I’m the kind of contrarian who, on a blazing hot summer’s day, would squirrel myself away in a cool, dark cinema (and will again once its safe to do so) so perhaps its no great surprise that during a pandemic I would find comfort in an anthology of post-apocalyptic stories.
Some may find this curious but to me it makes perfect sense. Much as fictional horror helps us process the real horrors of the world, what better way to deal with a pandemic that, terrible as it is isn’t going to destroy humanity, than by getting lost in stories where characters really are facing the end of it all.
This is far more than a collection of mere Mad Max clones, and Adams has pulled together an interesting, and eclectic collection of stories. For starters there’s dizzying array of apocalypses on offer, from your run of the mill nuclear Armageddon to your biological weapon running amok. There’s climate change and alien invasion and simple even ennui as deep time ensures that humanity is simply too bored to go on.
And the characters are as varied as the settings. Adams has drawn writers from a diverse background, which means we get to see as many women as men facing the end of the world, with people of different ethnicities and sexualities struggling with Armageddon. There’s even disabled and trans characters. On both counts this helps keep the collection fresh though there’s still action aplenty.
There’s over 30 stories on offer, so I’m not going to go through them all, but here’s a selection of ones I particularly enjoyed.
The Last to Matter by Adam-Troy Castro is a surreal jaunt to the far future. It’s completely bizarre and could have been annoying as hell but somehow Castro keeps the right side of weird.
Where Would You Be Now by Carrie Vaughn shines a positive light on the post-apocalyptic environment, taking unexpected turns and flipping the usual evil brigands’ trope.
The Elephants Crematorium by Timothy Mudie depicts a world where no more babies are born but rather than focus on how humans react to this the story instead relates to elephants, and it’s genuinely moving.
As Good as New by Charlie Jane Anders takes the monkey’s paw/genie of the lamp tale and gives it a fresh end of the world spin. Original and amusing.
Cannibal Acts by Maureen F. McHugh takes grim subject matter but layers it with emotion. Nowhere near as lurid as the titles suggests.
Shooting the Apocalypse by Paolo Bacigalupi feels very prescient, featuring a photographer and a journalist looking for a story in a near future world where climate change has caused drought to blight various southern American states. It’s tale of desperate people risking everything to cross borders feels scarily like it’s only a few years away from being reality.
Come on Down by Meg Ellison shows how even the most curious of things, a game show, can provide hope in the most trying of times.
Polly Wanna Cracker? by Greg Van Eekhout is another quite surreal, far future entry, but it’s amusing and features a great last line.
I really enjoyed And the Rest Of Us Wait by Corrine Duyvis, set in an underground shelter it follows a young Latvian pop star who also happens to be disabled. Another story that essays the curious things people might take hope in, while also detailing the difficulties the differently abled might face in the event of the apocalypse. A story I desperately wanted to continue.
So Sharp, So Bright, So Final by Seanan McGuire is, on the face of it a zombie tale, but Seanan gives it an inventive, grounded twist, and it’s very well written.
Snow by Dale Bailey starts out as a tale of disease sweeping the world, but morphs into something else entirely, and takes a heart-breaking journey into the dividing line between love and survival.
The Air Is Chalk by Richard Kadrey has echoes of The Omega Man, the central character a celebrity bodyguard trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles menaced by…well some very strange monsters!
Finally Francisca Montoya’s Almanac Of Things That Can Kill You by Shaenon K. Garrity rounds off the collection. An inventive entry that on the face of it is merely a list of the various deaths available at the end of the world, yet still manages to tell a story.
As with any anthology there’s good and bad, but there were very few tales I didn’t enjoy on some level. The only flaw is that it’s quite a weighty tome, which meant that, by around three quarters of the way in, even I was starting to tire of the end of the world, but that’s a minor foible. A very good anthology.
And so, we go from what’s widely perceived to be one of the worst Bond films, to what’s widely perceived to be one of the best. Whatever your view of Die Another Day and Casino Royale, you can’t deny that they feel like two wholly different kinds of films. One utterly ridiculous, the other utterly grounded. Of course, this isn’t new for the franchise. Look at OHMSS sandwiched between YOLT and DAF, or more relevant the gritty For Your Eyes Only following Moonraker. Only Roger Moore could go into space, but even he couldn’t stay there.
Time for the usual full disclosure. Whilst I wasn’t one of the “Bond can’t be blonde” muppets (Rog isn’t exactly dark haired, is he?) I was disappointed in the casting of Daniel Craig, and should I ever meet the fellow I plan to sincerely apologise, because, whilst the quality of his films has been variable, he’s been a superb Bond all the way.
Returning to On Her Majesty’s Secret Service for a moment, it’s interesting to note what else Casino Royale shares with that film. Not only do both feature genuine romance for Bond, they’re both also incredibly faithful (to a point) adaptations, and both feature a tragic death. Beyond this both are not only great Bond films, but they’re also great films full stop. For Craig this has on occasion somewhat hamstrung him, because after such an assured debut the only way was down—George at least began and left on a high.
We can always hope that No Time to Die will, eventually, provide a suitably great swansong for Craig, but only time will tell.
Back to Casino Royale. Things are different from the off, with no gun barrel intro and a black and white pre-title sequence set in chilly Prague and not so chilly, well it’s Pakistan but we never really find that out as all the cricketing preamble is wisely excised. All that remains is a framed cricketing print that gets knocked off the wall during the fight. Bond’s conversation with Dryden is succinct but loaded with information, yet never feels expository. Bond isn’t a 00 agent yet, and to become a 00 requires two kills. Though it quickly becomes apparent to Dryden that Bond already has one, and he’s to be the second.
There’s an interesting contrast between the two kills. The fight in the rest room is brutal and hot blooded, the discussion between Bond and Dryden cold blooded and polite, and Bond’s reaction to each death is very different. When he thinks he’s killed Dryden’s contact, Bond is in shock, and Craig does a wonderful job of portraying a whole host of conflicting emotions here. Bond is almost proud, yet horrified. You can’t quite decide if he’s about to punch the air or throw up, perhaps the perfect response to a first kill.
His execution of Dryden, and it is an execution, is calm by comparison, almost blasé, with Dryden not even getting to finish his homily that a second kill is always…
“Yes. Considerably.”. Interesting to note the flash of a family photo as Dryden topples back. A wife and child perhaps. Nice touch.
We flash back to Pakistan where it seems Bond’s first kill wasn’t quite dead. James quickly resolves this and we get the most imaginative gun barrel in the franchise, followed by titles that, for my money are the best in the series. Exceptionally cool, especially the bullet holes in the 7 of Hearts that morphs into 007 Status Confirmed. Chris Cornell and David Arnold’s fantastic ‘You Know My Name’ playing over the top is just the icing on the cake.
Casino Royale is a long film and, in many respects, an oddly paced one. Two of the big action sequences, after all, arrive early on. Bond’s pursuit of the bomber in Madagascar and his interception of the second bomber at Mimi Airport. Both are excellent, although the free running segment does go on a bit (and is it just me, but does the embassy guard already seem to be examining the bomber’s passport and radioing his superior before the bomber runs up to him?). Both showcase Craig’s physicality, and when he runs through a wall you genuinely believe he can do that. If I had a preference it’s for the Miami section, if only because Bond uses his wits a bit more here. That the film still works despite front loading much of the action is testament to how well the casino scenes are done. Here it’s helped by the source material, even if much of Fleming’s plot is jettisoned (no Bulgarians blowing themselves up) it’s also helped by the arrival of Vesper, and by having Bond and Le Chiffre finally face off.
Now at times I’ve been a little sniffy about the characters. Not the actors. Green and Mikkelsen are superb, but as villains go Le Chiffre always seemed to lack agency. Having him use his inhaler the first time we see him isn’t a great start, and he seems at the mercy of events rather than driving them forwards. He’s very nearly murdered by his own associates before Bond can get close enough to win the game after all. Similarly, Vesper suffers the same issues she does in the book, she’s a little insipid, at times you wonder what it is about her that Bond loves so much, and like the book she seems to go from hating Bond to falling in love in the time it takes to turn over a card.
But actually both of them fared much better in my eyes this time. Green’s chemistry with Craig is off the charts. Their first meeting on the train is wonderful—so good Eon will try to replicate it a few years later, with nought but a pale imitation—as are most of their interactions, the dress/dinner jacket scenes add very little to the story, but I love them. And her acting is spot on. I never noticed before how there’s a fantastic moment when she says goodbye in Venice, just a flicker, subtle as hell but wonderful. She really is saying goodbye for keeps.
It’s debatable how much agency she has, in part because we never quite know when she’s acting against Bond and when she’s not, but if nothing else she feels like she has agency, and she’s certainly a more rounded character than most Bond girls.
At times the poker stuff goes on a bit, and having Mathis mansplain poker to Vesper (and the audience) multiple times is wince inducing, but when the poker scenes work they do so superbly, even if the final denouncement is a trifle contrived (seriously every player gets one-upped by the next in line?).
But this is a film of contrivances, most Bond films are, but they do irk me slightly here. Look at Bond’s detective work in the Bahamas. It’s fortunate that Dimitrios sent that text just as he arrived and was caught on camera, and it’s the first tape 007 looks at. On the plus side I still have a lot of goodwill after Bond smashes the very obvious Goldfinger homage’s Range Rover.
Similarly, handy Bond had a defibrillator in his car.
These are minor annoyances though, and frankly the film is long enough without seeing Bond trek through dozens of tapes.
The car chase that isn’t really a car chase is excellently done, and for those unfamiliar with the novel it must have been one hell of a shock to see Vesper in the middle of the road.
Then there’s the torture scene, where Mikkelsen really comes alive. A slight change from the book but the mechanics are the same.
Mads Mikkelsen is wonderful, but…forgive the indulgence, but I like to think there’s an alternate universe where the weasely Le Chiffre is played by Christoph Waltz, and Ernst Stavro Blofeld is played by Mikkelsen—though could even arguably the best Hannibal Lector we ever had have salvaged Spectre (getting ahead of myself!).
Then we get poor old Mathis’ shabby treatment (I’m sure this will be made up for in the next film) and finally James and Vesper fall in love. Cue montage! Again, the pacing is a little off, because this comes so late in the film, by contrast Bond and Tracy’s courtship happened much earlier in OHMSS, giving their love a little more time to breathe. Still, it’s hard not to swoon over some of the dialogue. “You’ve got your armour back up again.” “I have no armour left, you’ve stripped it from me.” Just divine.
And then, finally, the Venice set piece in a collapsing building. Which is great. Really it is.
You know there’s a but coming, right?
The trouble is, not only does it elongate the film yet further, but it goes against the theme running through the film. Mano a mano. Practically every confrontation Bond has is him vs a single opponent.
Bond vs Dryden, Bond vs the guy in the bathroom, Bond vs Mollaka the free runner, Bond vs Dimitrios, Bond vs Carlos (seriously I never knew his name before today!) in Miami. Bond vs the warlord Obanno (technically there’s his right-hand man but Bond despatches him so quickly he might as well not be there). Then Bond vs Le Chiffre (poker) and Bond vs Le Chiffre (torture). Hell if you take Bond and Vesper’s verbal sparring into account you can even include them.
I mean, for goodness sake the theme hits you over the head right from the start of the Madagascar sequence. Cobra vs Mongoose!
So having Bond kill a bunch of anonymous guys at the end, seems a little lame. I guess they felt the film had to have a final set piece.
Vesper’s death isn’t quite an OHMSS gut punch, but it is still very moving, and Green gets a beautiful death. Glad they included the last line from the novel, shame they had to dilute it somewhat, but I can see why.
And finally we get the line, you know the one I mean, after James has thanked Mr White for saving his life by shooting him in the leg. (Sheesh why don’t you just shag his daughter).
So there you have it. An exceptional film, and one that I feel slightly embarrassed doesn’t sit in my top five (I mean it’s literally number 6 ok!) and I wonder if I shouldn’t move it up a notch or two because damn if it isn’t fantastic. Kudos to Martin Campbell, who also directed Brosnan’s debut Goldeneye.
It isn’t perfect, it’s too long (though god knows what I’d cut) slightly contrived in places, and though my view has changed quite a lot, it still feels a trifle embarrassed to be a Bond film at times. Then again Spectre isn’t embarrassed at all and it really should be (getting ahead of myself again!)
Great set pieces, great acting, a script so polished in places you can see your face in it, a wonderful soundtrack and a truly fantastic Bond. As I said, its main failing is that it’s almost too good, when you set the bar that high following it up can be tricky.
werewolves on the moon 