This Weekend’s Film Festival Celebrates Bond, James Bond

With the second film in the rebooted Bond franchise now on DVD, This Weekend's Film Festival celebrates the iconic British spy with a collection of his greatest screen adventures. Some critics have argued that QUANTUM OF SOLACE took the fun out of the Bond series, but its gritty realism and continuing emotional center are something that was present in past installments. In the lineup we have Connery, Lazenby, Moore and Craig. We have Bianchi, Rigg, Bouqet, Green, and Kurylenko. After this look at 007, your impression of the legendary hero will be shaken and stirred.

The second Bond film, FROM RUSSIAN WITH LOVE, may be the best balanced of the series. It contains many of the great conventions like Q, and the bad ones like the talking villain. Bond archnemesis Blofeld is introduced as an unseen mysterious figure. In this adventure, SPECTRE wants to start a war between the U.S. and Russia and uses Russian agent and beauty Tatiana Romanov (Daniela Bianchi) as a trap for Bond, played with suave skill by Sean Connery. The heated adversarial relationship between the male and female spies is a quintessential element of the series and works rarely better than here. The plot gives them reasons to put aside their differences and fall in love… or lust. A unique element of this entry, especially for one coming in 1963, is the crucial character of Kerim Bey, a smart, brave and sexually appealing Turkish spy. Before Bourne upped Bond and then Bond tried to up Bourne, the vicious fight sequence between Bond and SPECTRE thug Red Grant, played wonderfully by Robert Shaw, was as raw as any modern fight gets. And unlike modern fight choreography, the audience can make out what is happening, giving it real tension. This edition really set the bar high for the series. To quote my original review, "Being a spy can be a rough job, between murderous assassins and femme fatales, but James Bond is the man that can handle all elements with strength and smarts."

ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE was the first non-Connery Bond film. George Lazenby dons the famed tuxedo and gets to quip, "This never happened to the other fella." And certainly no other Bond film gets as personal than this one. This time Bond has another adversarial love interest in Tracy Di Vicenzo, played by THE AVENGERS star Diana Rigg. For many reasons, she becomes the ultimate Bond girl, and provides a strong personal link between Bond and Blofeld, who is played here by KOJAK star Telly Savalas. Like the reboot films, this entry increases the image of Bond playing by his own rules by disobeying orders and teaming with criminals. While Lazenby isn't Connery, he fits into this one-off performance with more ease than some of the actors who followed him. Like FROM RUSSIA, this entry in the series plays the action straighter than the more cartoonish installments. The visceral action sequences still retain their power today. To quote my original review, "this one ranks up there with the best of the lot…" SECRET SERVICE tried to humanize the character and in doing so created an emotionally engaging story, as well as a thrilling ride. This standard is what makes the reboot films so good.

Roger Moore was subjected to the most cartoonish of the Bond films, but the producers gave him one of the best of the series when they went serious for FOR YOUR EYES ONLY. By this entry, Blofeld had become a joke, and the filmmakers give a hilarious wink to that at the start, virtually telling the audience that the silly stuff is being thrown away. This installment even references the emotional elements of ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE, giving Bond a personal backstory going into the action. Like many other Bond films, his romance is a woman seeking revenge for the death of a loved one. The daughter of murdered spies, Melina, played by the gorgeous Carole Bouqet, is also one of the most developed and skilled of the Bond beauties. She stands as a capable ally for Bond as he tries to stop the Russians from recovering a secret decoder from a sunken sub. The action sequences stand out, especially the early car chase and the famed skiing sequence. In these action set pieces, Bond needs to think his way out of trouble, an element that was used to great effect in CASINO ROYALE. And no one will forget Bond's badass moment when the assassin's car teeters on the edge of the cliff. To quote my original review, "This may be the most underrated Bond movie of the series."

Now we come to the reboot films. Before CASINO ROYALE was released, many critics and fans questioned the casting choice of the blonde Daniel Craig. After its release, the choice was not questioned again. Craig is easily the best Bond since Connery, and CASINO is one of the premiere films in the franchise. This more realistic take on the character brings modern fight choreography and visual effects with amazing stunt work. As a new 007, Bond is impulsive and brutal. Mads Mikkelsen plays the iconic villain Le Chiffre, who must win a high stakes poker game to fund his evil empire. Between the tour-de-force opening action sequence and the extended tension of the poker game, CASINO seems like a film of polar opposites. But what all the sequences have in common is Bond as a thinking hero. Like any brash young man, he makes mistakes, gets himself in trouble, and must work his way out. This film establishes the personality of the character more fully than any of the films, and with Eva Green's Vesper Lynd, gives the series a new emotional pull, just like Rigg's Bond girl provided. To quote my original review, "Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Paul Haggis’ screenplay balances a gritty realism with the iconic cool of the franchise well. They often weave the signature lines in with either humor or poignancy… This is the best Bond in ages, thanks to a good script, skilled director and Daniel Craig — he’s Bond and don’t doubt it."

QUANTUM OF SOLACE picks up right after the events of CASINO ROYALE, and stands as the first straight sequel of the franchise. Like FOR YOUR EYES only, this film uses a tragedy of a previous film to drive Bond through this installment. Fuelled by revenge for his dead love, Bond hunts down the members of a secret organization called Quantum. Roger Ebert complained that Bond isn't an action star; he rises above it. But if you watch closely, the filmmakers are setting that up. The impulsive Bond is now ruthless, but he's tiring. QUANTUM provides us with two classic Bond girls — the revenge seeker, Camille (Olga Kurylenko) and the sexy MIA agent Strawberry Fields (Gemma Arterton), whose cheeky interaction with Bond sets up 007 as a man looking for a diversion from the painful emotional tolls of real love. At the end, Bond literally drops his past behind him. Is he developing a suave shield to protect him in the future? Like CASINO did, QUANTUM takes what happens to Bond seriously. This Bond remembers what happened in the last film and needs to deal with both on an external and internal level. Because CASINO ended in tragedy, QUANTUM becomes a more somber and violent affair. While the action sequences are not up to the same standard as CASINO, the inner story treats the character with the same level of respect. As I said in my original review, "QUANTUM retains some of the promise of CASINO ROYALE and moves the franchise into an open direction to develop more of the Bond characteristics, while giving them an emotional place to be born from."

To sign up for this mission just head to the videostore, update the Netflix queue, check out Zap2It.com for TV listings, or help out the site by purchasing the films on DVD at the links below.