10 years of Flick Filosopher: Bond is back

And this is it, my last retrospective review. From my review of Casino Royale:

Oh man: James Bond’s got Indiana Jones all over him all of a sudden. He bleeds. He hurts. He grins nastily at his own handiwork. He laughs in the face of his torturer (yeah, torturer -- and don’t let the PG-13 rating fool you: the scene may not be graphic, but it is highly disturbing). He’s earthy and grounded and there in a way that Bond never has been before, a real man who suffers -- inside and out; Daniel Craig = a god of cinema -- but who is also, when it’s not his own well-being at stake, genuinely cold-hearted, almost sadistic. You cheer for him, a devil on the side of the angels, but it’s hard to actually like him, because he’s more than a little scary. You believe that that frosty smirk of his is just as revealing about the man as is the fact that he holds open a door for a hotel maid, an act of unthinking, automatic chivalry.

• review of Casino Royale, posted 11.15.06

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