Who Is James Bond?
Idris Elba casting rumors call into question just how to fix 007.
“The two survivors. This is what she made us.” – Silva
For about the eleventieth time since 2012’s Skyfall, rumors have swirled that Idris Elba might be considered for the role of 007, though, as of this writing, they have again (per The Hollywood Reporter) been debunked. It’s just as well that they have been. Elba has never officially expressed any real enthusiasm for the role, for one thing. For another, I personally don’t want a gifted actor like Elba stepping into a franchise that doesn’t seem like it knows what it’s doing, or who its central character actually is.
“You see, when your intervention forced me to present the world with a new face, I chose to model the disgusting Gustav Graves on you.” —Colonel Moon
It’s fine to have an antihero, and even desirable in certain kinds of stories. It’s often way more interesting than a straightforward, uncomplicated good guy, and for stories set during the vicious subterfuge of the Cold War, it would be absurd not to cast an antihero. My issue with James Bond movies ever since I first saw one in theaters (let me date myself: It was GoldenEye) has been that the Cold War is long gone and thus 007’s anti-heroism is outside its original context. The filmmakers seem fixated on it.
By my count, five of his nemeses in the past eight films have been either shadowy reflections of him or thinly veiled statements on him. To wit:
Alec Trevelyan of GoldenEye, erstwhile 006, is Bond, but if he stopped caring about duty.
Renard of The World Is Not Enough is a villain who beats everybody up, is controlled by a woman, and literally can’t feel.
Colonel Moon/Gustav Graves of Die Another Day is a parody of Bond’s suave and cocksure exterior.
Raoul Silva of Skyfall is Alec Trevelyan but with mommy (and dental) issues.
Blofeld as he appears in Spectre, we’re made to believe, was raised alongside James Bond but came out an evil genius. (Though, the film offers no relevant explanation for why on Earth this might be.)
The only other villainous archetype he tangles with—with the sole exception of Casino Royale’s Le Chiffre—is the spurned megalomaniacal genius. Like encounters with the Riddler in Batman, it always feels as if the jock is beating up the nerd when James tangles with an Elliot Carver (Tomorrow Never Dies) or a Dominic Green (Quantum of Solace). Such villains lately seem to be in movies more often panned by fans and critics.
No, it’s usually more compelling to watch James match wits and fists and morals with somebody who knows all his tricks and has dedicated a decade or three to becoming his vengeful foil.
My theory about this? People do not like James Bond.
Bond has changed over the years, in the books and in the portrayals of the six men who have portrayed him in film across more than half a century, but he remains rooted in the storytelling traditions of pulp writers who are not at all concerned if you think their heroes are perfect paragons of dignified manhood with a few superficial flaws that don’t at all seem to affect their ability to hunt and fish and shoot and punch and gamble and bed women. “James Bond is what every man would like to be, and what every woman would like between her sheets,” dated to a 1963 review of the On Her Majesty’s Secret Service novel, is an oft-cited bit of apocrypha surrounding the character.
“Wanting to be” somebody isn’t synonymous with liking them, though. Most of the time it really means wanting what they have. James Bond has access to military-grade weaponry paired with an utter lack of accountability, a chummy group of co-workers who handle the red tape surrounding his rocket cars and five-star hotel bookings, an immunity to pulmonary or renal disease, and the ability to melt every woman in his orbit no matter how shrewish her initial disposition toward him might be. In theory, yeah, I wouldn’t mind any one of those superpowers myself.