Since the title of the new James Bond film has now been released (SPECTRE), it seems like a fine opportunity to recap on the series so far. The doctors say this will be good for me ("whatever" was the word they used). This article will contain SPOILERS for the last three James Bond films.
Since Daniel Craig took over the role of James Bond in the 1967 comedy Casino Royale, starring Woody Allen, the world's most famous spy has failed to complete any of his missions, making him the British government's version of Team Rocket. Despite this, MI6 continues to employ him, sending him on mission after mission with all the dogged determination and shit-eating optimism of a gambling addict.
So in Casino Royale, Bond's first job is to capture a bomb-maker, which he seeks to achieve, Tom and Jerry style, by chasing him up a construction site. This chase ends when the terrorist hops a wall into a foreign embassy. Understanding the need for diplomacy, Bond backs out and informs M, who puts the squeeze on the ambassador to remand the terrorist into British custody. O WATE KNO. Instead, he hops in, murders the guy, and then flees like a buffoon. Presumably for several hours the foreign country gears up for war with Britain, until M is able to placate them.
Realising he nearly started a war just to kill a guy he was supposed to bring in alive, and therefore needs to stay on M's good side, he does the only appropriate thing, and breaks into her house like a burglar.
It's not even as if the screenwriters didn't realise that Bond was a colossal fuckup, as they then have M chastise him for these very reasons. Except rather than fire his incompetent, felonious ass like any normal person, she then gives him an even bigger mission. There's no reason for this: he isn't even James Bond yet, as this was his first mission. Is M supposed to be senile in the script? You or I could get fired for being late one time. James Bond can start a war, kill the guy he was supposed to capture, ensuring that an entire terrorist network goes free, and go on his merry way. What the fuck, M.
So then he's sent to bring in another guy, the guy that bleeds out his eyes. How does this guy not die all the time? I don't know. Anyway, again, it's essential to the mission that he bring this fucker back alive. The government also spot him a bunch of money to bet at poker, in what is easily the longest and most boring sequence ever filmed. Long story short, Bond loses all the money, gets the target of his operation killed, fails to spot that his lady friend is a double agent, and gets her killed too before she can tell him anything about the people she works for.
Why the fuck is this goober still employed? But to be ridiculously fair, this was his first two missions. So maybe he'll have gotten better by the second filO WATE KNO.
Quantum of Solace has our Inspector Clouseau stand-in bring home his one prize, a Mr White, to be interrogated. Instead of taking this dangerous criminal to a secure holding cell, he hauls him up in front of M. If M were as smart as, say, the mayor from The Naked Gun, she might well say, "are you crazy? Why have you brought this bleeding-ass terrorist into my office like a dummy?"
But she's nowhere near that smart, and in any case it doesn't matter, as her secretary then reveals himself to be a double agent and starts shooting everyone, allowing Mr White to escape. Did M hire this guy as well as Bond? Did she hire the double agent lady from the last flick? Is there a pattern we can discern here, like one of those magic eye puzzles, if we just stare at it for long enough?
So anyway, in the confusion, Mr White escapes, and Bond is powerless to overtake this limping gunshot victim. Possibly to get rid of him, M then sends him to Bolivia or some shit, where he has to uncover QUANTUM, a secret organisation whose name stands for BORING. Once again the film ends with Bond choosing for no reason to kill the bad guy who could have told him all he needed to know about the terrorist organisation. Is FUCKING BOND A DOUBLE AGENT TOO? At this point that would make more sense.
Then in part three, Skyfall, Bond has to recapture a device that gives the bad guys full knowledge of everyone in MI6. I don't know why such a device exists, but anyway. Naturally, he fucks up and gets shot in the heart and falls into the river, which counts as a pretty good day for him in these movies. The rest of the movie is spent trying to protect M from another agent she hired; a task at which he also fails, not only letting M die, but destroying his own mansion in the process.
I'll be honest with you, when I first saw these movies, I thought they sucked. But looking at them in a different light, I think they're brilliant. As a satirical portrayal of systematic incompetence they're up there with 4 Lions and Dr Strangelove. Maybe M's hiring practices are based on nepotism or something. Anyway, here's hoping Bond gets even one thing right in SPECTRE. That would be so unexpected I might just stop huffing CO2.
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