Father Geek here, I love the BOND Series, the good, the bad, and the ugly. It's alot of fun, even the worst of them, but I wish they would leave the present and make them "period" pieces. Put Bond where he belongs, in the past with the syncibilities of the past. Quit trying to PC him and just let him be who he was... when he was. Father Geek feels that the series really started to go wrong when the decision was made to update him after Roger Moore left. Nothing since has really really worked for the hardcore Bond fans out there. Oh, they've made some money, lots of money,(lots of crap does) but James has some how slipped through our fingers, his soul sucked dry, his black tux bleached white as the fresh fallen snow of his opening scenes. Give us the old 007 fighting his old super-foes in the world and times that bred and nurtured them. Let him smoke... drink... gamble... womanize... and use that Licence to KILL. Well... that's what I'd like to see anyway. Here's some more takes on the issue...

Hi, Edgard here....

As MISSION : IMPOSSIBLE 2 is topping the charts everywhere in the States, we believe here in the Euro AICN Offices that it's the good time to think about the future of the "other spy", that guy named Bond, James Bond. Our faithful collaborator Dima wrote a little text on the subject. Remember he's not trying to get the definitive answer on Bond, it's just a way to launch debates as we are ALL Bond fans (there're "Connery/Bond" fans; they're just 007 fans; they're Pussy Galore fans... and many others...). I know many of you will scream at some of Dima's proposals for new actors or directors, but that's also why Talk Back exist : to allow us all screaming our good ideas...

My view on Bond is that : I want to believe Brosnan IS the man, that at least he COULD be the man if only he had a good script, if good directors were hired, if only MGM could take some risk with a character we know for almost 40 years now... I thought THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH was a Bond on auto-pilot : no thrills, no surprise, no plot... I don't think the Brosnan period is bad, but it certainly does not go as far as it could... Honestly I don't know if there is ONE perfect solution to make a true classic James Bond (instead of some basic action film with no "heart"), but I think a good script and a director with character would be a good start... or MGM could play it safe (after all even a "bad" Bond like TWINE makes 350 millions $ world-wide so why should they change ?), and in that's the case let's hope another spy (like this SAS guy that was announced on these same pages) will come quickly to save us all...

Here's Dima now :

BOND GOT SHOT IN THE BACK BY MGM

The James Bond franchise is not just the most valuable property of MGM but it is also a heritage of the whole human civilisation. It reached the cult status as the ultimate cinema fetish. Agent 007 is the perfect blend of all virtues Hollywood genre heroes have. He is strong and brave as any action hero, he is deductive and smart as the best private investigators, he has a charm and personality of the ultimate Hollywood lover. And he is a British aristocrat so he combines nobility with pragmatic charms of a `hard-boiled` icon.

What happened to Bond in the nineties? Late eighties brought us movies with Timothy Dalton who was a bad 007 because he had the role of the ultimate movie hero and he had the face of a villain. Yet those 007 movies were fine action packed exploitation pics that provided us with cute set pieces (`The Living Daylights`) and grit (`Licence to Kill`).

Enter Pierce Brosnan era. First Brosnan pic slowly introduced us to what we might call Jungle Jim Bond. Brosnan`s Bond was a Schwarzenegger-type of comic book character, closer to the mould of `Commando` than `True Lies`. The first two movies of the Brosnan era featured 007 in commando uniform spraying bullets from assault rifles as if the movies were made in the Reaganesque `gung-ho` mythology along with `Rambo`-franchise, `Missing in Action`-series and features like `Uncommon Valor`. The problem with these two movies is that they had dull scripts and they pulled 007 away from the urban society where he belongs.

`GoldenEye` was a slightly better entry because it was directed by Martin Campbell, the director that belongs among top twenty percent of the shooters. Campbell used some of the concepts that were developed by `Die Hard` disciples John McTiernan and Renny Harlin and that copycat work was crucial for this movie`s modern look. `Tomorrow Never Dies` was barely competent hack that wanted to capitalise on current popularity of kung fu. That`s why they brought Michelle Yeoh in to put some Hong Kong alchemy in the process. But these movies were overall so-so. They were watchable even though they were bombs for franchise fans. In 1998/1999 MGM brought Michael Apted in to direct `The World Is Not Enough`. Big mistake. Apted was the wrong man for the job and `T.W.I.N.E.' is the worst entry in the series. He was the wrong man because he has no ability to direct action scenes. His camera is static and his shots are hyper-realistic which is wrong because action genre is all about style. I mean 2nd Crew Director and stunt co-ordinator Vic Armstrong would `ve directed it better. The script is ludicrous. There were four credited writers (among them was Michael France who wrote a quite competent script for `Cliffhanger`) and we got to see a hangover not a movie. Plot is fake and terribly wrong. The climax is especially bad written and directed. Each five minutes of the climax we must hear Denise Richards` explanatory monologue to catch up with the things that are going on. Even the `bullet-in-Renard`s-head` subplot is stolen from Daniel Lee`s Jet Li starrer `Black Mask` and it has connections with John Woo`s masterpiece `Bullet in the Head`. So `T.W.I.N.E.` is bottom-of-the-barrel Bond movie.

A lot of guilt must be put on Brosnan`s soul. He has no charisma and I must say that his best role was in John Mackenzie`s vintage spy `must-see` `The Fourth Protocol `because in that movie he had a role of a spy with no identity. His best role as a good guy was in John McTiernan`s `The Thomas Crown Affair` but it took all of McTiernan`s wit to make it work. Brosnan simply doesn`t have what it takes to be Bond. Take Sean Connery for example. Why was he the best Bond? He was the best Bond because he was born with nobility and he had a killing charisma. Brosnan has to do a lot of pretending to reach both effects and this is why he is so bad. Brosnan will star in the next Bond because he signed the contract but after that I think that MGM should start looking for his replacement.

If MGM is about to go expensive I suggest George Clooney. Hey, I know that he is American and that he`ll have to do The Big Accent Thing but let me remind you he is also an actor and he is trained to do it. If MGM plans to go cheaper but cool they can get Russell Crowe and avoid The Accent Crisis `cause this guy ain`t American and he can do whatever accent you need. If Crowe is too rough than you could use his team-mate from `L.A.Confidential` Guy Pearce. Just avoid Brosnan, please.

Enter directors. If you want a butt-kicking Bond feature get an author not a shooter. I mean pay John McTiernan (Mctiernan was approached to direct a Bond movie years ago when Brosnan got first offered to star in the franchise but Brosnan opted for TV series `Remington Steele` and McTiernan appeared to be too edgy for late `Cubby` Broccoli) or Renny Harlin and they`ll provide you with a masterpiece. MGM has McTiernan and John Woo on contract so they could use their genius to revive the series. If you want to get a shooter please get someone hip and vital like Tsui Hark or Marcus Nispel or even Antoine Fuqua and here you go-at the end of the process you`ll have a cool flick no matter how bad a script you have.

Enter screenplay. I don`t want to get personal but I think that Bruce Feirstein has some dirty stuff on MGM boss and I think that he is blackmailing him. I keep asking myself how can those people at MGM green-light those scripts. His new script will be used for the 20th instalment and it is about some money forgery scam as various Internet sites report. Those sites also report that the script has been sent to John McTiernan (I pray every day this scoop is true),Danny Boyle (I pray every night this scoop is true),Stephen Herek (it better not be true) and Anthony Minghella (imagine Minghella`s 007 movie-a three hour bore in which we discover that Bond is Matt Damon`s disguise and burned Ralph Fiennes`son).There is also this practical joke that Apted could be back in the director`s chair. Edward Woodward will replace Dame Judi Dench as M which is great since M showed her maternal side in `T.W.I.N.E.` Let's hope this movie gets made by a competent crew and let`s hope that it's Pierce`s last fling as Bond and that we won't be forced to watch Brosnan again in 007`s shoes.People at MGM should realise that while they ruin 007 Paramount develops `Mission Impossible` franchise and Fox gets all set for the `True Lies` sequel. We must remember that best Bond movies were made at the time when Matt Helm series flourished. I hope that competition will motivate MGM to pay attention on who makes Bond movies even though I think that fans should be a motive for the studio to take the series on the next level.

Dima