Times have changed and the actors have changed but the James Bond film franchise carries on, building the hype with each new film. The latest installment, No Time To Die released in October, marking the last film starring Daniel Craig as the MI6 agent.
But this doesn’t imply that it's time for the franchise to die, as there’s a buzz that Tom Hardy might play the sleuth in installments of the seemingly never-ending franchise. While James Bond continues to be a multi-million-dollar property, has his adventurous saga aged all that well in contemporary times?
Bond Girls
One can argue that the heroines in present-day James Bond films are strong and capable in their own right, rather than mere damsels in distress. But maybe, if viewers were to look for films in which women take the spotlight in the action genre, they would turn to films like Charlize Theron’s recent filmography.
As for the classic James Bond films of the past, the sexist selling strategy of the films is obvious. James Bond was always shown as a womanizer, with his Bond Girls often reduced to nothing more than eye candy.
Laughable Gadgets
The British spy is known for using several gadgets, some of which are memorable, while others are just ridiculously unrealistic. This only provides more fodder for films like Johnny English and Austin Powers, which heavily parody 007's over-the-top technology.
Even though the recent Daniel Craig movies are more grounded in of gadgets, all previous films have had their share of ridiculous things like a rocket-firing boombox, exploding cigarettes, a man-eating couch, a car with camouflage technology, an ejector seat, and missiles! The list is endless.
A Serial Harasser
It's no secret that older James Bond films are filled with predatory scenes. Even if they might seem casual or might not have been problematic back then, modern-day viewers could definitely be creeped out by James Bond’s behavior towards women, at times.
Sean Connery’s version of Bond gets a majority of such scenes. For instance, in Thunderball, Bond forcefully kisses a physiotherapist and in Goldfinger too, he forces himself on Pussy Galore after a ‘playful fight.’ This behavior goes up a notch when Bond removes a woman’s bikini and strangles her neck with it in Diamonds are Forever.
Roger Moore And Sean Connery's Age
The earliest Bonds never seemed to retire and it only led to films where it's clear to see that James Bond is an aging old man. Daniel Craig isn't too young either, but at least he keeps in shape, and films like Skyfall address his aging fears.
In Roger Moore's last Bond outing, A View To A Kill, the actor was aged 57 and looked much older than the film's young leading ladies. Sean Connery also took a brief hiatus, with George Lazenby taking the mantle in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Connery returned again as Bond after Lazenby's one-hit-wonder, but it was easy for fans to see that Connery looked quite old to play the suave, charming superspy.
Over-The-Top Missions
The franchise has been saturated with endless international missions. From Europe to Asia to even the Moon, James Bond has been everywhere, solving one conspiracy after the other.
Be it in the last century or this one, each of Bond's international adventures seem to be bigger than the previous, dragging in foreign politics, foreign villains, and sometimes, a personal angle from Bond's life. Considering that other spy franchises, like Mission Impossible, take the same approach, there's not much to set James Bond apart anymore.
The Mujahideen Connection
A certain story element from the Timothy Dalton-starring The Living Daylights has unfortunately not stood the test of time because of the subsequent shift in international relations. In this particular film, James Bond teams up with the Afghanistani rebel faction Mujahideen to foil the plans of a KGB Agent.
At the height of the Cold War, the USA had good-enough relations with these rebels, as both found a common enemy in the Soviet Union. But with time, the Mujahideen eventually gave way to the extremist terrorist organization, the Taliban, and became an international enemy of several countries.
Japanese Disguise
In You Only Live Twice, Sean Connery's James Bond runs away from some assassins and seeks refuge at a samurai camp in Japan. For him to fit in, he adopts the disguise of a 'Japanese' man. While Connery thankfully doesn't wear Yellowface, he still sports caricaturish eye prosthetics and a wig. The scene feels a tad unnecessary and full of stereotypes.
Bond seems to have quite a misguided approach towards Asians, even in the original novels by Ian Fleming. For instance, in Goldfinger, the villain Auric Goldfinger describes Koreans, like his henchman Oddjob, as the cruelest and most ruthless people. Bond also agrees by adding that Koreans are "lower than apes in the mammalian hierarchy."
Villains With Facial Differences
Over the decades, the franchise has been riddled with cliches. One such cliche is to often feature villains with facial differences. This can be seen in Ernst Stavro Blofeld's scars, Le Chiffre's defunct eye, Raoul Silva's misshapen jaw, and more recently, Safin's burnt face in the No Time To Die.
Now, most of these are iconic villains. Still, the trope just seems to reinforce the dated stereotypes that people with physical differences are often villainous or brutish. Even the henchmen in the older films have been played by actors whose conditions (like dwarfism and gigantism) have been used for comedic purposes.
Cringe-Inducing Pick-Up Lines
It's no surprise that Bond is a womanizer. However, his flirtatious charm with the ladies takes a similar route with his cheesy pick-up lines, most of which he would say while spotting women near a bar at some exotic foreign location.
Here are a few examples that bear testimony to this claim. In The Man With The Golden Gun, he says 'I approve your uniform. Tight in all the right places, not too many buttons.' Then, in the same film, he also says, 'Miss Anders! I didn't recognize you with your clothes on.' There are many such examples that don't sound charming enough for modern-day audiences.
Theme Songs
Considering that there are 26 James Bond films and several songs written for most of them, there are bound to be some title songs that have faded out of popular memory. While Adele's Skyfall and Sam Smith's Writing's On The Wall are acclaimed tunes from present times, Tina Turner's Goldeneye and Duran Duran's A View To A Kill, too, are beloved by fans.
However, some of the songs, being products of their time, wouldn't catch on with all current fans of the franchise. Madonna's Die Another Day goes a little overboard with its auto-tune and A-Ha's The Living Daylights is heavy on the 80s synths and doesn't necessarily gel with the franchise's brooding tone of mystery and action.
