After the titles we find our intrepid hero seated in M’s office getting a real blowing up. M takes 30 seconds to lay out the plot line involving the merger of MI5 and 6 including the fact the 00 section is on the chopping block (AGAIN!!!), as well as inform us the new head of this joint venture will be arriving shortly. Craig’s smarmy response is “You’re right sir; you do have a tricky day ahead.” As if what M does is unimportant, you know running Her Majesty’s Intelligence Service is somehow akin to a barista at Starbucks. None of the previous Bonds showed such disdain and disrespect to their supervisor, they all displayed respect and reverence even when in disagreement, but it’s the 21st century, so in your face old man!
M asks once again what Craig was doing in Mexico, to which he replies “I was on a much overdue holiday.” M rightfully grows tired of this insolence and tells Craig he’s being suspended indefinitely and must report to Q branch in the morning. My question is why? We’ll find out next rant it’s to get his “smart blood”. But my question still stands, why? He’s been taken out of service. He’s “on the beach” as they say, why is he getting shot up with Nano Bots and issued new equipment? He should be turning in what he has already, right then and there, placing it on M’s desk and slowly backing away, not loading up on more of Her Majesty’s best and most expensive gear!
Craig stands up and clumsily buttons his suit jacket and over coat, why is he wearing an overcoat in the office? Maybe MI6 needed to cut its heating bill to cover the costs of Craig’s cock ups. Funny thing about Craig’s overcoat, it fits like a suit jacket should, that illustrates just how tight his suits are, he’s wearing several layers of skin tight apparel and it looks like just one layer of properly tailored clothing.
Just then Andrew Scott as Max Denbigh walks in through a cloud of sulfuric smoke, wearing a “kick me I’m evil” sign, at least he might as well be, as he’s so obviously on the wrong side. Not to mention Scott’s career has been so pigeon holed as the baddie he’s begun growing feathers, by that I’m referring to the Don Johnsonesq 5-o’clock shadow he’s sporting. I guess the head of the joint surveillance services doesn’t have time to shave, or perhaps he’s just a huge Miami Vice fan. Craig and he exchange pleasantries about Max’s promotion and Craig says “I suppose I should call you C now”. Why is that? As we’ve established in earlier films, including the one just previous, the letter moniker of the service head is their initial. This guy’s name is Max Denbigh, unless I’m horribly mistaken, neither one of those names begin with a C.
“C”s role in this film, when he’s not foaming at the mouth with villainy, is to play the parts of the Intelligence Committee, Gareth Mallory, and smarmy Q from Skyfall, that is to say those who feel MI6 and more specifically the 00 section are antiquated and useless, and that cameras and drones are the future. (More on this in future rants.)
Craig exits and runs in to Moneypenny in the courtyard. She’s holding a box that contains all that remained from Skyfall. Which is impossible as the box is far too small to hold Sam Mendes’ ego. Craig tells her to bring it to him later at his apartment. To which she makes a puzzled face. LOL, get it, it’s funny because he could have taken it from her right there!
Later we find Craig forlornly staring out his curtainless, floor to ceiling windows, whiskey in hand and in full view of all who pass by, with suit jacket off but shoulder holster still on. I guess all of his neighbors already know he carries a gun… In London… Where it’s illegal to do so… Moneypenny comes in, notices the sparse untidy conditions and asks “Have you just moved in?” Craig replies “No.” LOL, get it, cause it’s so shabby! James Bond is the quintessential gentleman, we first see Bond’s flat in Dr. No, and it’s tastefully decorated with green walls and pictures of turn of the century era antique cars on the walls. In Live and Let Die, Bond’s flat is well appointed, complete with a fancy coffee making machine; he is not an 80’s movie cop like Dirty Harry, John McClain, and Axle Foley living in squalor, with bare walls of cracked plaster and old take out packages littered about.
She asks him what was going on in Mexico, he plays coy, and she remarks “They say you’re finished” he asks “What do you think?” She says “I think you’re just getting started” What banter! Craig finally reveals the video from Mamma M after Moneypenny claims he doesn’t trust anyone, how expositional!
M’s exact words are in their entirety; “If anything happens to me, I need you to find a man called Marco Sciarra, kill him and don’t miss the funeral.” I write that verbatim because it begs a question in the funeral rant.
After Moneypenny leaves, Craig opens the box she delivered. Inside he finds a badly C.G.I.ed sepia tone photo that looks to have been taken in 1926 despite the inclusion of a familiar craggy faced youngster produced by said C.G.I. Also another man who based on the cartoonish quality of the effects, looks to have never existed in the real world and a third figure whose face has been removed by a strategically placed perfectly round hole. This photo makes me wonder if maybe it was created on take your child to work day at the special effects department and the artist let his seven year old have a go at it. The box also contains the temporary guardianship letter giving young Master James Bond to Hans Oberhauser. Now correct me if I’m wrong but hadn’t Skyfall manor been sold when the intrepid trio destroyed it last film? So why were Craig’s personal papers and childhood photos lying about? I would have loved to have read the real estate listing on that!
For sale: Medieval Scottish castle set upon a brown dreary moor with a well-lit secret tunnel. Listing includes all furnishings, rugs, tapestries and adoption papers. Inquire with Kinkaid the crusty old game keeper. (Who I thought was the one who supposedly raised him as alluded to in SkyFall. Oh well why let all that get in the way of another forced, contrived, personal anguish, origin story line.)
Yes, it’s difficult to understand what Mendes (and/or Craig) were thinking of when we see the condition of Bond’s home. Bond apparently can’t be bothered to put up paintings or take things out of boxes. You expect to see some old pizza crusts lying around somewhere. It sort of reveals, dare I say, a lack of class. And this is supposedly James Bond. I can’t imagine any of the previous incarnations of Bond, from Connery to Brosnan, living like that.