Battle of the Bonds

Ever since I went and saw “Quantum of Solace” with my friend, The Mild-Mannered Lawyer, any time I’ve heard mention or thought of Daniel Craig I’ve come over all giddy, much like a post-School Carnival Mr Justice but without the projectile vomiting. 

Listen, I’m not a Bond fan – not by any stretch of the imagination. I think “Q of S” was the third Bond film I’d managed to see in its entirety. And I wasn’t even particularly interested in seeing it, except the Mild-Mannered Lawyer sold it to me as being “Bourne-esque” and we all know the thing I have for Matt-Damon-as-Jason-Bourne (which is distinctly different from plain old Matt Damon, independent of the Bourne franchise). And by god, she was right to make me see it. I’m thinking ol’ Danny Boy might be about to push Matt-Damon-as-Jason-Bourne off his throne entirely, except I’ve promised my husband I’ll one day write a blog post entitled “The Porn Ultimatum” or “Soft Bourne” based on my M-D-a-J-B fetish. Perhaps he’s hoping I’ll get it all entirely out of my system and Move On. Yuh, right. 

So after all the poo-pooing that went on when Daniel Craig was cast as Bond, I can say with confidence that he puts the double “Oh!” in 007. But whenever I start raving about his Bondness, the Bond Old Guard get all defensive and say that Sean Connery is the Best Bond Ever and it would take more than Daniel Craig driving around in an Aston Martin with this look on his face that resembles Tiddles McGee’s when he’s eaten something not entirely to his taste to beat Connery. I was willing to take their word for it but then my husband showed me the trailer for a 1974 film Connery made called “Zardoz” (Click here to see it), which had been sent to him in an email with the subject title “Not every film he did was good”. Which was putting things mildly. 

From what I glean from this gloriously trashy trailer, the art department loved their paper-mâché and went crazier with their flour glue and newspaper strips than an DIY Mum during Birthday Party season (see “The NDM Guide to Making Piñatas“). Call me a crazy DIY Mum, but the gigantic “Floating Head of Death” that features in this film looks like one Mo Fo of a piñata, except that, instead of sweets, it appears to be full of human skulls and guns. Which could prove to inflict quite the Psychological Scar upon a six year old birthday boy. Especially since the Floating Head comes with its own voice over that spouts stuff like “The penis is evil… The penis shoots seeds, and makes new life, and poisons the earth with a plague of men, as once it was… But the gun shoots death, and purifies the earth of the filth of brutals… Go forth and kill!” 

Which, granted, are not lines spoken by Sean Connery in the film. Thanks to a quick imdb.com search, I can see that his character (Zed) says less controversial but equally baffling things like “Can you unknow what you know of me?” and “Stay behind my aura!”.  And when you combine these lines with him rolling down hills in his Burt Lancaster moustache and Nearly-Nude costume, you wonder how ever he managed to get a knighthood let alone go on to make another Bond film. 

You see, “Zardoz” was made between Connery’s final two Bond films, while he was still officially carrying the mantle of James Bond. So while it’s not strictly fair to compare “Zardoz” to “Casino Royale”, I’d like to submit the following photos as evidence in the Battle for the title of “Ultimate Bond”:

Of course, to its (dis)credit, “Quantum of Solace” has its fair share of baffling lines and complete-suspension-of-reality plot points. Hell, I don’t even know what “Quantum of Solace” even means but I Just. Don’t. Care. Daniel Craig can jump on my car bonnet from a great height while still managing to say the line “I believe we have a mutual acquaintance” any time he wants. As long he doesn’t then go on to shoot me. (Having said that, I might have then gone on to slip in some sordid Zardozian reference, say, something along the lines of “unless he was shooting seeds”, but I’m clearly Better Than That. Unlike that Sir Sean Connery.)