A Glorious Rebirth

Rating: 9/10 (2 January 2007)

I'll preface this by saying I'm not much of a Bond fan. I feel the old movies have aged poorly and the recent ones were too mindless. The Connery ones are still rightfully worth watching, but they dwindle from there, down to the tedious Timothy Dalton ones. I feel Pierce Brosnon fit the character perfectly, but I didn't think the character fit today perfectly.
I was tired of the suave, debonair ladies man. These men don't exist very readily today. They're relics, for better or worse.
And I was tired of the puns. Oh God, the puns. Like many, I checked out with "I thought Christmas only came once a year." Naming a character just for that line... transparent and painful. Insulting.
Enter Daniel Craig. Many hated the casting. I was indifferent, for obvious reasons, but thought it would be a failure. I was wrong. Craig plays Bond as the arrogant jerk, the man entirely full of who he is, confident he is lethal, dangerous, and unstoppable. These are the men that get the women today, sadly.
His nihilistic approach makes Bond smarter. Bond isn't playing for anything other than his own belief that no one can stop him. He's there to continually find ways to prove himself stronger, smarter, and more dangerous than the next guy. It works. It works well.
The action worked well, too. Little hint of CGI gloss, and little shaky-cam. Unlike the Bourne movies, and nearly every current action film, the fist fights are clear.
The movie is too long, this is true. The last half an hour, though important to turn Bond into who Bond will be, could have been further condensed. There are hints of Bond's off-the-chart computer skills, which I feel makes him too perfect and too cerebral, he works better as an animal, a killing machine.
And perhaps, for purists, this should not have been Bond. In truth, he never felt like Bond to me, and hearing him say his name was jarring. Perhaps he should have been a new 00, coming up the ranks as Bond is transitioning out of the field. Perhaps that would have been too confusing.
As a whole, though, the film works. It works well. It's Bond reborn. Reborn for modern times, thankfully done intelligently instead of panderingly. It's a very different beast, and quite proud of it.