Every generation of twenty or so years, it happens; the end of a Bond Era. Ever since Ian Fleming’s novels were first adapted to film in 1962 with Dr. No, the James Bond franchise has become synonymous with movies, coolness, and the spy genre. With the release of No Time to Die internationally this weekend and in North America two weeks from now, it’s worth it to take time to reminisce on the end of Daniel Craig’s tenure as James Bond.

I myself occupy a strange place to be writing this, as I am not a lifetime Bond fan. I had naturally seen bits and pieces of some films, but up until quarantine I hadn’t really engaged with the franchise. Even during that time, I have only dug into the Brosnan and Craig Bonds, but I will say I’ve thoroughly enjoyed them and am eager to dive into the rest. However, by the time I was able to appreciate the franchise at roughly 12 years old, Skyfall had released a year prior and we were in the final stretch of Craig’s time as Bond. It gives me some distance from the franchise, which hopefully results in a more objective discussion of my personal favorite Bond.

It’s worth discussing first where the franchise was when Daniel Craig took over. The Bond franchise tends to swing between serious and silly depending on the era, and Brosnan happened to be in the silly area. In many ways, Brosnan was more quintessentially Bond than Craig is. He was confident, had jokes, and he was unflappably cool. Brosnan never faltered as his Bond, even if the films did.

The film before Daniel Craig took over was Die Another Day, one of the most reviled and disliked films of the whole franchise. Its over-the-top humor mixed with a bland story and immediately dated special effects resulted in the franchise turning too far into the silly, going from amusing to eye-rolling. It doesn’t help that in the era when The Matrix and Unbreakable were providing a new template for genre blockbusters, Die Another Day was very much the final breath of Brosnan’s Bond.

With that in mind, Eon Productions and the James Bond franchise needed to go in a different direction. As previously mentioned, the Bond franchise tends to swing like a pendulum, with the new approach being to take a more serious turn. To do this, Eon brought aboard screenwriter Paul Haggis, then known for penning Best Picture winners Million Dollar Baby and Crash. In addition to this new screenwriter, Eon decided to return to the Bond roots. This time, he took on a more traditional adaptation of Bond’s origin story in Fleming’s novel Casino Royale.

To play James Bond, Eon cast Daniel Craig. A relative unknown whose biggest role at that point had been in Matthew Vaughn’s Layer Cake. In Layer Cake, Craig played a highly intelligent and competent drug dealer in London, with precision and a level of stern confidence that looks eerily like a secret agent. In hindsight, Layer Cake would prove the obvious and most effective audition for James Bond that there could ever be. He was officially announced to play Bond in 2005.

While Casino Royale isn’t my favorite Bond movie (Tomorrow Never Dies holds that title), it is what I would call the closest to the best Bond movie. Craig’s Bond is a nuanced, complicated character, who possesses an actual character arc that most Bond films at that point tended to avoid. Watching this agent 007 become the James Bond that everyone knows and loves is a thrilling experience, in no small part due to Craig’s performance. Bonuses should also be given for the usage of two all-time best supporting Bond characters. Specifically, Eva Green’s presence as definitive Bond girl and first love Vesper Lynd, and Mads Mikkelsen as Le Chiffre, a remarkable Bond villain in how unremarkable he is in the grand scope of the world.

In many ways, Casino Royale proved itself an influential blockbuster for the next five years. Competing with the Bourne and Mission Impossible franchises put a target on its back, but the slick and smart filmmaking of Martin Campbell proves why this franchise has lasted as long as it has. The action is visceral, with Craig’s Bond taking hit after hit and slugging through with a human stubbornness that other Bonds lacked. While he let out the occasional snark, Casino Royale introduced the world to a much colder, more ruthless Bond.

With such massive expectations, it’s unsurprising that Quantum of Solace failed to meet certain expectations. Of the Daniel Craig Bond films, it’s the most forgettable. An unfortunate aspect of this is the heightened world scale without the requisite elevated personal stakes. This results in a lack of investment in Bond’s story, making the film’s events almost chug along as more of an epilogue than a complete film.

That being said, there are aspects of Quantum of Solace that I enjoy. It has one of my favorite shots of the franchise (pictured above) which perfectly encapsulates Craig’s Bond as the broken but effective and violent person that he is. Additionally, it does another thing that rarely happens in Bond films, continuing the story. Even if the end result is disappointingly over-inflated in drama, it signifies Craig’s Bond as a complete character that an audience can invest in, rather than the blank-slate-protagonist that previous Bonds had been.

Skyfall, released in 2012, is another film that is considered among the best in the franchise. While I personally find it a bit overrated, it is hard to deny the impact that it had. It was the 7th highest-grossing film of all time at its release, earned two Academy Awards from a franchise-best of five nominations, and was the highest-grossing film of the entire franchise. Skyfall has many positive attributes including Javier Bardem’s sadistic and empathetic Raoul Silva, and amazing cinematography from industry veteran Roger Deakins.

One of my personal flaws with Skyfall is that it also feels the least like a Bond film. It lacks much of the dry humor of Casino Royale or the suave moments of charm that are present in Quantum of Solace. Its story feels a bit too ambitious in its scope. It is also the most detached from the previous two entries, which hurts given how invested audiences became in Craig’s personal journey.

Despite my disappointment with Skyfall, it would be followed by Spectre, the worst of the Craig films. While I could talk about its lackluster interpretation of famous Bond villain Ernest Blofeld or its unengaging plot, I’d prefer to talk about it as the signifier of where the franchise was spiritually. It feels like the forced end of the Craig-era, thanks in no small part to Craig’s own growing dissatisfaction with the role.

By 2015, the blockbuster landscape was vastly different from where the Daniel Craig Bond films began. The Marvel Cinematic Universe had begun, with mega-blockbuster The Avengers outdoing Skyfall in 2012 and Spectre staring down the barrel of the sequel. It’s unsurprising that Spectre then results in a weird attempt to copy the MCU’s formula, complete with ties into a larger Bond universe rather than a personal story, and forced one-liner style humor to replace the dry, snarky style of Craig’s Bond. It is the worst because it feels the least honest about what the Craig Bond era was.

So with our franchise history lesson complete, where does that leave us with Daniel Craig’s version of James Bond? The upcoming No Time to Die begins with a retired James Bond and a new agent with the 007 moniker. It will be doing what has been a consistent trait of Daniel Craig’s Bond by bringing something new to the franchise in the form of a formal end to this character. All things considered, I’m sad to see the era go.

I very much enjoy Daniel Craig’s performance as James Bond. Throughout the era, he has been a ruthless, sarcastically witty, and sternly cool individual. He brings a realness to the character and the franchise that hasn’t existed. That is my preference for what makes a good film. His films are the most interesting because they have an actual story to tell, with the character growing.

Another disappointing result of the end of the Daniel Craig Bond era is that I believe this is the end of “serious” action movies. If Spectre‘s quality is any indication, the MCU has won the war of the IPs. Every franchise is either trying to compete in the superhero genre or offering more adult-oriented action but with a similar tone.

Even Bond’s former rival Mission Impossible has followed suit with outlandish setpieces and quippier dialogue, while new franchises like John Wick lean into being so serious it’s silly with its action. If the next Bond era swings into the sillier side as the franchise has done, I lament that the next Bond will be joining that fold.

In conclusion, I’m going to miss Daniel Craig’s James Bond. Despite being a franchise that was over 40 years old when Casino Royale premiered, each entry felt like an ambitious attempt to tell a character-driven spy action movie. I look forward to seeing its conclusion in No Time to Die, in no small part to the involvement of director Cary Fukanaga and screenwriter Phoebe Waller-Bridges plus a seemingly reinvigorated Daniel Craig. I also bemoan what the end of the Craig era means, both in the story and as the symbolic end of its genre. Here’s to you, 007.

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_gD9-Oa0fg

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