Nope. Sometimes SPECTRE subverted the Soviets (for instance, in From Russia With Love or You Only Live Twice) but they never operated in direct cooperation with the Soviets or any other governmental body. SPECTRE, of course, is now owned wholly by Kevin McClory and cannot be used by Eon (Broccoli and company). I think the issue is less one of Bond being a Cold War creation (though there is that aspect) but that the filmmakers have run out of anything interesting to do with or to him. Given that there is almost zero continuity in tone, style, or background between the films, it’s impossible for the character to grow or change in any significant way, as he did in the later novels.
Part of the problem with Bond is that it has become such an over-the-top parody of itself; in an effort to keep ramping up the stakes, he’s been written into a cartoon character, and while this was most evident in the Simon Templar-esque reign of Roger Moore (whose one good outing at 007, For Your Eyes Only was one of the less profitable of his Bond films), it really started during the Connery years, with You Only Live Twice (silly) and getting vastly worse with Diamonds Are Forever; at that point, for better or worse, the writers abandoned any pretense of following the Flemming novels and just used the titles and a few character names.
Attempts to return to an old-style, more literary-based Bond have met with limited success, often because they coincided with a change in actor. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is an excellent film (not just an excellent Bond film) but while it wasn’t the bomb described by some detractors it certainly earned less return than previous Bond films. The Living Daylights harkened back to the Fleming concept of Bond as a cruel, hired gun troubleshooter with a dark, cynical outlook and a ruthless manner of executing his orders (it also had some of the best action scenes ever in a Bond movie), plus it invoked classic films like The Third Man and Lawrence of Arabia, but cinema-goers didn’t much go either for it or its Dalton-played successor, the vengful Licence To Kill.
Although I thought Brosnan would be the deathblow to the franchise–too weak, too dandyish, too big hair–he has actually acquited himself quite well when given decent material. Unfortunately, none of the Brosnan films have been consistantly good, and the last, Die Another Day, was an abomination. Note that this wasn’t because of the talent involved; I thought Judi Dench has done quite well as M, John Cleese makes an excellent replacement for Desmond Lewelyn as Q, Samatha Bond is quite lovely and yet fiercely devoted as Miss Moneypenny, and Michelle Yeoh was a fantastic
ally/foil for Bond. But the scripts are lacking and the dialog mostly sophomoric. Perhaps it always was, and only Connery’s droll delivery made it passable, but the Bond franchise has been on its last legs for well over a decade, and that’s after having passed through full self-satire mode.
It’s time to let 007 retire to a life of liesure in northern England, on a picturesque garden estate surrounded by beautiful women and guarded by lions. Ooft…sorry about that, wrong movie. Anyway, Bond needs to be done but good, and while Daniel Craig has the intensity to play a serious spy role–maybe a retooling of the Harry Palmer stories–I don’t see him throwing off the wisecracking one-liners that fans of the cinematic Bond have come to expect.
Let…Bond…die. Please, don’t milk this franchise for any more than has already been squeezed out of it.
Personally, I’m saddened by the hash that was made of The Saint. That could have been a great, somewhat lighthearted series; instead, it was written with absurd seriousness and grossly miscast in the starring role (though I’ll never complain about seeing Elizabeth Shue anytime, anywhere.)
Stranger
