James Bond

Will the new Bond movie Casino Royale be even half as entertaining as the advance news? Hot on the heels of Daniel Craig losing his front teeth in a fight (apparently they were part of his plate, not actual teeth. Ugh.) and the discovery that he can’t drive a manual transmission car come a couple of new gem-ettes.

First up, Ford are paying the producers £14 million to get Craig to drive a Mondeo. Pretty much as suave as Texas Hold ‘Em, that.

Second, in a desperate attempt to garner some positive publicity, Craig’s volunteering to go full frontal nude. Of course, the producers haven’t agreed. What a surprise. Nothing quite like an empty gesture, is there?

I had no intention of turning this into a James Bond blog this week, but there’s just been so much entertaining news I’ve had no choice. Now the latest news: Daniel Craig can’t drive a stick-shift car. Apparently, he was only qualified to drive automatic transmission cars and they’ve had to stop filming while he learns to drive an Aston Martin.

How many bad vibes does one film need?

Where’s Osama Bin Laden going wrong? Isn’t it obvious? He clearly he doesn’t realise that the best way to effect change in the world is through an online petition. They always work, don’t they?

These Bond fans know the truth though: they’ve created a badly designed online petition, protesting the casting of Daniel Craig as Bond. I can see an emergency meeting of the heads of EON productions in the offing right now, as they gather to work out how to react to this terrible blow.

Now, far be it from me to mock, but a few thoughts occur to me:

1. Why protest now, when the producers have already started filming Casino Royale? Wouldn’t a few months ago, when they were still looking to recast Pierce Brosnan have been better timing?
2. They protest that Craig is too thuggish-looking to be Bond. Hmm. So clearly they’re only fans of the movies, not the books then. And didn’t Ian Fleming object to Sean Connery’s casting because he wasn’t suave enough, too?
3. They proclaim that there have been five great Bonds so far. Timothy Dalton didn’t exactly wow the crowds. But more importantly, can we respect the opinions of Roger Moore and George Lazenby fans?

Still, why am I raising these problems, when filming is about to stop and Daniel Craig fired, thanks to the mighty power of this online petition? It’s just a matter of time now.

Going to break my weekend silence for this one, since it tickled me so much. They’ve just started filming Casino Royale and besides all their existing problems, they’re off to a pretty inauspicious start with the actions scenes. Daniel Craig, in his first fight scene, has had two teeth knocked out. Tee hee. He’s James Bond.

If you thought Licence to Kill and Living Daylights were low key, wait till you see the next Bond film Casino Royale. As well as Daniel Craig, we now have Jeffrey Wright as Felix Leiter, Mads Mikkelsen as the Bond villain, and Eva Green as the Bond girl. For most people, that will be a straight “who?”, “who?”, “who?” and “who?” with only Dame Judy as M to ring a bell on the name checks.

As Bond books go, Casino Royale is quite subdued anyway and this is supposed to be something of a re-boot movie, showing Bond’s first outing as an agent. But it’s starting to sound a little dull, particularly if you’ve seen some of the script reviews doing the rounds. Plus Bond playing Texas Hold’em instead of Baccarat and being ex-SAS, not Navy? That’s all wrong. Is Daniel Craig destined to be the next George Lazenby?