Bookends

Before we launch into the bright new dawn that is Casino Royale there's just time to glance back at two distinct versions of Bond that got wedged side-by-side.

007	Kills	(avg)	Deaths	(avg)	Shags	(avg)	Helicopters	(avg)
Dalton	16	8	49	24.5	4	2	0	0
Brosnan	92	23	406	101.5	9	2.25	7	1.75

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For once, these silly numbers actually do shed some light on what was going on. There is a clear disparity between the sober story-telling of Dalton's two outings and the whizz-bang exploderama that is the Brosnan era. The very fact that LTK has a reputation for being violent (and that, say, TND does not) tells you everything you need to know. Pierce kills more, shags more and more people and helicopters come to harm around him, but very little of it matters enough for the audience to made to feel uncomfortable. Pity poor Timothy, who somehow managed to alienate that same audience by committing the cardinal sin of acting as if he cared.

There's much though that connects these Bonds. Despite the six year hiatus, these films belong together historically, occupying the strange period between the end of the Cold War and the September 11th terrorist attacks. Seen together, these films show how the franchise was trying to adapt, not only to changing times, but to the changing mood of its audience. We can also see the writers and producers fishing for antagonists, constantly trying to identify global villains with which to justify Bond's existence.

The two Dalton films are self-consciously Flemingesque and set Bond squarely against spies and gangsters, just as Fleming himself did. TLD, one of only a few espionage stories in the series, seems like a deliberate attempt to depict the crumbling decline of the USSR. We see the great power to be vast and complicated; riven by hypocrisy; undermined by the lure of capitalist greed and by the earnest struggle of freedom-fighters. Indeed Bond ends up in Afghanistan, the very underbelly of Soviet imperialism, fighting with the Mujahideen. However 007 must join forces with the 'good' Russian, Pushkin, in order to defeat the real villains of the piece: men who are ripping up this world for their own profit. Both Jorgy and Whittaker are soulless, self-aggrandising egotists who pay lip-service to ideologies in order to pursue their own self-interest.

In LTK Bond gets invited to the USA's private backyard conflict: the War on Drugs in Latin America. Taking on the drugs barons may seem like an uncontroversial choice of villain, but the apolitical nature of the threat means that Bond must actually resign from MI6 before he can exact his vengeance on Sanchez. For once, Bond isn't being employed as a metaphor for British influence - in every sense this mission is an entirely personal one.

When the series returned with GoldenEye EON seemed determined to have their cake and eat it: the Brosnan movies represent an attempt to maintain the sense of the personal from LTK, but blended with the showmanship and superficiality of (most of) the Moore era. It was a necessary experiment I suppose to try and square the circle but it is clear that superficiality won out. However, in GoldenEye and TWINE, it almost comes off.

And the search for new villains continues. GoldenEye offers up a twisted version of Bond himself - Sean Bean's renegade 006 - mixed up with those rogue elements of the former USSR. It was surely essential for the series to address the fallout from the Cold War, but too often the film seems to showing Bond in the middle of a post-modern existential crisis, the series serving up these baddies as a manifestation of its own perceived failings.

But Britain was having too good a time in the late Nineties to put up with any angst. Economically prosperous and safely insulated from the unfolding horrors in the Balkans or Rwanda, Britain wanted and got fun and emotionally uncomplicated Bond movies. With no geopolitical threat to speak of (and with heavyweight issues off the table) Bond instead is sent up against multinational corporations - Carver's media empire in TND and Electra King's petroleum company in TWINE - whilst the UK even gets the dubious thrill of rattling the sabre with China for old times sake.

Fascinatingly and frustratingly, real issues do lurk in the corners of Brosnan's scripts but never get explored properly. Manipulation of news and governments by media organisations is, we now know, a real and serious threat to British democracy and justice. TWINE juggles post-Soviet nuclear proliferation with western reliance on Middle Eastern supplies of energy. DAD even coughs up references to the illegal trade in diamonds from war-torn African nations.

Even before September 11th these were flippant, superficial films. But when DAD was released, a clear fourteen months later, it felt like both Bond and his franchise were still knocking back Martinis and laughing at their own quips, unaware that the party was long over.

Inevitably, the reaction from EON was to go back to Fleming and to try and regain the lost sense of authenticity. These films don't just bookend an historical period, they also chart a complete cycle in the relationship between the films and the novels. TLD was the last movie to show anything of Fleming's stories, and DAD was the last not to, until Casino Royale.

Neil Armstrong

I don't tend to get too sad or reflective when old people die - it's not as if it should come as a surprise. But some people are so important, or represent something so fundamental, that it would be wrong not to give some serious thought to their passing.

This isn't that serious thought, that'll come later, slowly. But shooting from the hip, I'm slightly overawed by what the name of Neil Armstrong means to me. The Moon landings are, suddenly, a long time ago now and it is becoming hard not to think of them as the zenith for our civilisation: an achievement that has not been and, worryingly, might not be surpassed.

We shouldn't ever be blasé about the fact that, in the late 1960s, we fired men into space to leave their footprints on the dusty surface of another world before bringing them back safely to Earth.

It wasn't just Neil Armstrong's achievement, of course. Hundreds of thousands of men and women worked directly on the project, or contributed towards it. Millions more worked to fund it. And the rest of the world watched on their TVs and held their breath in hope and wonder.

But alone out of all those involved and all those astronauts who came after, Neil Armstrong took those first steps and thus, despite his death today, his name will be remembered. Thousands, tens of thousands of years into the future, possibly for as long as our species survives, he will be remembered.

It's very rare, but some people do achieve such immortality. The real events become contested or forgotten, but we hold onto their names and retell their stories, forever. And having been at the centre of the most extraordinary story, Neil Armstrong has passed from our mortal world and become the stuff of legend.
 

Die Another Day

I haven't met anyone yet who likes Die Another Day. Ten years on, my brother-in-law still can't bring himself to call it anything other than 'The Film That Shall Not Be Named' or, perhaps, 'The Shit One'. Long-time Bond fans I know refuse to watch it. Some refuse to have a copy in the house. Before watching it for this, I think I had sat through it only once since its theatrical release.

And the reason is that I have such clear memories of watching it that first time at the cinema. My friend and I exchanged nervous glances as we experienced a series of disquieting lurches, each one more worrying than the last. The excitement and anticipation of a new Bond film became bewilderment and we finally reeled outside and went for a beer, forced to admit that the latest James Bond film was a complete load of rubbish.

That didn't stop it making a huge amount of money and garnering some good reviews. But obviously some other people were worried about the end product. Casino Royale would still have been a savage change of direction even if the entire franchise hadn't been rebooted at the same time. Something, clearly, went very badly wrong with DAD, so wrong that EON threw their hands up in the air and started again from scratch.

So, faced with watching it again, the question has to be: is it as bad as I think it is? And is there anything to like about it at all?

The answers to those questions are, sadly, yes and almost nothing.

Let's get the good bits out of the way first shall we? The PCS is not terribly exciting, but it is an effective action set piece, ably directed by 2nd Unit Director Vic Armstrong. Daniel Kleinman gives the opening credits a fresh twist, making the most out of 007's incarceration. Bond's diversion to Hong Kong has some amusing lines. And there's something satisfying about the Cuba sequence (apart from Jinx) - it's reminiscent of the travelogue section of a Fleming novel, complete with local colour and a 'firm, dry handshake' from sleeper Raoul. Bond even engages in a spot of improvisation to inveigle his way into the clinic, which is nice.

And that's it. Everything else is terrible.

It's interesting that all these bright spots turn up inside the first half-hour, because this is a film that definitely gets worse as it goes along. And watching it again now is a depressingly similar experience to seeing it on the big screen ten years ago. Each new piece of stupidity, crass dialogue, or WTF? moment drives me closer and closer to despair.

I won't list every flaming thing that's wrong with DAD (see the Eh? section, if you must, but I've not been exhaustive there either to be honest), but I did once threaten that I could list twenty for you. I'm not going to do that. I can't face it. But I do have to make some effort to record the awfulness so here are the worst moments.

The 'Magic' Bullet. During the gun barrel sequence, Bond turns and fires as usual - but this time with such skill and accuracy that his bullet whooshes towards us out of the middle of the screen, SOMEHOW fitting perfectly down the barrel of the unknown assailant's gun that we are looking through. Why is it so bad? Throughout DAD we are given surprises and fresh takes on Bond staples - presumably in an attempt to prove that the franchise isn't old, dusty and predictable. Someone obviously thought this was a nifty idea and a cool surprise for the audience. All it proves is that nobody was giving any thought to what we had actually been looking at since DRNO. The spirally outline around Bond is, always has been, the rifling of a gun barrel and our POV is as if we were the bullet ready to be fired down it towards 007. Nobody thought or cared about that and so we end up with this flashy, stupid nonsense on screen that removes all meaning from forty years of Bond iconography.

The Sword Fight at 'Blades'. Whilst on the run from MI6, Bond hangs about a gentlemens fencing club in central London and becomes embroiled in a sword fight with über-arsehole Gustav Graves. Why is it so bad? For many reasons. Firstly it's stupid (actually properly stupid, like something out of Austin Powers) and, like nearly all the other fights and chases in DAD, does nothing to advance the plot. It's a runaround where all the characters end up back where they started. Secondly because of Madonna. Thirdly because of the mis-appropriation of Blades from the novels. And fourthly, and most importantly, because it defines the relationship between Graves and Bond. Graves, played by so-so Radio 4 Bond Toby Stephens, is a terribly annoying villain, with his endless awful quips and his suits and his gadgets and his Union Jack parachute... remind you of anyone? Yes, Graves is modelled on James Bond (he'll admit so himself later on in the film) but rather than evoke the hard-as-nails bastardishness of Sean Bean's anti-Bond 006, Graves is wet, sneering and arrogant. Here, at 'Blades', Graves and Bond bring out the worst in each other and the upshot is that, rather than wanting to cheer 007 on against his antagonist, the audience is invited (by Madonna, no less, albeit strangely monotonously) to hate the bloody pair of them.

The CGI Kite Surfing. Forgive me for reminding you, but this sequence sees Bond escape from an orbital space laser weapon and a collapsing glacier by jury-rigging a parachute/surf board. Why is it so bad? The execution is awful. It looks awful now. It looked awful then. But even if the CGI was excellent, it would still be terrible because one of the great strengths of the Bond franchise has been the way in which it strived to make things look real. Even silly YOLT and Moonraker had the decency to try and look convincing and the extraordinary stunts in TMWTGG, TSWLM and GoldenEye were done for real. But everything in DAD is faked. Korea is Aldershot, Hong Kong is a backdrop, Cuba is Cadiz and Iceland is Cornwall: there's no sense, as there was in the '60s, '70s and '80s that the location is an important part of the story. The crappy green-screen here is just the icing on the cake.

The 'Spy Car' Chase. Bond and Zao have at each other in their super-duper motors. Why is it so bad? Because it is sound and fury, signifying nothing. The chase starts at the Ice Hotel and ends, er, back at the Ice Hotel. They literally drive around in circles, shooting and swerving, with no consequences whatsoever. What's worse is that it all takes place on the blank expanse of the glacier: Iceland maybe beautiful but the featureless landscape offers no context for this chase. Without landmarks Bond and Zao are merely fighting in a meaningless void, their actions rendered pointless.

In truth the whole film is a blasted wasteland. Nothing matters here and we care nothing for the people who inhabit it. Bond, Graves, Jinx and Frost - they are all flat, uninteresting copies of human beings. The script has potential but the execution is all wrong. So often the tenor of DAD is badly off, painfully disconnected from the world the audience inhabits. Bond films had always seemed to be set 'five minutes into the future' but this superficial pantomime is firmly stuck in the '90s, unable to absorb developments in the real world. The 'kisses to the past' are overdone and clunky. The 'surprises' (terrorists in M's office! Bond and Moneypenny are shagging!) are the crassest of gimmicks and utterly beneath my contempt.  

The whole thing is irredeemable. Vacuous, smug and rotten. We shall not speak of it again.

* * *

Pre-Credits Sequence: It's sadly lacking TWINE's panache or GoldenEye's bravado, but this PCS is a competent enough affair that, for better or worse, sets up much of the plot for the rest of the film.

Theme: Apparently Madonna's effort is very popular with Bond fans under the age of 25. It's not a bad piece of music, particularly - it just jars with everything else we've heard before and barely fits with what's happening on screen.

Deaths: I make it 28 which feels a little low. There's a lot more knocking people unconscious than in recent outings.

Memorable Deaths: Mr Kil (really?) gets lasered through the back of his head. I say memorable - I didn't remember it either.

Licence to Kill: 12 - very low for Brosnan.

Exploding Helicopters: One, in the PCS.

Shags: 2. For the first time we get to see Bond properly 'at it'. It's a bit of a disappointment.

Crimes Against Women: M sits down one of her agents, Miranda Frost, and berates her for not having shagged her way around MI6. There was more I had to say here but I can't get over that first one. Unbelievable.

Casual Racism: There's a very boorish and unpleasant South African chap at Los Organos. The Americans here are bastards rather than allies. You might not be surprised to learn that the Koreans don't do too well out of this either.

Out of Time: Blah, conflict diamonds, blah, Sierra Leone. DAD happily bandies around such terms but never wants to engage with a world in which these words actually mean something.

Fashion Disasters: Bond more or less gets away with the vest and open shirt in Cuba, but that black turtle-neck sweater makes Brosnan look really rather elderly. The less said about the beard and pyjamas the better.

Most Shameless Advertising: All those three-movie deals have expired so no Smirnoff or BMW. Instead we have Aston Martin, British Airways and, most gratuitously, a razor. The scene where Bond shaves was recorded twice, once each for the US and Europe, because the razor was being marketed under different names in each place (as the Philishave HQ8894 XL Sensotec in Europe and as the Norelco Spectra 8894XL in the USA, if you're interested). No, really.

Eh?: You can tell my heart's not really in it this time round can't you. Oh well, here we go. In the PCS Bond brings diamonds to Moon - what are they for? Surely Moon is buying weapons with diamonds? If Bond is pretending to be Moon's diamonds supplier, how is Moon paying for the diamonds? If Moon has lots of diamonds (enough to buy weapons with, or to fake a diamond mine) then why does he need a supplier? >> Zao is wounded in the explosion in the PCS and gets a face full of diamonds. Fourteen months later, he still has a face full of diamonds. He's been a prisoner of the USA or UK for some of that time; he has also been on the run - did nobody think it was worth their while to remove the VALUABLE PRECIOUS STONES from the terrorist's face? Did the terrorist with DIAMONDS ALL OVER HIS FACE not think to tweezer them out in order to look less conspicuous? >> M says information was leaking from Bond's prison (in North Korea), but later on it is revealed that Frost was the leak (in London). Is she a special ventriloquist mole? >> Bond escapes from MI6 by slowing down his heart rate to the point where a crash team is required. Now, I could spend ages researching this to see if it is actually medically possible, but really, you and I both know this is bollocks. >> And so is all the DNA replacement therapy, of course. Why not just call it plastic surgery? >>  Having found Zao in the clinic, Bond hurts him by clutching at his IV bag. Now, I have checked this out with a medical professional and they assured me this was also bollocks. >> If Jinx is at the clinic to kill the doctor, why allow him to explain his operation first? Why wait until after she has handed over a cheque and left other evidence (like a photo of herself!) at the scene? Why don't the guards shoot Jinx as she dives? Why does Bond just stand there and watch? >> World renowned chemist, James Bond, quickly discovers that Graves' diamonds are "chemically identical" to conflict diamonds. But NOBODY ELSE HAS NOTICED. >> Speaking of which, how do you FAKE a DIAMOND MINE? Is there a verification process? Is it like Twitter and one day a blue tick just appears over your sparkly hole in the ground? >> Where is Bond going when he jumps into the drag ski racer thing? >> Jinx is trapped in a room inside the melting Ice Hotel. The room fills with water. The ice doors don't melt. The ice windows don't melt. The walls or floor or ceiling don't melt. Why not? And where does the water come from then? (Presumably from the all the furniture, seeing as she doesn't smash her way out of the MELTING ICE with a chair leg or anything.) >> M expresses regret that she didn't know that Frost was on Moon's fencing team at Harvard. Sheesh. What with this and Mitchell in QOS, it's clear that Dame Judi is not running a particularly tight ship. Bernard Lee is spinning in his grave I expect. What's she going to do next? Upload the identities of all British agents to YouTube? >> Why does Graves have a stupid suit if the controls are either in a box or on his wrist? Why does said stupid suit have a stupid button that electrocutes the wearer?

Worst Line: "I am Zao. You are late." "Saved by the bell!" Not strictly dialogue, but Madonna gasps "Sigmund Freud!" during her theme song for no obvious reason. She also mutters "I see you handle your weapon well," to Bond at Blades but, bless her, she didn't really want to be there, did she.

Best Line: John Cleese (is he R or Q now?) snaps at Bond when he moans about the VR goggles. "It's called the future, so get used to it." There's another one too, but I'm saving it for Best Bond Moment.

Worst Bond Moment: Bond's heart-rate lowering escape. 'London Calling'. The Blades fight. The kite-surfing. The VR scenes. And many more.

Best Bond Moment: Bashed-up, unloved and abandoned by MI6 and with no gadgets or back up, Bond runs into the Chinese secret service in Hong Kong. "Don't worry," he growls. "I'm not here to take it back." And we still believe he could.

Overall: The very worst. At last the Bond series becomes what its detractors have always claimed it was: a stupid action cartoon, devoid of wit, heart or any sympathetic characters.

James Bond Will Return: ...to the beginning.

The Bridges of San Francisco

(Not the Bay Bridge, the other one.)

I love this city, but I don't think I could live here for very long.

I realised this yesterday as we were driving across the Bay Bridge to Oakland. It's a long road bridge that stretches across the Bay in two decks: the upper, open to the sky and with views of the water, is for traffic heading into the city; the lower, leading to California proper, is a claustrophobic corridor of covered steel. Even on a Sunday, with only moderate traffic, getting across the bridge took too long and I started feeling anxious. On a week day, at rush hour, say, with the cars at standstill, I know I would find it extremely difficult to cope.

Because of earthquakes, of course. There will be one, at some point. In Houston our natural disaster of choice is the hurricane - dreadful, destructive, life-wrecking things, but we get a fair bit of warning and one can get out of the way. Earthquakes don't give sufficient notice. As a visitor, for a few days, this doesn't worry me. I think I could stay quite a long while, in fact, and I would carry on feeling fine. Until I found myself on one of the bridges, moving slowly, and, suddenly, I would be horribly aware that one could happen in an instant and there would be almost no chance of survival.

The murders that were committed in Aurora, CO, took place while we were getting ready to fly to California; we weren't properly aware what had happened for a long while after we had landed. You know all about the anger, horror and other strangled, desperate feelings such a crime stirs in one's hearts and guts - but something else struck me once we had finally got back into San Francisco after our trip across the Bay.

They made me feel the same way that the bridge did: suddenly vulnerable to a threat I had discounted as vanishingly unlikely. Murders like this happen from time to time in America, just as the earthquakes do in San Francisco. Unlike these natural disasters, I know they could be prevented - but I also know this country is never going to take the steps that are necessary to do so. Just as the bridges have made me nervous about beautiful San Francisco, these killings have made me despair for America. I'm not sure I want to raise my kids here, lest they get entangled with the madness of the place.

In a few days, I'll leave California and I'll forget about earthquakes.

The sun shines. The waves in the glitter in the Bay. It's beautiful to visit.

It's An Affliction

What You See:

What I See:

The World Is Not Enough

Prepare to have your mind blown: The World is Not Enough is GOOD. In fact it is very nearly REALLY good. It's the best Bond of the '90s, and it's Brosnan's best effort too (almost but not quite the same thing). It's not unbearably pleased with itself (like GoldenEye), it's not a bland Bond-less action meh (like TND) and it's not an execrable piece of WTF (like DAD). No, TWINE is an exciting thriller with some good dialogue and - gasp - real characters, including one called - double gasp - James Bond.

Yes, I know I've been rude about Brosnan lately and I probably will be again, so it is important that I start off by saying that he is very good in this. Okay, he's a little too slight, he doesn't have the necessary swagger and some lines come out chewed up, like a wasp escaping from a bulldog's mouth. BUT he does actually present us with a recognisable version of James Bond that is a coherent and multi-dimensional character. And he does this well enough that I really enjoy it. Thanks to a great script (a massive improvement on TND) Brosnan gets to be witty instead of jokey and his Bond is constantly improvising, extemporising and generally being shit hot, which is kind of the bloody point after all. And look, Pierce really is acting! Look at his face when Bond is pretending to be Arkov: there's a tiny twist to the mouth or something - it's very subtle, but effective and nicely done, and the unavoidable (and perhaps disconcerting) conclusion is that Brosnan might actually be acting the rest of the time too.

The Brosnan Project is still rumbling along but gets its most graceful execution here, with Bond picking up a shoulder injury during the PCS which dogs him for the rest of the movie. It's a tiny, simple trick, but it turns Brosnan's Bond back into a mortal man, someone subject to the forces of time, physics and so forth, and it really helps, even if it does provide yet more opportunities for some terrible gurning. I won't bang that drum again - better to praise the way the story gently needles Bond into having emotional reactions that are, for a change, convincing, subdued and relevant to the story. But having said all that, there is still the need, apparently, for someone to have an improbable narrative-propelling backstory. This time it is M, but this works better too: M is peripheral enough that it doesn't matter if we meet all her university friends and turf over her mistakes. And whilst she is dealing with the guilt and flashbacks, Bond can get on with the cool stuff.

And there is plenty of cool stuff. The long PCS is dominated by the stylish boat chase along the Thames and it's rather wonderful to have London used as a location at last. The so-so ski battle seems shoe-horned in but at least evokes memories of OHMSS and FYEO. Then there's a cracker of a sequence inside the missile silo: full of action and character, it is story-boarded within an inch of its life and totally fabulous. It's one of the best set-pieces the franchise has seen for a long time and it sits beautifully in the middle of the film, advancing the story and shaping characters whilst delivering all the requisite thrills. The pipeline bomb chase is nifty and something we haven't seen before and the double copter attack on Zukovsky's place is very slickly done, if a little silly. And then after all that there's a top-notch fight aboard a sinking submarine. It may seem a subdued finale compared with other Bond's but the stakes are as high as ever.

The action isn't even the best thing about TWINE. Threading through it is that rarest of Bond gems, a character-led story. All the principles (well.. except Christmas Jones) have an emotional involvement in the story that shapes their actions. Even smaller parts like Zukovsky, Bullion (Goldie's cameo), Moneypenny and Dr Warmflash (yes, that really is her name) are thought out and well acted. Zukovsky's death, in particular, is brilliant: tense, moving and cathartic - and wordless. An entire relationship is expressed in those few glances between him and Bond; it is beautiful, and certainly the most meaningful death we've seen for a long time.

It may be that Brosnan's improved performance is just him reflecting back some of the great acting in front of him. Robert Carlyle, Sophie Marceau, Dame Judi and Robbie Coltrane are all very good indeed and their scenes with Bond crackle with an intensity that's been missing since LTK. Special praise must be reserved for Carlyle who allows the ruthless terrorist Renard a tragic vulnerability. The bullet in his brain may prevent him from feeling pain or pleasure, but Renard is also psychologically numbed by his condition - forlorn and angry, he is a man trapped in a death-roll with his own mind. It's an excellent performance - well thought out and subtly delivered - that is, one might argue, wasted on a Bond villain.

Except that Renard isn't the real villain of the piece at all. He is himself a victim, fatally captivated by Electra King's manipulation. Marceau doesn't have to do very much other than look beautiful and gaze meaningfully at people, but that's okay because that's all King herself has to do to get what she wants. Wealthy and privileged, yet also bitterly resentful and convinced that she has been betrayed by the powers that be, King's psychological template doesn't stray too far from that of other Bond villains. But throw in her womanly wiles (she seduces both Bond and Renard, and co-opts the latter into dying for her 'cause') and her girlish glee (as her plan seems to come together) and we have something totally new.

The only dim bulb in this high-watt line up is Denise Richards. She tries to brazen it out. She fires off her lines with gutsy attitude and frowns a lot, perhaps hoping that this makes her character appear clever. Unfortunately the more physics she gets to spout, the less convincing she is. Ultimately there are two obvious reasons why she's here: her figure and her nationality, and neither her part nor her acting are complex enough to distract us from her bankability.

But ignore her, if you can, and focus on the plot because this is a Bond film which manages to home in on some of the issues of the time. TWINE explores the fall out from the Cold War by visiting former Soviet states and by showing us that even obsolete nuclear weapons can be dangerous. For the first time since TMWTGG, energy and natural resources are on the agenda: here King's oil pipeline snakes around the Middle East just four years before the Iraq War. And then there's Renard - terrorism has changed an awful lot since the days of SPECTRE and this is finally reflected in a Bond film here. Yes, there were some throwaway lines in TND, but Renard's character is much more prominent than anything we've seen before and much more like the real kinds of terrorists that were about to unleash their own super-villainy upon the United States.

It is flippant to examine the terrorist attacks of the 11th of September 2001 through a Bond prism, but there is much there to be mulled over. Again and again Bond audiences had been presented with dastardly conspiracies to murder thousands, millions, even billions of people. In Goldfinger, Thunderball, OHMSS, TSWLM and Moonraker we saw 007 intervene to save us from the mad men. Here, in TWINE, the last Bond film before 9/11, he prevents a suicidal terrorist from executing a devastating surprise attack on a major city. But in the real world, there was no-one, no way, to stop the obscene calamity from unfolding. Everything was changed, everyone was affected. People looked for answers wherever they could and I'm sure I wasn't the only one wondering how the Bond series would deal with the new global terror threat, just as it had shown the changing tides of the Cold War in the past. The time was right for a new tone, something more sober, darker, harder. A new Bond for a suddenly brutalised and more complicated world.

Instead we got Die Another Day and, for this new world, it was not enough.

*   *   *

Pre-Credits Sequence: To be picky, we get two PCSs this time. The first, a stunning vignette set in the offices of a Swiss banker in Bilbao, was deemed too insubstantial to kick-off proceedings by itself and so the next bit, where Bond chases Cigar Girl down the Thames in the Q boat, was brought forward as well. The result is the longest PCS to date but it barely lags, even if it is a little off-balance.

Theme: Sorry, this one does nothing for me whatsoever. Pairing David Arnold up with grunge rockers Garbage should have produced something better than this surely? Once again Kleinman does well to produce some inventive and stylish visuals for the credits, but the petroleum hues, all green and purple, are too gaudy for me. 

Deaths: 92. Well above average. I've arbitrarily assumed a skeleton crew for the Russian sub of 20. 

Memorable Deaths: Robert King detonates his own money. Cigar woman blows up her hot air balloon. Zukovsky takes one last shot at Bond. Renard gets shafted. And Q, the mighty Desmond Llewellyn, macabrely descends into Earth, never to be seen again.

Licence to Kill: 22. In his first three outings Brosnan has dispatched more baddies than Connery, Lazenby and Dalton put together.  

Exploding Helicopters: 2. Another glorious two helicopters get taken out. And a balloon. And four parahawks, whatever they are.  

Shags: It's a cast iron three, the first since Moonraker. In addition to getting into both Electra's and Christmas's pants, he also - rather cynically - beds MI6 doctor, Molly Warmflash. 

Crimes Against Women: On the one hand, things are good. Electra King runs her global business empire and competently plots to nuke Istanbul; Christmas Jones is a nuclear physicist. M, Moneypenny and Warmflash seem to run MI6 and even one of the Double-Ohs is a woman. But, on the other hand, despite all that there is still plenty of sexism. Warmflash is needy and vengeful. Moneypenny is catty and jealous, and gets a suggestive cigar from Bond as a present. M is emotionally compromised by King and gets kidnapped. Electra herself is manipulative and conniving, corrupting men with her sexual power. Jones is dismissed as frigid because she hasn't succumbed to the Russian commander's charm. And let's not forget, there is a reason that we have the gratuitous shots of Warmflash in her french knickers, that we have the pneumatic Denise Richards playing a physicist in a strappy top (not to mention demonstrating her buoyancy in a flooding submarine - the first Bond wet t-shirt competition), and why Bond gets x-ray glasses that magically only show guns and women's underwear.   

Casual Racism: Was there any? We are nearly in Modern Times here, so it might be hoped that the racism is drying up - but the Russians on show are all various shades of corrupt, venal and incompetent.   

Out of Time: Davidov takes his picture with a Polaroid camera. Kids, ask your grandparents. Unforgivably, R references the 'Millennium Bug', meaning that this film became irrevocably dated within seconds of being released. Similarly, the traffic wardens who are soaked during the boat chase were actual traffic wardens from a reality TV show called Clampers. Remember that? No, of course not.

Fashion Disasters: Better from Bond, sticking mainly to sharp grey suits and black tie. Electra's high-slit skirts seem quite impractical for running, let alone nuking Istanbul. Nuclear physicist Dr Jones gets to dress up as a prostitute. Is it churlish to mention the red hats sported by the Spanish police? 

Most Shameless Advertising: The usual suspects: Smirnoff and BMW are here again, and Bollinger gets a nice shot of their label too. I've also written down Hewlett Packard in my notes, but for the life of me I can't remember what this was for. Anyone notice? Bond's BMW here is a big improvement on TND's 750i: he drives a Z8 and it almost manages to evoke the feel of an Aston Martin as 007 drives through the Azerbaijani oil fields. Best of all, the Z8 only plays a bit part in the helicopter attack before being sawn in half, leaving Bond to rely on his wits.

Eh?: Why is Cigar Girl sent to kill the Swiss Banker if Renard can pick off people in the room with impunity with his sniper rifle? Why not just shoot him? >> MI6 is all over the place. Do they really need a bank vault? Why is it next to an exterior wall, rather than deep inside? Why is King there to collect the money? Can't MI6 deliver it? Q Branch seems to be a corridor, half way between M's office and the vault, all of which are on the same floor. Inconveniently for boat launching, it is rather a high-up floor, but it doesn't seem to matter. Perhaps it is the bizarre proximity of these departments to each other that means so much of MI6 has to relocate to Scotland after the explosion, but surely King would have set off the bomb on his way to M's office if the vault was that nearby? >> Speaking of the Q Boat, Q shouts at Bond that it is not yet finished, but despite this it is both fuelled and armed. Q later claims that it is for his retirement (misuse of Government property surely?), so much of the functionality is questionable, particularly the submerging. >> Why do Bond, Tanner, Moneypenny and Robinson get invited to King's funeral? >> Why move MI6 to Scotland? Why not elsewhere in London for goodness sake? And why is the INSIDE of the castle disguised? Does Q need to hide the car under the pool table? Who is he hiding it from? >> Q's last lines are entirely incomprehensible. "I've always tried to teach you two things. One, never let them see you bleed." What? Where does that come from? Has he been providing 007 with absorbent suits all this time? "Two, always have an escape route." More rubbish, unless he means guns disguised as cigarettes? >> The plot becomes a little scrambled here, but presumably Electra King lures Bond to the pipeline in order to facilitate the parahawk attack. Right, whatever, but how does she persuade Bond that this is a normal or necessary thing for her to do? She claims she is off to "check" the pipeline, but she's just the owner - she doesn't take any engineers or technicians, let alone security, so what is she supposed to be doing other than gawping at it?  >> What was Arkov supposed to be doing for Renard when he steals the warhead? The plan is not damaged by his absence so it can't be that his nuclear expertise was required. It seems as if his job was to allow the team to gain access to the site, but this is obviously rubbish because a) Bond (or Davidov) is able to pretend to be Arkov and b) Renard is already in place when the team arrives. >> This begs other questions. If Arkov is such a bigwig at the IAEA, why isn't he known at the missile silo? And why does Renard travel separately? He certainly escapes on the same plane that Bond arrived on. >> It is very fortuitous that Maiden's Tower, Electra's hideout, is bigger on the inside - so much so that it has space for an underwater submarine berth. >> The Chair of Death has been dug up nearby according to Electra (what, from the sea bed?) but it is in suspiciously good condition. 

Worst Line: Plenty. The physics poisons everything. Bond describes his relationship with Jones as "strictly plutonic"; Renard announces "welcome to my nuclear family!" for no obvious reason. "And for those of us who don't speak spy?" Jones snarks to 007. "I'm sure they are perfectly rounded," phwoars Bond, unable to ignore Cigar Girl's tits as she hands him some numbers to inspect. 

Best Line: Lots for a change. Dr Christmas Jones introduces herself and tells 007 she has heard all the jokes. "I don't know any Doctor jokes," Bond deadpans. >> Renard taunts Bond's motivation: "What do you believe in? The preservation of Capital?" >> Following a small explosion, Jones whinges that someone is going to "have her ass". "First things first," Bond replies. >> Zukovsky bumps into 007 and wonders aloud "Why do I think I am suddenly not carrying enough insurance?" >> During the countdown to a nuclear explosion, Bond demands Electra tell him where M is. "Soon," laughs Electra, "she'll be everywhere!" But then she taunts 007 that he will be unable to kill her: he would miss her. Bond shoots her dead and then glowers regretfully, "I never miss."

Worst Bond Moment: Resorting to sexual skulduggery with Molly Warmflash in order to be passed fit for duty. Shackled up in Electra's Chair of Death.  

Best Bond Moment: Bond is locked in a room full of murdered people, with the police banging on the door. His escape is improvised, ingenious, (almost literally) incredible, and thrillingly scored by Arnold. It's a tiny moment, but it is pure Bond: funny, exciting and cool. It is blink-and-you'll-miss-it brilliant. >> In the past, 007 has often pulled the old trick of introducing himself to a woman after having done something super-cool. This time, in the missile silo, he cleverly manages to wedge the something cool in to the middle of saying his own name, accompanied by a massive flaring fanfare from Arnold.   

Overall: Wit, style and compelling characters all return to the franchise and make this the best of the Brosnans. Throw in Arnold's music, a good story and some actual acting and TWINE, perhaps, deserves to be considered alongside the great Bond films.    

James Bond Will Return: in Die Another Day. Don't worry, I'll watch it and then you won't have to.

Our Queen

Paul Cunningham/Corbis (via The Guardian)

Goodness me there are some GRUMPY people on Twitter lately. Lots of complaints about bunting and flags; snooty comments to the effect that this is all very unBritish, that London resembles Pyongyang, that only countries without self-confidence have to resort to jingoistic flag-waving.

Some are desperate to get away, to France or America. Others deride the whole business as a sinister distraction from our real problems. And some even go so far as to mention the dreaded 'R' word - Republicanism.

For any of you who have no idea what is going on, all this blather is because this weekend in Britain is the Queen's Diamond Jubilee: the sixtieth anniversary of the beginning of her reign. The specialness of such an event may be undermined by last year's Royal Wedding, and by the Golden Jubilee of 2002, but it's still a big deal: Diamond Jubilees don't come along too often. In fact this is only the second in over a thousand years.

So yes, there is bunting and flags. This picture up on the left is of Regent Street in London. When I look at it, I don't see a crushing authoritarian state lacking in self-confidence, I see a party. That's what a jubilee is, it is a party.

There's a very good reason why the flags are not a problem, why celebrating the Jubilee is not a problem, why having a monarchy at all is not a problem: deep down we know that none of this really matters.

If you want to see crazy flag-waving, come to America. The British put up flags for special occasions (coronations, jubilees, weddings, World Cups), but Americans fly the Stars & Stripes permanently. Everywhere. And some of them are so big, an aircraft carrier could use them as a blanket. Each school flies a flag outside and every classroom inside has one as well. Car showrooms fly hundreds off them. Houses have them staked out on the front lawn. I've even seen cars flying flags, and I don't mean the Presidential limousine. When White Vans sport an England Flag for the football, we roll our eyes, but can you imagine someone driving around like that all the time?

It's a mania, a kind of hysteria that has become utterly normal. And it has to be that way because America is an artificial country, a pure idea and not a cultural accretion. Patriotism is essential here because it is the glue that forces all these disparate peoples to combine. That's why school children are made to take the daily Pledge of Allegiance: the idea of America has to be constantly reinforced lest it suddenly vanish.

The irony is that the idea of America is not under threat at all, even though the anxiety seems to have been hard-wired into the national psychology at birth. Whereas in Britain, where the dangers of Scottish independence actually might destroy a four hundred year old union, we don't tend to worry about such things. On some level or other we have no doubt about who we are.

That's not to say that the idea of Britishness is not a turbulent one. It changes, we argue over it, we even, sometimes, fight each other (or someone else) about it. But for a long time things have been settled and even if Scotland did run off, it is likely that it will still have the same Queen as England. The monarchy plays a crucial role in this, the cherry on top of the Cake of State, but please don't confuse this with power or relevance.

I used to be a monarchist, when I was younger, even though I sympathised with republicanism. To square this circle my position became this: that if I were ever to start a country from scratch then certainly it could only be a republic, but that, seeing that we had the Queen and the monarchy and the heritage, it would be silly for Britain to get rid of all that. I know that there are some who find it intolerable that our head of state inherits the job from their parent, and that to persist with it, even ceremonially, is a kind of tyranny. But to obsess about this, to actively pursue a change to our constitution to remove the monarchy, is to utterly waste time and energy that could be devoted to fixing real problems.

That's why I can't call myself a monarchist because that would imply that there was a debate to be had on the subject and there really isn't. There is no arguing with the fact that sovereignty resides with the people. When this was last up for discussion we made the point by arresting Charles I and chopping off his head. That the monarchy was subsequently restored does not change anything at all. From then on, the crown became our possession, to do with as we please and we have not hesitated to make our displeasure known.

In 1688, we kicked out James II and invited William of Orange to be king instead. We picked George I in 1714 and after that we were happy for a while. But in 1936 the unsuitable Edward VIII was forced aside and we made his brother the Duke of York become George VI. If we chose to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of his daughter, Elizabeth II, it might be because we're pleased with our own selection process. There are more dark mutterings about the next one (this is especially worrying) but there is a limit to the damage a bad king can do. If we have to put up with a dotty old loon for a few years, we will. If it begins to look like he's not worth the grief then we'll simply push on and have William instead. They belong to us, not the other way around.

Yes, the monarchy costs us money - but only about 72p each per year. And yes, they are horribly rich and unelected. But the world is full of people who are horribly rich. Compared with most of the people in the world you are horribly rich. And if you want to have a go at unelected power in Britain then let's demolish the global media empires, let's sort out the corporate lobbying system, because these are the institutions that really do own us. Let's get hereditary peers and the Bishops (bishops!) out of the House of Lords. That would be a good day's work.

It'll have to wait until Wednesday of course because of the Jubilee, so in the meantime have a slice of cake and a cup of tea, wave a Union flag (ironically, if you must) and watch the best bloody broadcasting corporation in the world show off our country, our heritage and that nice little old lady whose life we hijacked when she was 10 years old.

She has been one of the good ones and is worth celebrating.