Every decade gets the James Bond it deserves. The quality of a Bond
film is a function of the heroine ("bond lady"). By this standard,
I find the Sean Connery films completely unwatchable, and favor
_Tomorrow Never Dies_, the much maligned _Die Another Day_ (which
has a thought-provoking script about Asian taking after the worst
traits of European countries), and _The World is Not Enough_. (Too
bad Lea Seydoux is completely wasted in the dreadful _Spectra_
-- directed by Sam Mendes, so what do you expect?) These decades-old
films depict a world very different from our times now, although
_Tomorrow Never Dies_ is prescient about the rise of the PRC's ultra-nationalism.

By far the best Bond film is _Casino Royale_, starring a stunning
and mecurial Eva Green. The film also boosts serious artistic
ambition; Green's character's death scene is as well stage as
any in recent cinematic history. But _Casino_ also reboots the
franchise with an origins story; it is implied that Daniel Craig's
newly-minted assassin -- more brawn than brains, brutal rather
than suave, a glorified punk really -- was an orphan who as a
school boy developed seething resentment in the company of his
upper class peers. Eva Green's analyst surmises that this is the near-sociopathic archetype MI6 loves to recruit. In the chaotic,
post 9/11 world of the 2000's, this egalitarian Bond, in which no
one can be trusted and "friends" routinely betray each other
on both sides, seems the only one that fit the times.

Fast forward to the 2010s, and the same Bond (Craig) suddenly has
a different backstory. He late father had money after all, owned
a proper manor house, and even had a "butler." Bond has become an
aristocrat, a Batman-lite. No wonder _Skyfall_ is so highly
touted; it is all of one piece with superhero movies, or _Star
Wars_/_Game of Thrones_. Bloodline is paramount, biology is
everything. Both the warring U.S. Progressives and the Trumpians
are fully on board with this, of course; they create personality
cults around Obama/Trump and the First Families even as they
decry privilege/elitism, respectively. (This is not to say that the
the two ex-Presidents are equivalent of course; one was a decent
guy who was ineffective, had neither executive nor legislative
experience or talent, while the other was a pathological liar,
sociopath, and wannabe autocrat who did his best to torpedo
democracy.) But there are related anti-democratic, dynastic
impulses in the progressive and Trumpian camps, which probably
explain why _Skyfall_ is universally liked despite its awful script
(if the new "Q" had use a computer virus blocker there would
have been no movie) and its misogynic, even quicker than usual
slaughter of the Bond ladies (except Noemie Harris, who is really
the leading actress here). Instead of the moral chaos in
_Casino Royale_, we have utter clarity. Tribalism reigns.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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