The hawthorn can't give apples

Rating: 5/10 (6 December 2006)

James Bond's movie stories and the likes of them are worth what they are and we cannot ask for very deep plots, messages or pathetic dramas. They are made only to amuse us for a couple of hours and make us forget the sorrows of life. But even in that framing we may ask that they amuse us with some logic and likelihood because they are not exactly farces (where nonsense is admitted as an art). We don't want them to be just a pile of more or less breathtaking scenes without any convincing thread putting them together. This new James Bond movie suffers precisely of these defects. A British spy trying to deprive "terrorists" of their financial means without us knowing which kind of "terrorists" are those since the world now is full of terrorists of several colours and allegiances some of them even opposed. At least during Cold War the camps were clearly defined. We are thus presented with a succession of scenes (most of them much more violent than in precedent Bond's movies and with much more blood spilling) of great visual impact without a convincing story behind them. As a matter of fact we don't even end by knowing who is with whom and against whom since Bond's adversaries are presented as belonging to different camps so often till the end of the movie. The sentimental story introduced in the second half is so stereotyped that it's quite unconvincing as well as its outcome in the end. Daniel Craig makes a James Bond much tougher than all his predecessors namely Roger Moore and Sean Connery who had much more elegance and subtlety. Craig is a bit loutish as a matter of fact. What remains then of this movie? Nothing more than the real thrilling impact of some visual scenes despite the unlikelihood of some of them. The hawthorn cannot give apples indeed.