‘Spectre’ makes glittering debut in UK – Daniel Craig: Is the blond Bond getting bored?

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LONDON, Oct 26, (AFP): James Bond returns to the silver screen on Monday in “Spectre” at a glittering premiere in London, expected to be attended by members of Britain’s royal family.

Prince William, his wife Kate and brother Prince Harry are among the guests due at the opening night for the 24th outing of the British agent.

Widely praised by critics, the film is directed by Sam Mendes and sees Daniel Craig play suave MI6 spy 007 for the fourth time.

“I love making these films and the chance to come and make a movie after ‘Skyfall’ was a huge challenge,” said Craig, referring to the last Bond film released in 2012 and the franchise’s highest-grossing ever.

“You just want to move on and make a bigger and better version of the movie.”

The film’s title is the acronym for the Special Executive for Counter-Intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion — a shadowy organisation bent on world domination which last made an appearance in 1971’s “Diamonds Are Forever”.

The organisation’s members include classic Bond villains Dr No and Ernst Stavro Blofeld, but the group disappeared from the films for decades due to a legal rights dispute that was only resolved two years ago.

“One of the most exciting parts of this movie is that we’ve got the chance to use that organisation and all that that brings with it,” Craig told film website ScreenSlam.

Britain’s Guardian and Telegraph newspapers gave Spectre a maximum five stars, the latter praising the film’s “swaggering show of confidence”.

However, the Financial Times gave it only two stars and said the film was attempting to alter the winning formula of “Skyfall” while “clearly being thrown into panic at the thought”.

Gadgets

“Spectre” was filmed in England, Italy, Austria, Mexico and Morocco and includes the usual Bond ingredients: high-speed chase scenes, a suave villain, sultry female leads, exciting gadgets and witty one-liners.

“I came here to kill you,” Bond tells new bad guy Franz Oberhauser, played by Christoph Waltz, in the trailer.

“And I thought you came here to die,” Oberhauser counters.

“Well, it’s all a matter of perspective,” Bond replies with a smirk.

The film opens with 1,500 extras dressed in carnival outfits recreating Mexico’s “Day of the Dead” festival, the biggest opening scene ever for a Bond film, long-time franchise producer Michael Wilson told Empire magazine.

British actor Ralph Fiennes plays Bond handler and MI6 chief M and fellow Briton Naomie Harris reprises her Skyfall role as M’s secretary Eve Moneypenny.

Italian actress and model Monica Bellucci plays Lucia Sciarra, “the beautiful and forbidden widow of an infamous criminal”, according to the official synopsis.

At 51, Bellucci is reportedly the oldest ever “Bond Girl” — a term used to describe the attractive women featured as love interests or sidekicks in Bond films.

France’s Lea Seydoux is the main Bond Girl, Madeleine Swann, a psychologist and daughter of a former Bond villain.

“We have the same sense of humour. There was a real complicity. Even when filming serious scenes we joked and had fun,” Seydoux told British newspaper the Mail on Sunday, referring to Craig.

“It was always that ‘wink, wink’ feeling between us. The chemistry was strong. I hope the audience can feel that.”

There has been speculation over Craig’s future as the sixth actor to play Bond, however, after he voiced unhappiness at the prospect of doing another film — despite being contracted to do so.

He hold Time Out magazine he would rather “slash my wrists” than play the famous spy again, adding: “If I did another Bond movie, it would only be for the money.”

Craig makes his fourth appearance as James Bond, but his time as 007 may be nearing an end if his recent jaded comments are anything to go by.

Slash

The 47-year-old British actor has said he would “rather slash my wrists” than play the suave spy again, telling Time Out magazine: “All I want to do is move on.”

While he has also suggested that he will continue, Craig’s comments show at least an ambivalence about the all-consuming role of Bond from an actor who guards his privacy closely and enjoys a quiet pint in the pub.

When he was first named as Bond in 2005, taking over from Pierce Brosnan, many questioned whether the blond-haired, blue-eyed, gym-sculpted Craig was the right man for the job. Even Mendes, the director of “Spectre”, was initially sceptical.

“I thought Bond had become the opposite of what Daniel is — a slightly disengaged, urbane, jokey, eyebrow-raising, you know, a pastiche in a way,” he told the BBC.

But the intensity Craig has brought to the part has allowed the multi-million dollar franchise to be rebooted with a harder, more serious edge and won round many of the sceptics.

Roger Moore, one of his predecessors, has called Craig the best Bond ever and told Time magazine that his performances had “guaranteed Bond another 50 years of life”.

Fans have also got used to seeing the star, who is contracted to do one more film, play one of the most iconic parts in cinema.

“That great big handsome-Shrek face with its sweetly bat ears has grown into the role,” the Guardian newspaper’s five-star review of “Spectre” said.

Despite being one of the most famous film stars in the world, Craig likes to keep his private life private.

He is married to actress Rachel Weisz, star of “The Constant Gardener” and “Oz The Great and Powerful,” and has a daughter from a previous marriage to another actress, Fiona Loudon.

Born in 1968 in Chester, northwest England, to a pub landlord father and art teacher mother, he started acting at an early age.

He attended drama school in London and had a string of roles in television, art house cinema and on stage before breaking through in Hollywood with films like 2001’s “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” and 2002’s “Road To Perdition”, directed by Mendes.

Craig has always insisted his own personality is a long way from the tuxedo-wearing, Bond. The actor prefers jeans, a T-shirt and a cold drink in real life.

Between Bond films, he often chooses more highbrow roles, including starring in an acclaimed 2013 Broadway production of Harold Pinter’s “Betrayal” with Weisz.

“I’m not James Bond,” Craig told Esquire magazine. “I’m not particularly brave, I’m not particularly cool-headed.”

He added: “The day I can walk into a pub and someone goes, ‘Oh, there’s Daniel Craig’ and then just leaves me alone, that’ll be great.”

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