Downton's Porkies Demolished by the Mysterious "M"

All the latest from our man at the Leveson Inquiry as attention is turned to the 1997 collapse of the Carver Media Group. 

So far, Lord Leveson has heard it all: corrupt police officers, gutless ministers, eavesdropping journalists and amnesiac newspaper proprietors. But today's, or should I say, Tomorrow's revelations have rather blown all that out of the water. For many weeks the inquiry has been pursuing the idea that governments have been held in thrall by large media corporations. This morning Lord Downton, the former Minister for Defence, gave testimony that strove to undermine this theory. With his pink, shiny face and his huffing, puffing delivery, Lord Downton calls to mind one of the Three Little Pigs with Stockholm Syndrome. He had his own curly tale too: a twisting story in which he alleged that the late media mogul Elliot Carver, far from having the governments of the world in his pocket, had actually been under investigation by the British Government at the time of his death.

It was hard to say what was more startling - that the Government had known that Carver was in it up to his neck or that Lord Downton's memory is still so sharp in contrast to some other, younger, witnesses we have heard from recently. His recollection seemed to be clearest when he was making the case for his government's determination to establish its independence from Carver's media organisations - in fact he made the point very distinctly several times, much to the wry amusement of Robert Jay QC.

And then, much to the amusement of the public gallery, Mr Jay suggested that if this were the case, might not the government have subsequently had stronger reservations about allowing ownership of Tomorrow to pass so readily to News International? Especially if one remembered that it was the phone-hacking allegations against that very newspaper that led to the current inquiry being set up. After all, given the alleged similarities between CMG and News Corp might not one have concluded that nothing propinks like propinquity?

Lord Downton blinked at that, his house of straw blown down around him by the most gentle of breezes.

There were more surprises in the afternoon session when the mysterious civil servant referred to only as Ms 'M' took the stand, albeit hidden behind a screen. Details of her job were finessed but it became clear that Ms 'M' had occupied a senior role in the security services at the time of Carver's death. She took exception with Lord Downton's version of events. With exquisite steely diction she claimed that the investigation into Carver had been instigated at her own insistence and approved only with the greatest reluctance by Whitehall.

Full of courtesy (and perhaps even slightly smitten?) Lord Leveson himself interrupted to ask whether the findings of the investigation could be revealed. Ms 'M' demurred. She would say only that the evidence strongly suggested that Mr Carver had been complicit in blackmail, amongst other crimes, and had even fabricated news stories in order to advance his agenda - one that undermined British interests at the time.

That caused Mr Jay to voice a rather dark thought: had the investigation in any way caused Mr Carver's disappearance? Ms 'M' assured the court that Carver had taken his own life rather than face up to his inevitable humiliation - at least, as far as she could remember. 

Did she feel, asked Lord Leveson, that it was reasonable for intelligence resources to be deployed against media empires like Carver's? Could such an organisation really pose a threat comparable with that of Cold War Soviet espionage or post-9/11 terrorism?

Ms 'M' was adamant. "My job is to use the resources of my agency to protect the interests and the people of Britain," she said and unseen, her voice was a blade sheathed in velvet. "Throughout the time I've held this post, we've faced many threats. But the source of danger was always the same: men and women from a privileged, entitled elite who felt they were above the law. It's only ever the strong that prey on others and think they can get away with it. That's why we have such an inquiry as this, my Lord."

She didn't add, "And if you can't bring the bastards to account, then I will." But then, she didn't really need to. It was all in the voice.

Tomorrow's witness is the Prime Minister's Special Advisor, Guy Haines.  

Some Teasing

So we're just a few short, bad-tempered months away from the release of Skyfall and, look, here is the teaser trailer!

Trailers are silly things and best not taken too seriously. Teaser trailers are even sillier and I'm not going to dissect this one in order to fill space (see here or here if you really have to). But we can at least get a sense of the mood and atmosphere of the actual movie from these snippets. Skyfall would appear to be much like Craig's Bond: hard as nails, cool-as-you-like, utterly badass and, yet, possessing an inner frailty. I completely can't wait.

What I am already fed up with is comments along the lines of "oh, it can't be any worse than Quantum of Solace!" which I find lying around on YouTube comments, Twitter and in online newspaper blogs. Firstly, QOS is a brilliant Bond film. I expect. It certainly was the last time I watched it anyway. And, secondly, the only people who can think that QOS is a bad Bond film are people who have successfully managed to erase the incredible awfulness of Die Another Day from their minds. Or, here's a horrifying thought, maybe there are people who liked DAD?

Here's Tim Stanley, writing for the online edition of the Daily Telegraph:

"Sorry, but Bond ain’t Bond unless he’s flying into space with a Russian minx called Tatyana Innerthigh on a deadly mission to kill a fat bald man with a cat." 

Oh, good grief. Look, I like Roger Moore's films and I admire his non-interpretation of the character of James Bond - but to claim that the camp, '70s version is definitive is utter twaddle. Fleming's books are nothing at all like those films and are, instead, more faithfully realised by, say, FRWL or LTK (yes, really) and Casino Royale.

"Connery and Moore played their parts in an age when character trumped looks and women were encouraged to find a man attractive well into his seventies. They might have had prostate trouble, but they also had wit and charm. And we, the heterosexual men for whom these movies are made, could watch them and aspire to be them."

Hang on. Did he just say "we, the heterosexual men for whom these movies are made"? That's a bit, odd, isn't it? Especially as he seems to only like the camp ones. And Craig is hardly charmless. I'd say he exudes it, rather like the growl from under the bonnet of an idling DB5.

"Gentlemen, Bond has been stolen from us and redesigned to appeal to women. In order to keep the men glued to their seats, the producers throw in lashings of sadistic violence. Without innuendo, Bond has thus become violent feminine porn." 

To which I have to say what on Earth is wrong with violent feminine porn anyway? But really, although tongue in cheek (possibly), this is a blinkered and entitled point of view. Mr Stanley seems to feel that men have been betrayed because women have been given Daniel Craig to drool over instead of making do with a wheezy geriatric Bond. It's not my place to say, but I doubt gay men are annoyed by the marriage of gritty violence and rock-hard abs. And perhaps women got fed up having to make do with men who merely aspired to be Roger Moore? Mr Stanley derides Craig's physique ("an absurd body that no human being could replicate") and yet it doesn't appear to occur to him that this is how women might have felt about ALL the women in Bond films since Ursula bloody Andress? Either way, Mr Stanley seems to be uncomfortable with the attention Craig's body has received from women (let alone men). Perhaps it isn't so much that men have been let down, but that women's expectations have gone up, and rightly so.

There is an ongoing conflict within the Bond films, between the camp, jokey versions and Fleming's cold bastard. The pendulum will swing back and forth but he continues to be an aspirational figure for men and women, straight and gay. The idea that Bond is rightfully the cultural property of heterosexual men is appalling. It has also never been true.

I have in front of me a 1965 reprinting of On Her Majesty's Secret Service. On the back is a blurb quote from the Sunday Times, from a review of the original publication in 1963:

"James Bond is what every man would like to be, and what every woman would like between the sheets."

It's still a little old-fashioned, but it makes the point that Bond is for everyone. Luckily, with twenty-three movies, nearly twice as many novels, and a rising tally of video games, these days there are plenty of different versions of Bond to choose from.

Mr Stanley is quite within his rights to choose whichever Bond he is least uncomfortable with.

GoldenEye

Super cool, super confident, super-spy: GoldenEye (yes, apparently I have to type it like that) is the bravura return that had audiences cheering all around the world and brought the franchise back from the dead. Full of the fun and panache that had been missing during the Dalton era, Brosnan's début boldly dispelled any doubts and hushed the haters. Bond was back.

That's the official line anyway. But I can see the cracks in this production; I can smell the fear. There was an awful lot riding on this film and it's far from a nerveless resurrection. GoldenEye has some marvellous set-pieces, but the script is clunky and its premise is thin. More than anything else though, this is a film which is straining everything to impress and to justify its own existence. And it shows.

This is not the first time James Bond has returned after a long absence. At the beginning of The Man With the Golden Gun, Bond travels back to London, having been captured and brainwashed for a year by the KGB. His handler, the delightful Colonel Boris, tells him to take a room at the Ritz and to buy himself a Burberry raincoat. As far as the Russians are concerned, this is who James Bond is.

After the disastrous reception to LTK and an unexpected six year hiatus, the Bond who resurfaces in GoldenEye is similarly unsure of his identity. Lucky for him then that everybody he meets is in possession of a pithy character-summary. They take it in turns to fling a label at him, eager to define, for him and for us, who James Bond is these days. The new M calls him a "sexist, misogynist dinosaur". To CIA scruffbum Jack Wade he's a "stiff-assed Brit". Valentin Zukovsky mocks him for being a "charming, sophisticated secret-agent", whereas Janus himself, former 006 and nutjob, Alec Trevelyan, plumps for "Her Majesty's loyal terrier."

If all this runs against the old writers' adage of "show, don't tell" then bear in mind that these are our preconceptions that we're hearing. These criticisms (and they are criticisms, even Zukovsky's) are reasons why people won't watch; for EON and their financial backers they are the cause of nagging doubts. By putting them into the script, a strategy is being adopted. Like a scandal-hit politician, Bond is showing that he listens to us, he understands why we have been disappointed in the past. And, also like a politician, Bond doesn't answer any of these charges - by the end of the film we are simply supposed to have forgotten all about them.

To a large extent the audience did exactly that and GoldenEye was massively successful even if you do allow for the the fact that I went to see it five times. Yes, I, a beery-eyed undergraduate, was completely bowled over, dazzled by the shiny newness, giddy with rebirth. It's fair to say that I am rather less excited by GoldenEye now, seventeen years later - but that doesn't mean there isn't anything here to admire. In fact there are four key sequences which raised the bar for the series - or at least inched the bar back towards a previous all time high.

With both LTK and OHMSS taking a bit of a kicking, it is hardly surprising that GoldenEye resembles that paragon of 'fun' Bond films, TSWLM. There are a number of similarities but none is quite so obvious as the sight of 007 plunging over a precipice during the PCS. You'll also remember that Bond manages to do this twice during the PCS of GoldenEye - the stakes are being desperately upped. The initial bungee jump certainly sets out the stall for the new Bond. Unfortunately, it's another of those stunts that is more impressive than it looks: although the actual mechanics of diving off of a dam like that are truly terrifying, the end result is merely graceful, lacking the cocksure showmanship of TSWLM's parachute. Still, it got our attention. The rest of the PCS is good, full of action, story and character, and the tense stand-off between Bond and Orumov is excellent. But then 007 plummets again, this time free-falling after a pilot-less aeroplane, catching up with it and then flying it away. I think it's fair to say this stunt has proved divisive (I remember hearing both cheers and scoffing during those original screenings). Is it possible to fall faster than an aeroplane? I don't know and I'm not going to spend any time trying to find out, but the answer doesn't matter because the stunt feels wrong. Even in 1995, though I wouldn't have admitted it at the time, it felt like it was too much. Still for all that, the PCS is a strong introduction to Brosnan's Bond and a key part of GoldenEye's success.

The second important scene is Bond's briefing from Q. The effort, planning and determination behind this scene's execution is clear for all to see: it's a full-on comedy sketch, packed with sight-gags, stunts and puns, and it even climaxes with a clever, funny punchline. It's a great scene, excellently directed by Martin Campbell who does his best to mask the fact that Desmond Llewellyn is reading everything off idiot-boards. Nevertheless it is obvious to me that this burst of jokes is a reaction to the criticisms levelled against the Dalton films: the fear, the desperate doubts are there. The other reason that this is such a key scene is that Llewellyn is now the grand old man of the franchise: the new Bond, like a Holy Roman Emperor seeking the approval of the Pope, must make his pilgrimage to Q Branch. .

Thirdly, the major action sequence in the movie. It's a belter. Bond, imprisoned inside a barracks in St Petersburg, escapes from his cell, shoots a load of soldiers and crashes through a window only to find that Natalya has been driven off in a car by the unravelling Orumov. Bond promptly commandeers a vehicle and sets off in pursuit. So far, so TMWTGG - except that the vehicle Bond takes is a T-55 tank. Once again it is Bond's capacity for improvisation that delights: in a crisis he trusts his instincts and uses what's available. It almost doesn't matter what the resulting chase is like but, even better, it is wonderful. One of its strengths is the music, proving again that the best thing you can do with a cool stunt, chase or fight is to smother it with the James Bond theme. If it stands out from the rest of the score that's because it was not written by Eric Serra who composed everything else in GoldenEye - John Altman put this together, thank goodness.

The fourth great sequence is the fight between 007 and 006, the production team taking their inspiration from the Bond/Grant Orient Express dust-up from FRWL. Yes, it is really good - savage, well choreographed and edited, with a neat reversal. It's the best fight in the series since, blimey, OHMSS, I expect. But, hell's teeth, if you're pitting two Double-Ohs against each other, in an homage to FRWL, surely 'good' is the very least you can manage? Perhaps I'm being unfair, but should this not have been astonishing rather than merely good?

There are other little glints of brilliance too. The production overall is very good with excellent model work, set-design and visual effects. Samantha Bond's Moneypenny is excellent, showing that it is possible for there to be chemistry between her and 007 without her being feeble or subjugated. But casting Dame Judi of Dench as M was a stroke of genius. She is easily the best thing about the whole Brosnan era (with the possible exception of GoldenEye 007 on the N64) and adds so much, utterly remoulding not just the M/Bond relationship, but the whole perception of women in the franchise. In truth, she's not at her best here, playing it a little too straight. But even so, she brings so much credibility and quality to Bond's world. Of all the villains, it is only Orumov, played by Gottfried John, who is remotely interesting. He gets several lovely moments and subtly acts everyone else off of the screen. Watch when he executes one of his own men in the PCS and promptly turns to catch his breath, wracked with tension. And he pulls a brilliant face later on when he looks delightfully askance at Onatopp as she trills and kills during the Severnaya massacre. Then there's the bare-faced lying to Mishkin's committee and the brilliant, deranged way he barges into Bond's interrogation.

Okay, those are the highs. What are the lows? Well, as I hinted earlier, Eric Serra's score is awful, easily the worst ever. There are moments when it fits what's happening on screen but it's just not Bondy. That his attempt at scoring the tank chase got dumped tells you all you need to know.

The concept of a rogue Double-Oh agent is great one, harking back to anti-Bond characters like Red Grant in FRWL. But GoldenEye largely wastes the idea. Sean Bean does what is required of him but really Trevelyan is a boring baddy: petty, embittered and childish - he's supposed to be stylish and sophisticated, like Bond, but he never gets the chance to show us. Onatopp is entirely one-dimensional, despite some excellent smirking, pouting and even the occasional smoulder from Famke Jansen. Boris is slightly more rounded, Alan Cummings doing well to make the most of the programmer's emotional range, but is still little more than a caricature. Natalya is tough, brave and reliable but all her best bits are in Severnaya - once Bond turns up, she stops being interesting. Although there is some conflict with Bond it is all minor bickering - going through the gears of a bog-standard action movie romance. Zukovsky is far from being the lovable rogue he'll end up as in TWINE and Jack Wade is not even an one-dimensional character - it is merely hinted that he likes gardening, hence the 'tick' of him naming a plant he can smell whenever he turns up. Good God, Richard Kiel was playing Hamlet in comparison with this.

And then there's Pierce Brosnan. I know he's still a very popular Bond and I think it might be that, for many, he is the One That Brings Balance: tougher than Moore, funnier than Dalton, nicer than Connery, a better actor than Lazenby. All those things are probably true - but for me, these days anyway, he's not quite right. Partly this is because DAD soured everything and because I'm still shocked by how good Daniel Craig is. But looking back at Brosnan, there are two sides to his Bond and they're both flawed.

1) He's charming and twinkly, he smiles and he laughs. He quips (my God, how he quips), he smirks, he straightens his tie at inappropriate moments. Watch him fiddling with Q's laptop, grinning to himself. Watch the exaggerated look he gives the waiter when Onatopp orders her Martini "straight up, with a twist". Firstly, and irrelevantly, that's not even an innuendo. Secondly, yes, he's looking at the waiter but the glance is meant for us. He might as well mug straight down the lens like Miranda or Eric Morecombe. This is all the fun, funny stuff that was demanded after LTK. It is the Roger Moore Bond being channelled into the Nineties. The difference is, Moore never oversold a gag. He had excellent timing and he played all the jokes dead straight. Even terrible, awful lines like "When one is in Egypt, one should delve deeply into its treasures," from TSWLM, even that sort of works because Moore's delivery is utterly deadpan. Brosnan tries to ease us through with a little twinkle: "I love a woman who enjoys pulling rank," and "She always did enjoy a good squeeze," and it's always just a little too much. Yes, we know they are jokes. We will laugh even if you don't blatantly demonstrate that you find yourself funny. The only line he does manage to deadpan is "No, no, no. No more foreplay." And even then it's as if he is forcibly repressing a chuckle behind the eyes at his own brilliant hilarity.

Right at the top I mentioned that GoldenEye is full of Bond getting character notes from others - all people that we've never met before. Is there no-one we know and trust in the film to judge the new Bond for us? A wise old man perhaps? Sure enough, when Brosnan is pushed into the presence of the indomitable Desmond Llewellyn,  the man who's run Q Branch since 1963, four Bonds earlier, the verdict comes through loud, clear and, quite possibly, laser-guided: "Oh, do grow up, 007!"

2) The flip-side. Sensibly, not everything from the Dalton era is jettisoned. Bond must have some kind of emotional dimension. There must, in short, be some acting to do. It starts off here with the "It's what keeps me alive," line on the beach and progresses throughout Brosnan's tenure: the death of Paris, sympathy for Elektra King and finally North Korean interrogation. It doesn't work. Even here, this Bond can't carry the (slender) emotional weight applied to him. We are supposed to think, I'm guessing, that the smirking school-boy persona is a façade, thrown up around his damaged and serious real self - but unfortunately the former is rather more convincing than the latter and the real impression is of someone pulling a series of sulky sad, faces in the belief that it will make them more interesting.

Maybe the problem is that Brosnan is too likeable. I know I complained that Connery was too much of a bastard but there must be a balance. This Bond is very charismatic; he is also a lover of life, an admirer of women and their beauty. That means there is something very important missing, something essential to the character of James Bond that is being overlooked: there is no callousness, no pragmatic disregard for others. Maybe that is my nagging dissatisfaction with GoldenEye too - here we have both a film and a Bond which are just trying too hard to get us to like them.

*   *   *

Pre-Credits Sequence: I pooh-poohed it earlier, a bit, but it is good. The second dive is controversial but there comes a point when you have to accept that James Bond can just do stuff that would be impossible for other people - of course the trick is to make his impossibility credible and I'm not sure that is achieved here. Still, the stand-off with Orumov, and its resolution, is fantastic.

Theme: Tina Turner is wheeled out to sing something rather dull cooked up by half of U2 (the wrong half, perhaps, given the success that Lary Mullen and Adam Clayton had with the Mission: Impossible theme a year later). Much more exciting are the opening visuals. Daniel Kleinman takes over from (the dead) Maurice Binder, having been in charge of the music video for Licence to Kill. He does an excellent job too. Okay, he has a freer hand, thanks to new computer techniques, but what he produces always has a strong concept and even, sometimes, a narrative. Here he manages to bridge the gap in time between the PCS and the rest of the film by depicting the collapse of communism. Admittedly he achieves this by having models smash hammers against icons and statues of Soviet Russia, but it's no mean feat and a big leap forwards.

Deaths:62 is pretty high - mind you, everyone seems to be using automatic weapons these days so that may have something to do with it.

Memorable Deaths: Boris gets frozen solid. Onatopp gets squished against a tree. Trevelyan gets dropped off a dish that then collapses on top of him.

Licence to Kill: 32. That's high. Amazingly, Bond fails to kill anyone during the tank chase, mainly thanks to improbable cut-aways that show dizzy policemen pulling themselves, unharmed, from utterly crushed cars. 

Exploding Helicopters: Two! The Eurocopter is hit by its own missiles and Bond takes out another with an AK47. Happy days.

Shags: Two - the blithering MI6 pyschologist, Caroline, and Natalya. Surprisingly, Brosnan doesn't let Xenia get a look in (Connery would have been all over her). 

Crimes Against Women: Sexism in the work place: Tanner calls M the "evil queen of numbers" - that's sexist because he would never refer to a male boss as an "evil king" (conceivably he might refer to a male boss as an "evil queen", but that's a different kind of prejudice) and is therefore implying, albeit unconsciously, that M's gender is relevant to her job performance. Not cool. True, having a female M makes a massive difference to the way the franchise views women, but here M only really gains 007's respect when she explains how she "has the balls" to send "a man" on a dangerous mission. Meanwhile Boris is making no bones about eyeing up Natalya's assets. He also comments on the size of her breasts (they are the kind of "knockers" that "can open very large doors") and draws NSFW pictures of her that he then uploads onto office software. Only Moneypenny manages to provide any pushback. But although she is firm and unyielding with Bond when he tries to flirt with her, she can't quite resist flirting back just a little: the penalty for sexual harassment in the work place is, she says, that "one day you have to make good on your innuendo". If that's not a come-on, I don't know what is. If I were I her, I'd kick him in the goolies whenever he walked in the room, just to be on the safe side. Things aren't a lot better for women out in the field either. Bond's evaluator, Caroline, is first portrayed as being ditzy and feeble before being later derided by M for succumbing to his charms. Natalya is shown to be determined, capable, brave and intelligent. So to make up for that there is a long lingering look (from both Bond and us) at her crotch as she walks towards him on the beach. That'll serve her right. She also has to endure Trevelyan's unwanted advances. And then there's Xenia Onatopp. She's the first properly bad Bond woman since the (wonderful) Fiona Volpe (as long as you don't count Rosie Carver or Helga Brandt and why would you?) but she's nowhere near as interesting. Her chief characteristic is the, er, delight she takes in killing people which means she is basically nothing more than a murderous fembot. 

Casual Racism: None, apart from the fact that there are no black characters in the film whatsoever. 

Out of Time: There's much made of this new-fangled contraption called the Internet, which (bless) was at a very primitive stage in 1995. They also talk about Guantanamo which, at the time, meant NOTHING at all. Natalya's wardobe is all very of its time (micro skirt and tights) whilst Brosnan's hair is perhaps the most luxuriant coiffure of any Bond ever.  

Fashion Disasters: Bond's having a casual wear crisis again. He sports a cravat of some kind in the DB5, and a double-breasted blazer whilst skulking about in Monte Carlo. Xenia has a piss-poor line in crazy hats, as does the Russian army - Orumov's in the PCS is very silly. Jack Wade is all scruffed up and Tanner hasn't even managed to do up his tie! Boris, of course, dresses like a mid-nineties programmer (i.e. badly). Luckily the French naval officers are very dashing in their sharply-cut suits and Natalya magically ends up with an utterly gorgeous coat when she is poking about St Petersburg. 

Most Shameless Advertising: A new category! Yes, the series had always prominently featured products in return for help with production costs (look at the cars Bond drives in DAF and TMWTGG for example) but in the Nineties this became much more obvious. What does GoldenEye offer up? Well, there's Zukovsky's carefully placed bottle of Smirnoff (Black Label, of course), but this is rather subtle compared with the film's use of the BMW Z3 - it gets its own mini-advert that has almost no bearing on the rest of the film whatsoever. Best of all though is the casual deployment of a lorry full of a famous brand of mineral water during the tank chase. See if you can spot it here:

Eh?: Alec Trevelyan doesn't make any sense. As the child of Lienz Cossacks, he hates the UK, but seems to have no animus against the USSR or the Russians he employs. Strange. Also, when does he swap sides and what happens in Arkhangelsk? If he has a deal with Orumov before the mission then why not just hand Bond over to the Russians straight away? If he hasn't got a deal then how does Orumov not kill him by shooting him in the head at point blank range? Either way, his main gripe against Bond is that 007 changed the countdown on the explosives from 6 to 3 minutes. He treats this a terrible betrayal, which assumes that a) Bond was supposed to know that Trevelyan wasn't dead (so it wasn't a trick and Orumov's just insanely incompetent?) and b) that altering the countdown was incontrovertibly against mission protocol (in which case, why is it a one-click function on the limpet mines?). Anyway somehow he survives the MASSIVE explosion inside a chemical weapons factory and doesn't get executed as a spy by the USSR. The man leads a charmed life, why is he so bitter?  >> The Janus crime syndicate is so rich that they are able to build an exact replica of the Severnaya facility. In Cuba. Under a lake. And it can rise out of the lake. And still work, even though it has all been underwater. And they have their own private army. Presumably they need to rob the Bank of England because they are massively in debt. You know, if it was Carl Stromberg doing this, or even Elliot Carver, I'd believe it. >> If Jack Wade is the CIA's man in St Petersburg, why does he turn up in Florida? (I'm guessing it's Florida? They can't sneak into Cuba from Cuba can they?) >> Who is pretending to be the Canadian admiral aboard the French frigate? We never find out, but it must be Orumov or Trevelyan. However, because the same actor is playing both real and fake admirals, it looks like it can be neither of them: they are both too tall! Whoever it is, we don't see his face, but any disguise must be good enough to work with the real admiral's photo id. >> Where does Boris go during the attack on Severnaya? He pops outside for a smoke and the next we see him, he's on Trevelyan's train. If he is part of the conspiracy (and he must be surely) then it would seem likely for Orumov and Onatopp to give him a lift in the helicopter. Except that the Eurocopter only has two seats! >> Natalya commandeers (steals) a dog-sledge to get away - where is the owner that we saw a few minutes earlier? And where does she get that coat from? >> Onatopp appears to orgasm when she fires at the (empty) ventilation shaft - but there's no sign that she has killed anyone, so can she climax just by assuming she's killed someone? Why doesn't she just play a FPS instead? She'd never need to leave the house. >> Again, Q Branch supplies Bond with explosives covered in attention-grabbing LEDs, which is just perfect for keeping them hidden and secret on a dark night. Well done Q Branch. >> How exactly does Bond's scam work for Zukovsky? If Bond has bribed an official to get it to work (why else would it work?) then why not just pay-off Zukovsky? >> Trevelyan keeps talking about 'England' as if it were a country when really he means 'Great Britain', 'the United Kingdom' or, even better, 'the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland'. Any one of those is fine. >> Bond apprehends Onatopp in the hotel sauna. Fine. Next shot they are in a car, Bond still pointing a gun at her. How exactly did they both get dressed if she is his prisoner? Did he let her hold the gun whilst he knotted his tie? And why did they both feel the need to get so dressed up? He's wearing a suit and tie, and he's allowed her to do her hair and make up, and even match her earrings to her lipstick. >> Okay, last one. The pen. The exploding ballpoint pen. "Three clicks arms the four-second fuse," says Q, "and three more disarm it". No they don't. I'm sad enough that I sat in the cinema counting clicks (on the third or fourth viewing) but that was seventeen years ago. So, yes, I watched these few minutes three times for this post so I could be sure. I make it 19 click-clunks so there's no way that Q's three-three briefing is accurate. If, however, it is three to arm it and one to disarm it, then 19 is fine: !!!*!!!*!!!*!!!*!!! - but still, Q got it worryingly wrong, as did the writers, editor, director and foley artists.

Worst Line: Oh dear. Lots. Lots of awfulness. Most of it comes from people talking about James Bond to his face. Take this bit of codliest pyschology from Trevelyan: "I might as well ask you if all those vodka martinis ever silence the screams of all the men you've killed... or if you find forgiveness in the arms of all those willing women for all the dead ones you failed to protect." Or this: "We're both orphans, James. But while your parents had the luxury of dying in a climbing accident..." actually Alec, I'm going to stop you there. This is ham-fisted script writing, desperately trying to explain Bond without having to show his behaviour - just compare it with Casino Royale or QOS where Craig acts instead, there's no contest. There are others too, lots of dud puns or clumsy phrases instead of the sorts of things people actually say. 006 mulls over the GoldenEye activation device: "The world's greatest cash card. It had better not be rejected...". "I had to ventilate someone," smirks Onatopp, presumably because she believes she's a character in a cheesy action movie.

Best Line: M hints at future badassery: "Unlike the American government, we prefer not to get our bad news from CNN." Also: "...if I want sarcasm, Mr Tanner, I'll talk to my children, thank you very much." Trevelyan momentarily stumbles into something approaching eloquence: "What's true is that in 48 hours you and I will have more money than God. And Mr. Bond here will have a small memorial service with only Moneypenny and a few tearful restauranteurs in attendance." Oh and that punchline to the Q Branch sketch: "Don't touch that! That's my lunch!"

Worst Bond Moment: There are no major embarrassments here. Brosnan is a bit of a gurner. In any fight or, indeed, any emotional scene, he has a habit of stretching his mouth wide, grinding his jaw, bulging his eyes and so forth. Look at him when he is held back as the Eurocopter is stolen - is he about to transform into the Incredible Hulk? He is also much more shouty than any of the other Bonds, (listeners to Adam & Joe can think their own thoughts here) and this is something else which makes me think he is just trying too hard. 

Best Bond Moment: Many will say the bungee jump but, as I suggested earlier, I find it a bit obvious - it's a daring feat, sure, but where's the ingenuity, the flashy improvisation? But GoldenEye does have one of the great Bond moments as 007 steals a tank, drives it through a wall and then ploughs through St Petersburg. Inspired, unstoppable and too cocky by half - that's our James.

Overall: I've been hard on GoldenEye but I do like it - I'm just not convinced it's as good as everyone thinks it is. The series needed a strong revitalising film and this is it: rightly lauded and very successful. But look too closely and it begins to seem very insubstantial fare, and Brosnan, caught trying to play Roger Moore in a Dalton script, is already a dangerously superficial 007.  

James Bond Will Return: No hints, no hostages to fortune these days. And besides, Bond titles are so difficult to manufacture. What is certain, after GoldenEye, is that Bond will return, and that he will always return in the future. For no matter what the geo-political context, you can always rely on one man...

Fair play, that is a damn good trailer.

Licence to Kill

And here, apparently, is where it all went wrong. Too dark and too violent, with a tawdry, ordinary villain and an unlikeable, unconvincing 007, Licence To Kill, we are told, scrapes the bottom out of the barrel of what is, effectively, a dying franchise.

What a load of nonsense. LTK is the best Bond film since FYEO, since OHMSS perhaps, and occupies the same emotional landscape of curtailed love, betrayal and revenge. Watching this again, what strikes me is how tightly it is plotted, specifically the way that Bond encounters the various gang members in such a way that it is only at the climax that he risks being identified. Throughout, though, each plot point has repercussions that build and feed back into the story, and the characters are all developed with clear motivation for their actions.

Sanchez, the drug baron, is a ruthless businessman whose stock is the loyalty of those around him. Robert Davi does a great job here and, like all the best Bond villains, Sanchez possesses a cool and almost charming persona that masks a terrifying sadism and an extremely violent temper. Anthony Zerbe is disgustingly slimy and horrible as the lecherous Krest and, yes, that is a very young Benicio del Toro as henchman Dario. The women are good too. Lupe (Talisa Soto) is a kept woman who has to trade on her beauty to get by - but she seems to understand that Bond's mission offers a chance for escape and, gradually, begins to help him. Carey Lovell plays Pam Bouvier with a slightly whiny sense of indignation - this is definitely a capable woman who feels that she is required to prove her efficacy to men over and over again. Of course she does prove herself throughout the film despite being somewhat held at arm's length by Bond. M, Q and Moneypenny all have their brief moments shoehorned in, but they're all nicely done. Caroline Bliss has had very little to do as Moneypenny but she did it very well, even if she has turned out to be the least steely incarnation. It's Robert Brown's last gig as M too. He took over from Bernard Lee for Octopussy but he has been very good - a little less gruff but no less reassuring.

LTK is presented as an aberration, a reckless departure from the Bond formula, but it is surely the most Fleming-esque of all the films. Far from being an ersatz Bond story, cooked up in the vats at EON Productions, the story mechanics here should be very familiar to anyone who's read Goldfinger, Diamonds Are Forever, or The Man With the Golden Gun: through cunning, deception and ruthless opportunism, Bond infiltrates a criminal gang and destroys their operation. Other recurring Flemingisms pop up too: the villains' ingenious business model is revealed and explained, as if Bond were an undercover reporter; 007 offering himself up as a gun-for-hire, a dissatisfied ex-employee of Her Majesty's Secret Service; the tense moment when Bond realises he is about to be exposed and can only wait for the single instant of opportunity that will allow him to try and turn the tables. 

Although in the novels Bond makes a habit of convincing hoodlums that his services are for hire, he never really seems to fit in amongst the gangsters. Partly this is because we, the reader, never doubt his loyalty to Queen and country and partly because Bond's Fifties upper-middle-class background suggests an awkward gulf between him and his foreign criminal chums. But here, what's amazing is how Dalton's Bond does belong amongst Sanchez' men. Operating without M's sanction, Bond has no political cover for his actions in this film - he is, like Sanchez, just a killer, motivated purely by revenge. Having pushed his way into Sanchez's office at the casino, Bond introduces himself as "a problem-eliminator"; it's hardly a joke, but all the men in the room, including Bond, fall into a long, dark chuckle. Bond is not acting a part here - it is a genuinely shared moment where both he and Sanchez are revealed as men who have made themselves comfortable with the fact that they are killers.

There's something of the Conquistador about Bond's mission, in that it is a ruthless one-man war that brings down a latin-american empire. But unlike Cortes, Bond's religion is vengeance and he has no thirst for gold. In fact, throughout the film, Bond repeatedly proves that he, just like Sanchez, values loyalty more than money. He runs away from his job to avenge Leiter and Della, throws away two million dollars to make his point to Killifer, and hands over nearly five million to turn Sanchez against Krest. The money he does use is merely a means to a very bloody end.

But whilst LTK clears the decks to accommodate Fleming (incidentally, I know you know this, but: Leiter's ordeal by shark is lifted wholesale from Live and Let Die), does it completely do away with our suave super-spy? The all-capable secret agent that audiences love? Well no, he's still there, particularly in the action sequences. The bar brawl feels like it's from a Moore movie anyway, but the tremendous truck chase at the end is a wonderful chance for Bond to pull stunts, throw punches and generally be improbably amazing.

There is one other sequence though, which is even better. In fact it's so good that I would rate it alongside the PCS from Goldfinger. It's pure, skiing-off-a-cliff Bond but LTK incorporates it brilliantly in to its grittier reality. Milton Krest's ship, the Wavekrest, is anchored at sea so that a sea plane can land to conduct a drugs deal. Bond, having destroyed the drugs, is spotted in the water and set upon by divers who trap him and cut his air pipe. Bond grabs a spear-gun, takes a second to smash the butt into the mask of one diver, and then fires. The spear sticks into one of the floats of the sea plane and Bond is yanked to the surface where he water-skis behind the plane before climbing aboard as it takes off. He gets inside, kills the pilots and flies off with all the money from the drug deal. It's fantastic - all the more so because of Michael Kamen's score which liberally drapes the Bond theme over such antics. But the best thing, the BEST thing, is that later in the movie, Sanchez, suspicious that he has been ripped-off, asks Krest what happened. Krest explains what Bond did and, of course, Sanchez doesn't believe him. Our super-duper 007 has wandered off into another movie genre to do battle, and these guys don't understand, like we do, that Bond has brought with him his own set of rules.

* * *

Pre-Credits Sequence: It's flashy, with its helicopters and Florida Keys setting but it's not up to much really. It's a good little vignette and it ties into the story. There's also the parachutes-as-wedding-train which is a nice idea. Presumably the capture of the plane is a lot more impressive than it looks.

Theme: Gladys Knight, sans Pips, sings an American-flavoured track that's a bit R&B, a bit rock ballad and is very James Bond. Powered by some hefty horn work (based on Goldfinger) it is one of the better themes, although it has no connection to the score. (Kamen's contribution is good and heavily based upon the Bond theme - which shows up a lot - but it does get overly sentimental in the quiet bits.) For his last set of Bond credits, Maurice Binder does well. Although still reliant on jiggling women, there are thematic elements (gambling chips, a spinning roulette wheel, underwater photography) that relate to the content of the film.

Deaths: It's a not very high 23 but for once they nearly all mean something.

Memorable Deaths: Krest gets de-pressurised. Killifer gets dropped on a shark. One guard gets fed to the maggots, another gets shocked by eels. Lupe's boyfriend has his heart cut out.

Licence to Kill: 10. And every one of them a cold-blooded murder committed without the sanction of Her Majesty's government. I'm assuming the guy who gets thrown into the tray of maggots dies.

Exploding Helicopters: Plenty of helicopters but none of them explode. :(

Shags: 2, although it's difficult to see why either of them occur. Having just met him, Ms Bouvier jumps on Bond for some unknown reason. And Lupe inexplicably decides to pull Bond into bed despite what happened to her last boyfriend.

Crimes Against Women: Moneypenny pines after her AWOL 007 to the extent that she becomes incapable of doing her job. Lupe is on the receiving end, getting whipped by Sanchez and harassed by Krest. Pam gets heavily patronised by Bond (she's his 'executive secretary', "we're south of the border, it's a man's world," he tells her) and leered at by Professor Joe. They're all still better off than Della who, it is strongly hinted, is gang-raped and murdered on her wedding night.

Casual Racism: There's nothing overt, but there is a pervasive stink of stereo-typical latin american corruption: Bond's dollars elicit unctuous smiles from bank managers, bell-boys and casino staff; the President is bought and paid for by Sanchez. Of course there is, and has been, corruption in latin america but it would be nice if there was a character who obviously wasn't on the take. (On the other hand, there are plenty of US citizens who are shown to be corrupt.) Putting all that to one side, there is no excuse for Q's Mexican disguise (including Zapata moustache).

Out of Time: 1989 was the year the US invaded Panama to bring down the government of Manuel Noriega, but the General's regime was clearly an inspiration for Sanchez's fictional Isthmus City. The violence, swearing and revenge/drugs plot are all reminiscent of recent films (1987 saw the release of both Lethal Weapon and Beverly Hills Cop). Bond's (untaken) flight with Pan-Am is historically sandwiched between the Lockerbie bombing (1988) and Pan-Am's collapse (1991).

Fashion Disasters: No major howlers from Bond, in fact he's pretty natty throughout - but his hair does change alarmingly. Heller wears one of those silly ties that isn't a tie (right). Professor Joe has a (bleurgh) nice line in white suits. Krest is afflicted by those terrible pastels that blighted the late Eighties. Pam's wig is pretty awful (before she gets her hair cut). And I don't know where else to put this so I'm going to say it here: Sanchez's palace is hideously decorated. Really disgusting.

Eh?: I find it difficult enough to believe that Felix finds the time to arrest Sanchez and get married, but he apparently also is able to do a load of case-work on it and meet Pam Bouvier. Even more incredibly, Sanchez is able to instantly corrupt a police officer and conspiratorially design, arrange and execute a complex escape plan, all within hours of his arrest. But after all that, he is even able to coolly plot and carry out his revenge attack before bedtime. That's a busy day. >> It's not clear why Bond decides to look in the tray of maggots, let alone plunge his arms in up to the elbow. But lo and behold he finds drugs down there! Some kind of dowsing perhaps? >> M once again jumps half-way around the world to meet 007, rather than pick up the phone. But why is Hemingway's house his base of operations? >> Hang on, this drug deal: the plane is delivering drugs to Krest, and Krest is paying them money - but Sanchez is the drug baron, so who is he buying drugs from and why? Shouldn't this deal be going in the opposite direction? >> I'm not an expert on shot-guns, but I'm not sure they blow suspiciously neat round holes in things. >> What is the point of the 'signature gun'? (Obviously the point is so that a ninja can try - and fail - to shoot Bond with it in the next fight, but really...) >> Why does the ninja try and kill Bond with his own gun? Surely the ninjas have gunless ways to kill him? And why are they trying to kill him when they are hell bent on interrogating the bejesus out of him two minutes later?  >> Both Bond's 'signature gun' and the fag-packet detonator are covered in green LEDs, which is just perfect for keeping them hidden and secret on a dark night. Well done Q Branch. >> Why is Pam, a known informant who Sanchez wishes to kill, chosen to be the emissary who goes to Heller with the deal about the Stingers? And who is she working for? The Attorney General? >> Where has Dario been? We see him in the bar brawl and then he magically pops up at the end with no explanation. I suppose the likeliest answer is that he was on Krest's boat, but that doesn't make a lot of sense either. >> I can't shake the feeling that only three of the Stingers get fired during the final chase. Have I missed one?

Worst Line: I need to say, for the record, that this film is laden with expletives. Within a few seconds of the gun-barrel intro we hear our first 'bastard' and then it's 'shit', 'ass', 'piss off', 'bullshit', 'bastard, 'bastard, 'bastard', all the way. Still - not exactly bad dialogue. No, bad dialogue is something like this, a shameless and clumsy piece of exposition from Killifer: "Even one of your famous one million dollar bribes won't get you out of this one, Sanchez!" And, pow! - suddenly everyone's on the same page.

Best Line: Looking back at the Sixties films, there's no denying that the scripts have lost a lot of their wit and cleverness during the intervening years. So it's nice to get some real gems here. When Bond offers his resignation, M snorts "We're not a country club, 007!" Having burst Krest all over his money, Sanchez orders his men to "launder it." The note pinned to Leiter's maimed body is an actual piece of dark and brilliant Fleming prose: "He disagreed with something that ate him." And there's more nifty recycling when Bond, having sent Pam away to get him a drink, silences her whiny complaint with a savage growl: "Shaken. Not stirred." Q executes a lovely eye-roll when Lupe announces to Pam that she too has slept with Bond.

Worst Bond Moment: Dalton is great in LTK, but there are some odd moments. During the bar-brawl there's one shot where he just stands and takes his punches- it's either badly staged or under-rehearsed but it's certainly very unconvincing. Then there are the strange noises he makes (the strangled cry "Della!" when he finds her body and a wobbly "aaahah!" when he's being pushed out of the aeroplane being two examples); they make him sound rather feeble and well, unBondlike. Worst of all, and possibly the worst Bond moment ever, is the sight of 007 being hoisted down out of the DEA helicopter. In full morning suit, his hair plastered into a bowl-cut by the down-force of the rotors, Bond  dangles and gently flaps his arms like some sort of ugly flightless bird. It's not a good look.

Best Bond Moment: They are several great Bond moments here. The way Bond infiltrates the catering staff in the casino is nice, instantly and effortlessly blending into the background. The truck chase is full of them, not the least of which is pulling the petrol lorry onto eight of its sixteen wheels. But the best bit, of course, is the water-ski escape from the Wavekrest that I outlined earlier.

Overall: Okay, this is not family viewing - but who says James Bond can't be for grown-ups? And, over the course of a long series, it is right to mix up the formula from time to time. This is an excellent Bond movie that is faithful to the original books and shows that Timothy Dalton was a brilliant 007. And if Dalton had made another one, or two films, I think LTK would be much more highly regarded.

James Bond Will Return: ... it says. And at the time there was no reason to expect that he wouldn't. But there were distant rumblings in the innards of the film studios that would soon throw all this in to chaos. And while, despite the confusion, planning went ahead for a new Bond movie (set in Japan perhaps, with killer robots), beyond Hollywood, the world suddenly and irrevocably changed.