places. When Bond drops the Special Branch bodyguard off the roof, the man survives the fall and lands on the hood of Greene’s Jaguar. “Is he one of ours?” Greene asks, and when told no, he instinctively puts a hand up to shield his face. “Then he shouldn’t be looking at me!” The bodyguard, a man assigned to protect the Special Advisor to the British Prime Minister, is immediately shot. Apparently, the different sections of QUANTUM aren’t supposed to have knowledge of one another’s personnel.


“You know who Greene is, and you want to put us in bed with him?"
“Yeah, you’re right. We should just deal with nice people.”

Jeffrey Wright, returning as Felix Leiter, actually gets a larger role in this film, even though his contributions to the story are fairly subtle. We get to see that Felix genuinely is a man of integrity, and the assignment his boss has put him is forcing him to compromise his principles, making him somewhat cynical. When he questions Beam about what they’re doing, he gets rebuffed, told to think objectively about his career, and questioned over whether he is truly a “team player.”



Because he’s worked with Bond before, and respects Bond’s skills in the espionage game, it’s clear he considers Bond more of an ally than his own boss. Watch the film again and note how, when questioned by Greene’s henchman if he knows the man in the photograph, he says no, only to be caught out when Beam informs Greene the man is MI-6 Agent James Bond, and Beam will have the Brits call Bond off. Leiter quietly seethes at this betrayal. At Greene’s party, Felix observes Bond in action against Greene, knows he’s trying to undermine Greene’s plans (and therefore the CIA’s deal), but does nothing to interfere. And then there’s the phone call he gets from Bond, inviting him to come out and see a little more of La Paz. Did you notice that after Bond says that, the camera cuts back to Felix, who remains silent, and then back to Bond, just as he hangs up the phone. Clearly, something was said to Felix that we didn’t get to hear. And he kept that something from his boss. He also allows, even facilitates to an extent, Bond’s escape from the bar where they have their short conversation. And it’s during that conversation he gives Bond all the information he needs to know to stop a coup, and exact revenge for Mathis’ death.



Mr. Wright underplays a lot of this, and to great effect. He makes it clear that he is one of the good guys, and has no illusions that Bond is, too.


“I believe I was the last person to see your family alive.”



There is a stark difference between the time we first meet General Medrano, at the pier in Port-au-Prince, and when he returns to the film near the end of the third act at the desert hotel. Initially, he looks like a deposed dictator living fairly well off the lootings he took from the Bolivian people before he was forced out of office. He’s dressed in what looks like comfortable Floridian attire for the tropics, arrives on a multi-million dollar yacht, and appears almost grandfatherly. Then we find out his ambition- to stage a coup and return to power as the military dictator of Bolivia. Okay, not so grandfatherly, but surely not all that menacing? Then Greene offers the General Camille as something to “sweeten their deal,” as long as promises to throw Camille overboard when he’s done with her. Medrano looks delighted at the prospect, and suddenly the menace is all there.



When the General re-enters the story, he’s now dressed in his military uniform, and his whole bearing is different. He knows he’s about to be installed as the new military ruler of Bolivia, and he’s projecting that façade of ruthlessness any dictator needs to possess. But there’s a flaw in his character: so single minded was he in his zeal to stage this coup, he lost sight of the bigger picture. In the scene were Greene informs him that he needs to sign an agreement making his company the sole utility provider for the country, and that if he doesn’t sign, Greene can just as easily have a follow up coup arranged that will depose Medrano, the General masks his surprise at the turn his deal with Greene has just taken by becoming a portrait of stoicism, eventually signing the document as though he’s just won something.

Joaquin Cosio isn’t given an overly large role to play here, but the shadow of General Medrano looms large over events throughout the movie, given that he is the object of Camille’s revenge. And his fight with Camille is quite effective in that you genuinely don’t see, for much of it, how Camille is going to prevail. This was a nice turn in performance for a character that could have been drawn as entirely two dimensional.


“Mr. Bond, such a tragic case. Everything he touches seems to wither and die.”

I want to take a moment to discuss the criticism that with this film, indeed, with the decision to re-boot the franchise, that it was essentially the “Bourne-ification” of the Bond films. The second unit director on this film was Dan Bradley. Mr. Bradley had also served on the second unit of the last two Jason Bourne films, and he clearly brings his style with him. His style is filming and then editing the action sequences in rapid form, weaving the various shots together in a close succession, thus giving the audience far more close-up shots than wide-angle views. This has the effect of making it impossible to glean the actual geography of a scene.



As examples of what I’m talking about, consider these action sequences: Bond’s Aston Martin is being chased by the bad guys in several Alfa Romeos, in the pre-credit sequence of the film. While the action is confined to the two lane tunnel of the road, it’s fairly easy to follow, because intuitively, you know all they can do in the heavy traffic is attempt to change lanes and overtake other cars on the road. Once they veer onto the mountain road where the marble digging operation is running, all the close up shots mean you can’t actually map the chase scene in your head.



Bond’s fight with Mitchell, that culminates with both falling through a glass window and into a room undergoing some renovations. We see them land on some scaffolding, then suddenly they’re both hanging onto ropes. Because of the tight angles on them, and the tight angles on the objects that go flying around, we really don’t understand the physics of why the rope pulleys are behaving as they do, lifting Mitchell up while dropping Bond. And when, exactly, did Bond get his ankle tied in a knot on that rope?

Bond’s boat chase scene in the Port-au-Prince harbor involves an anchor, apparently attached the henchmen’s boat giving chase- a boat that landed on top of the one Bond and Camille are riding in. Bond does something to the anchor, and the result is the henchmen’s boat flips, effectively ending the chase. I know Bond threw the anchor, but what did it catch on to cause that result?



The reason this style of film-making is popular with movie-makers is that it immerses the audience into the action, supposedly in a more realistic way. But it’s always vexed me when such a style gets used. Part of the magic of an action sequence is seeing how it unfolds, revealed as part of a bigger picture. To do that, you have to give the audience the visual clues as to where all the players are, where all the obstacles are, and how all of these are interacting. The only method of that is more, rather than fewer, wide angle shots.

Mind you, I’m not accusing the Bond films of attempting to latch onto and copy the Bourne film’s methods. After all, the second units on Bond films have been tackling stunts, action sequences and model work for decades before the character of Jason Bourne was a neuron spark in Robert Ludlum’s cerebellum. And they’ve certainly done a better job of handling such scenes in the past than I think the Bourne films have done. This was merely a regrettable decision to bring one of the Bourne team on board for this film. Let’s hope it was a one-time event, rather than a trend.


“I’m not dwelling on the past, I don’t think you should either.”



One final note: given that this film is only six years removed from Die Another Day, can someone explain to me why the title of the song for this film was “Another Way To Die”? Granted, finding a way drop the words “Quantum of Solace” into lyrics would have been a bit problematic, but isn’t that song title just a little too similar to the title of Mr. Brosnan’s last Bond film? As for the song itself, I found it a bit of a let down after the really excellent “You Know My Name” from the previous film. But I won’t go judging a Bond film by its title music.

Final word, Quantum of Solace was something of an experiment. The producers decided to finish off the story of Casino Royale, and delivered to us a film where Bond had to make an emotional journey to finally become the 007 we know. It’s an excellent character driven story, with strong acting performances, only let down in places by some odd directorial choices, and a pacing which felt like it was in a bit too much of a hurry. Quantum of Solace still manages to overcome most of those odd hiccups, but it isn’t quite in Casino Royale’s league, which is why it gets four oil-dipped Strawberry Fields out of a possible five. So, re-boot complete. I suppose this means next time, we may even get to see the return of Moneypenny and Q.

James Bond will return in “Skyfall.” Be seeing you at the theaters!

[barnaby morbius]

meh- i wasn't blown away by this at all. it didn't really hang together very well, although i recently saw it for a second time on the telly and it was a bit better.

and i love the theme song-i think it's an absolute corker

[Patrick]

Couple of news items to report. First, ACCORDING TO THIS ARTICLE to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the franchise, you will soon be able to buy James Bond cologne. (Personally, I think I'll pass on that. Eon Productions already gets enough of my money.)

But even more importantly, the second teaser trailer for Skyfall has now been released. Behold...

[Aspadistra]

Looks like fun.

[The Co=Ordinator]

Couple of news items to report. First, ACCORDING TO THIS ARTICLE to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the franchise, you will soon be able to buy James Bond cologne.

I'd rather buy James Bond Hamburg.

[Patrick]

James Bond Hamburg is over-rated. You might try James Bond Berlin.

[The Co=Ordinator]

Nah, the only alternative is Stuttgart. Ask Dr. Kauffman.

[Patrick]

I disagree. What about a James Bond Frankfurt?

[The Co=Ordinator]

Do you want mustard with that?

[Patrick]

Yes, please. And some onions.

[The Co=Ordinator]

Now you're taking the p1ss.

[The Co=Ordinator]

I've noticed this on Facebook, from Blue Hour Publishing.



Coming VERY soon. License:Reviewed - reviews of ALL the Bond films from the very beginning by Bond fan and talented writer Patrick Mulready.

[Patrick]

Yes, well... that's the Eocene's doing, not mine. My natural modesty prevents me from such self-publicity.

[Patrick]

I'm normally not one for product placement or endorsement for movies. I mean, it becomes rather obvious what they're doing as soon as they do it. Having said that, Heineken has now come out with a rather nifty commercial to tie into what will no doubt be their product placement in Skyfall. The cameo is makes this work for me...

[barnaby morbius]

Yes, well... that's the Eocene's doing, not mine. My natural modesty prevents me from such self-publicity.

you still have time to rethink your live and let die rating!

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