I first became aware of James Bond in 1989, which was not, I have since learned from Bondologists, a vintage Bond era. Two film posters were ubiquitous that summer: the first was for Batman, starring Michael Keaton, and the second was for Licence to Kill, starring Timothy Dalton. In the months leading up to the release of these films, I watched their trailers seemingly hundreds of times: they were both franchises about a superhero (because, really, what else is the ageless, unkillable Bond by this point?); both featured a good guy with a gun killing a lot of bad guys with guns; both lightened the bloodshed with a sprinkling of winking jokes. Yet while I queued up to see Batman the day it was released and have watched it about 3,000 times since, I not only never saw Licence to Kill but I have never watched a single Bond movie, ever. Honestly, the whole Bond thing repelled me then and repels me now.
Let’s get this out of the way: it’s not the sexism. I don’t care that the character is a tedious sexist anachronism who shags everything, especially, if he’s played by Roger Moore and said thing is 30 years younger than him. He’s from a different era – I get it. But he’s such a little boy’s idea of sexy machismo, with those absurd dinner jackets and perfect hair and all that wankiness about martinis. He’s an issue of GQ come to life, and you know he smells of terrible Armani colognes, just like GQ does. The comedy in Batman was genuinely funny and self-satirical: “Can somebody tell me what kind of world we live in where a man dressed up as a bat gets all of my press?”. But Bond’s humour is self-serving and self-satisfied, the kind beloved by people who belong to private members’ clubs. In short: “Let me tell you a joke that will make me look marvellous and all the rest of you stupid and little.” In his 2006 book on Bond, The Man Who Saved Britain, Simon Winder claims this is a reflection of Britain’s psyche after the loss of empire: a desire to believe that Britain – in this case, represented by Bond – was still the coolest cat in the room. I’m sure Winder is right, that Bond is basically Britain in breakdown mode. But like all breakdowns, it’s painful to watch.
How do you know when you’ve never actually watched a Bond, I hear you ask? First, if you live in Britain, Bond is as unavoidable as the Premier League, or Carol Vorderman. Second, because irony of ironies, I ended up living with a strong Bond enthusiast, so at least twice a week I wander into the sitting room and he will be there watching a Bond movie. But it turns out one doesn’t develop an appreciation for something by osmosis. After all, Test Match Special is on in pretty much every other room of our house and I still think cricket is an elaborate practical joke the world is playing on Americans.
So fine, I said to the Guardian film desk, I’ll watch a bloody Bond film, from opening shooting sequence to the end credits rolling while Bond shags another babe. The film desk decreed The Spy Who Loved Me is “the Bondiest Bond”, and so on a self-isolating night, with nothing else to do in the whole world, I finally watched my first Bond movie.
Did it change my mind? Reader, it did not. I enjoyed the Carly Simon song, obviously. In fact, the opening was rather promising, especially Roger Moore’s all-in-one yellow ski suit and that entire incredibly enjoyable sequence – even if Moore’s stunt double looks endearingly nothing like him. But I spent the rest of the movie feeling confused. Why does Jaws kill people by biting their necks, instead of strangling them with his giant hands? And why is there no blood when he bites them? Why are people watching a light show at the pyramids? Do the pyramids need jazzing up? How good a kisser is Bond that, in 17 seconds, he can turn a woman from trying to kill him to trying to seduce him to sacrificing herself for him? And how does Moore keep his linen suits so clean? Oh yes, and there was some plot about a submarine tracking system or something that was so boring I fell asleep towards the end when I realised the movie was now entirely submarine-focused (as opposed to its superior ski-focused beginning).
Then there’s Bond himself. Men of Britain, is this what you aspire to? And Moore is supposed to be the amusing smoothie of the Bond stable, right? “Try reverse – that’s backwards,” he smirks to Barbara Bach, as she tries to drive them away from Jaws. “Must go, something’s come up,” he smirks to another woman. He’s a combination of Alan Partridge and the guy in the Far Side cartoon, Nerds in Hell, who asks the people around him: “Hot enough for ya?” as they enter Satan’s lair. He’s not cool; he’s the king of the dad joke, trapped in the most formulaic franchise ever. I went to see Batman because, thanks to director Tim Burton, it looked like nothing I’d ever seen before. With Bond, originality is death, as over the years various directors have discovered to their misfortune. The best Bond, according to the fans, is one that looks like you might have watched it on ITV on a Sunday afternoon in 1985.
I’m sorry, Bond fans. Maybe you have to grow up with Bond to get Bond, because I cannot see the appeal beyond nostalgia. But I’m equally willing to accept the fault lies with me. After all, I love plenty of stupid movies, and yet I could not have cared less about that stupid submarine plot, even though every single character tried to explain its importance to me in detail in every scene, in classic Basil Exposition style. So maybe Bond and I are both stupid. Just stupid in different ways.
