The first James Bond, Sir Sean Connery celebrated his 85th birthday this year in August, but in our minds, the 007 character has stayed in his 40s for almost half a century. The five 007s after Sean Connery are all charming, energetic, well dressed, blue-eyed. In the newly released James Bond movie, “Spectre,” Daniel Craig remained in his attractive appearance, but presents an older James Bond, even the form-fitting Tom Ford suit does not make up for the wrinkles on his face. We get it, Mr. 007 gets old, the movie gets old.
In the beginning of the movie, James Bond executes a task by parkouring, this time, in Mexico City. For the routine of every 007 movie, this part is objectively good, especially the part where he fights with the enemies on a helicopter, which shows the director, Sam Mendes’ brilliant scene-scheduling ability. After Bond takes the ring with the spectre mark off the enemy’s finger, Sam Smith’s new song “Writing on the Wall” plays, the best part of the whole movie.
On the Graham Norton show, Daniel Craig confessed that he hurt himself a lot during the shooting of his four 007 movies. “I’ve had my right shoulder reconstructed, both knees operated on, even my thumb hurt.” The audience laughed when Craig talked about how his thumb killed him, however when the actor talked about his injury to the public, it was clear that he is too old to be James Bond, just like Pierce Brosana. Spectre has the least number of action scenes of the last four 007 movies in which Daniel Craig plays James Bond. The most memorable action scene, besides the helicopter part at the beginning, is a car-racing scene along the river. The car was the main character in this scene, shooting guns and fire, and even playing music. James Bond just sits in the car, doing nothing. At last, Bond pops out, ruining another expensive car while the audience asks themselves why James Bond is even in the movie.
Daniel Craig’s first 007 movie, Casino Royale, was released in 2006, almost ten years ago. But this 47 years old actor isn’t the only one who gets old, the “Bond girl” too. Monica Bellucci, the dream lover in Sicily played the widow of a gangster. Before the movie released, the press informed loudly that she would be the oldest “Bond girl” of all 007 movies. No need to guess how the 51-year-old Bellucci was frustrated when she heard this kind of film promotion, she did look old enough to be the “oldest Bond girl” in the movie. She only appeared in two parts, one is the funeral of her husband, the other is when she and James Bond have sex. After the confusing and spontaneous intimacy, Bellucci disappears for the rest of the movie, just half an hour after the opening
song. Maybe the writer wanted to use her to explain why men don’t want to date a woman who over the age of forty. Compared to Monica Bellucci, another “Bond Girl” Léa Seydoux does her job wonderfully, dressing fancy to attend a dinner party with James Bond and being kidnapped by the bad guy waiting for James Bond’s rescue. Of course, she sleeping with James Bond. But there is just one problem, in the story, Sawn (Seydoux’s role) is the daughter of an old acquaintance of James Bond, so the thing she did with her uncle James makes the audience a little bit uncomfortable, asking what James Bond is thinking.
The third person who get old with James Bond is the villain, not physically, but mentally. This time, Christopher Waltz is the bad guy. Christopher Waltz, the actor who is famous for playing the evil psychopath in Inglorious Basterds, but failed playing another cold-blood murder and a gang leader. The audience would find that all his moves are focus on “How to kill bond” by physic, catch Bond, tie him up, kill him, not like any other villains, who use intelligence as the weapon, which is a big disappointment.
Basically, all the characters get old, there is another thing of the 007 franchise that gets old, the story. Ian Lancaster Fleming had written twelve 007 novels before he died in 1964, two years after the very first movie, Dr. No, was released. Forty years later, when Casino Royale played on the big screen, all twelve novels have already been adapted into twenty-one movies. The actual texts has been used up. The other three movies following are adapted either as short episodes of the novels, which nobody cares about (like Quantum of Solace), or as mysterious projects, which never officially came out, just like Spectre. In fact, Spectre is the evil backstage manipulator of all the troubles that James Bond gets involved with. But before Fleming dead, he never let the big boss come into the light. As we all know, when the big boss fell down, the franchise also ended. Since Fleming was perhaps a good story teller (the 007 novel based on his true experience of being a spy), but only a few people have ever admitted that he was a great novelist, the story of a gorgeous spy gets laid, by the way save the word is out of fashion, 007 really should consider to retire.
Spectre is the last 007 movie of Daniel Craig. He isn’t the longest-lasting James Bond, nor the youngest, but he provides many classic Bond scenes in his four 007 movies. Dropping out at this time might be the best decision for him, everyone gets old, even actors, but James Bond must stay in his forties forever.
