After the mess of racing Tomorrow Never Dies through production and ending up with a good looking but ultimately silly movie, Bond producers wanted to get back to basics and create a James Bond film that pulled out all the stops. For the most part, they may have succeeded, though they certainly committed many missteps.
On paper, the film seems brilliant. The villain, played to perfection by Robert Carlyle, is a terrorist known as Renard who survived an assassination attempt by MI6 and has a bullet in his brain that allows him to feel no pain. For his part, he’s working to irradiate a major city in order to benefit a corporation who wishes to be the exclusive pipeline of oil across vast swaths of land. It’s everything people need to see: greedy financial sectors plotting to harm the Earth for nothing more than a profit margin.
Unfortunately for them, James Bond is on the case.
So, without further ado, I will open the floor to the other robots:
Swank-Mo-Tron: I’ll be honest, I’ve not been a very big fan of this movie since it came out. When it did come out, it felt too long, overly-plodding, and I had a hard time getting over Denise Richardson as a nuclear physicist. But watching it again I’ve softened on it quite a bit. It’s still far too long, but there is a lot to love. Aside from Richardson’s “Christmas Jones” character, this might be the most straightforward and dramatic of Brosnan’s films.
Citizen-Bot: I was enthralled from the opening sequence. If anything, I like this movie more than it deserves. It is long, but there’s some good elements to like in here. I was in. Until Christmas Jones showed up, who sticks out like a sore thumb. . .
Swank-Mo-Tron: I want to talk about the pre-credits sequence, because this is, in history, the longest in any Bond film ever. I was a theatre projectionist when it came out and everything was still on film and I used to count reel markers and I was alarmed and unsettled when I watched the film for the first time and the opening kept going and going and going, and we hit the first reel marker before we hit the opening credits. The boat chase went on way too long, especially since we’d already seen a thrilling negotiation and escape at the Swiss Bank, but it brought us to a place I really liked. Bond, dangling precariously from a hot air balloon by a rope, chasing a woman who would rather blow herself up than face the wrath of the film’s villain. I loved how Bond wounded himself on his way down, breaking his fall on a building, and how his hurt shoulder continued to play a part of the story through the film.
Citizen-Bot: I love that opening sequence, which, ironically, I got to see twice on opening night because the projector broke in my first screening right after the opening credits, so we got to go into the next showing. So I got it twice the first time around and loved every second: the set-up in the Swiss Bank, a secret assassin who refuses to kill Bond, a bomb plot against MI6, and then a boat chase down the Thames in Q’s “fishing boat” that makes Live and Let Die look like a child’s duckie regatta.
I also love some of the other action set pieces. For the first time since On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, I think they did a good snow chase scene. The flying snowmobiles was so over the top that it just became fun.
Swank-Mo-Tron: I appreciated the Stockholm syndrome plot between Elektra King (Sophie Marceau) and Renard, but I didn’t need it so blatantly spelled out by Bond. The motivations of all the characters actually seemed well played in this film, and the plan is sound, though it’s basically Auric Goldfinger’s. Thinking about it, these guys need to get a new playbook.
Citizen-Bot: Yeah, Bond plots really needed to start branching out. Part of the downside, and what adds to the plodding of this film, is the need for everything to be spelled out to the audience. It was like after Tomorrow Never Dies came out, they focus group tested it and too many people said, “I don’t get it.” So they felt the need to be overly expository rather than just tell a good story and let the sheep get lost if they needed to.
Swank-Mo-Tron: One thing I do love are winks and nods back to the history of the series. Even the title refers back to On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and the family motto of Bond’s family. And, other bots, correct me if I’m mistaken, but is this the first time Pierce Brosnan Bond owned the “Commander” rank? I really like that. I can’t tell you why, but when someone calls him Commander Bond, it brings a smile to my face.
Citizen-Bot: I love that little flair, too. It’s the only thing that makes his traversing of a Russian nuclear submarine plausible, though. Otherwise it might be like, “Really? He just conveniently knows which torpedo tubes to take where? And how to run a naval nuclear reactor?” I guess because my grandfather was in the Navy before being recruited into the OSS and then the CIA, it always rings true to me that the intelligence and the military game kind of overlap, so I love that as well. (Love you,Grandpa. Miss you.)
Swank-Mo-Tron: But how can we discuss this film without talking about the awfulness of Denise Richardson? Was she attractive and worked well as a Bond girl? Yes. But not this Bond girl. She just did not fit what needed to be an intelligent, nuanced role. And Brosnan is eyeing her like a lecherous wolf the entire time. He has no respect for that intellect because it isn’t really there.
Citizen-Bot: And really? “Christmas” Jones? And for the payoff of several bad puns at the end. I think this Robot Chicken sketch says it all. It would’ve been better if her name had just been Ivana Humpalot or Chesty McGee or something. And why in the world was she a nuclear scientist? I mean, it makes a tiny bit of sense in the plot, but not really. But my real problem with this was not Denise Richards (who I prefer to think of as White She-Devil from the vastly underrated Undercover Brother) but the one scene where she and Bond speak Russian to each other. The sad thing is? Denise Richards speaks more passable Russian than Pierce Brosnan. I seriously wanted to yell at the screen a la Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade “IF HE IS A RUSSIAN SCIENTIST THEN I AM MICKEY MOUSE!!!’ Cover- blown. I half expected him to start plotting how to take down Moose and Squirrel with Natasha. Gaaaaahhhhh.
But in the end, how I feel about Christmas Jones is how I feel about the entire movie: pretty to look at, kind of fits in the Bond universe if you don’t think about it too much. And it really appeals to the lowest common denominator in me.. Which is too bad. Because what could have been really great was instead just a mostly passable action popcorn flick.
We talked before about Robbie Coltrane as Valentin, and he’s back in this movie. I really liked his reprise of the role from Goldeneye and glad they brought him back. He works well as a foil for Bond and contributes to the plot in ways few other characters could’ve. He’s the perfect frenemy for Bond.
And we would be completely remiss if we didn’t pay some tribute here to the final performance of Desmond Llewellyn as Q, who died in a car accident just a month or so after the release of the film. My Bond-o-phile roommate and I went back to the theater and re-saw it after hearing of his death just so we could shed a tear at his, “Always have an escape route” quip and the passing of the torch to John Cleese (obviously a transfer to MI6 from the Ministry of Silly Walks). “Now pay attention 007. . . “ These words are as iconic to me as “shaken, not stirred,” and Llewellyn was a great sport in these roles. He really held the cohesiveness of the franchise together, even when the actors around him playing Bond changed. Nobody does it better.
Swank-Mo-Tron: Overall, this isn’t a great Bond film, but it’s better than a lot of them. It has some great action sequences and Brosnan is finally given some challenging things to do. The only things that bring it down are it’s excessive running time and Denise Richards. 2.5 Martinis.
Citizen-Bot: For once, we’re on the exact same page. I probably like this movie more than it deserves. But it was more fun than Tomorrow Never Dies and certainly better than Die Another Day. What can I say? At the end of the day, I love Christmas, and I love Garbage. 2.5 Martinis.
