Daniel Craig, a Bond for a New Generation

[warning: contains at least one bit that some may consider a spoiler]

I detoured a couple of blocks out of my way this morning, en route to a screening of Happy Feet, just so I could walk by the Sony building on Madison Avenue and ogle the larger-than-life ads for Casino Royale that festoon the structure. I couldn't quite put a finger on why until just now, but this new Bond, this Daniel Craig guy who is either the best Bond ever, or the absolute worst, has captured my imagination in a way that Bond never has before -- not that most of the people weighing in on this subject have even seen the film yet. I've watched the trailer a dozen times or more, I can't take my eyes off Craig, with the tux and the gun, on the sides of buses ... I'm almost afraid to see the film itself. Surely no movie could be as good as the delicious anticipation?

Yeah, Craig is gorgeous, in that rough, unpretty way that Russell Crowe, bless his heart and everything else, made safe again for Hollywood leading men, but that's not it. Or not entirely, at least -- I'll admit that I'm as shallow as the next gal. But I adore Pierce Brosnan, too, and yet I never could get into his Bond. I've never been much of a fan of the Bond movies at all, truth to tell -- I'm not sure why. Too jokey, maybe, too full of truly bad puns and worse double entendres and entirely too much stuff blowing up merely for the sake of seeing it burn? Maybe Bond himself was too unruffled no matter what happened? Was it all too cartoonish to really involve me?

I figured out what was fundamentally different about Craig when it struck me that for the first time, James Bond is my age -- Craig's got a few months on me, but it is only a few months. This is the first Bond who's a Generation Xer. No wonder he's disliked even before the point at which it's fair to judge him -- that's been the story of Gen X from our childhood, when we were the first cohort of kids who were less likely to even be born, thanks to the Pill. (Also, we're our own worst critics, too -- we embraced the slacker epithet willingly and with nods of agreement all around, after all -- so it's probably no surprise if Xer Bond fans are among those dissing Craig as well as those who will, I'm sure, embrace him.) Everything clicked into place when I realized that Bond was taking a quantum leap into new cultural territory with Craig -- those other Bonds may have been cartoons disconnected from reality, but Craig's Bond already feels solid and here. He's practical in a way that feels expedient and calculated rather than merely suave and insouciant -- that clip in the trailer of Bond agreeing that yes, the second kill is quite easier than the first is chilling. And maybe that's a problem for some fans: that Bond is no longer quite as big a fantasy. I think it's safe to say that Casino Royale is still going to be a big toybox of cool cars and neat-o weapons and amazing stunts, but for me, a little more groundedness makes me a much more concerned bystander to Bond's adventures.

There'd been a vague nagging at the back of my mind about a secret importance to that instantly iconic poster, of Craig's Bond, gun drawn at his side and tux tie undone and a look of determination on his face ... and now I get it. There's none of that nancy posing of the formerly iconic Bond stances, duds all perfect and gun held uselessly up at his cheek and he's staring vacantly straight into the camera while babes hang all over him, which -- honestly -- would be rather a hindrance when one is trying, darling, to shoot the bad guys. This new Bond has no time for us: he's got places to be, people to kill, and that damn tie is choking him -- this Bond is in motion (and the babe is off in the background, watching him go) with an itchy energy that I'm not sure any of the other Bonds pulled off.

[warning: skip the next paragraph if you don't wanna read the potential spoiler]

But the best -- the absolute best -- indication that this is not your father's 007 is this: Craig's Bond reportedly responds, when asked whether he wants his martini shaken or stirred, "Do I look like I give a damn?" I cannot express what a frisson of rightness shivers through me at that: there is the break with the past, with what had become the jokiness of the series. There is the fresh start that acknowledges the past and then trashes it: there is the love/hate.

Maybe "hate" is too strong a word. Maybe it's a love/tough love: we, the collective "we," we love Bond, but we love him so much that we want to save him from what he's become. The trailer makes it plain that there will be playing with the clichés ... like when it's Bond this time, not a babe, who comes up out of the ocean wearing nothing but a teeny bikini and a promise. But there's also a sense of a new seriousness, too: when the hell has Bond ever told a woman before, "Whatever is left of me, whatever I am, I'm yours"? Obviously -- and this is purely a guess, but c'mon: obviously she will not survive the film ... and then we'll have a deliciously angst-ridden Bond to play with in subsequent films.

You know, maybe it's just the guys who will hate this Bond: the nancy posing is gone, but girly emotions are in. But women: woo, I think we're gonna love him.

P.S. Oh, and Giles Coren, in the Times of London? What he said about Craig and Bond ... every single word of it.

[I'm seeing the film on Tuesday night -- check back on Wednesday for my review!]

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
MaryAnn Johanson
author of The Totally Geeky Guide to The Princess Bride
minder of FlickFilosopher.com

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