Why James Bond Movies Are Not Action Movies
For over 60 years, 007 has been secretly starring in a very specific genre of movie
Last year, Tom Cruise made headlines by motorcycling off a cliff in Norway and BASE jumping to safety. The set piece will appear in this summer’s “Mission Impossible — Dead Reckoning.” I can already picture the headlines: “A stunt never before seen in cinema!”
Such accolades, however, will be wrong. James Bond pulled off a similar stunt nearly 30 years ago in “Goldeneye.” This is not the first time the Bond franchise has been plagiarized. The midair plane fishing scene that opens “The Dark Knight Rises?” We first saw it in 1989’s “License to Kill.” The iconic skydiving scene sans parachute in “Point Break?” Bond did it in 1979’s “Moonraker.” The list goes on. So why do these copycats get the credit instead of 007? Simple: because James Bond movies are not action movies.
“But, I streamed one the other night on HBO Max,” you say. “I found it under ACTION.” In the inimitable, condescending purr of Sean Connery, but of course you did. Why, then, was said film incorrectly categorized as an action film? Because the genre in which Bond films exist, the genre the 25-film series created, isn’t an official genre by Hollywood standards.
In other words (cue Monty Norman’s swelling strings and twanging guitar) BOND FILMS ARE HOSPITALITY FILMS.
Sure, there are other elements that set Bond films apart: the girls, the gadgets, the globe-trotting adventure, the over-the-top villains hellbent on convoluted schemes of world domination. Blah, blah, blah. But at their core, Bond movies are about hospitality. Think about it: we live vicariously through 007, and in so doing we get to experience the rarified world in which every door is opened, every luxury afforded. Bond always gets the best table, the best hotel suite, the best bottle of Bollinger. Not only that, but he’s welcomed with open arms no matter what opulent setting he steps into. Whether he’s in Sardinia or Switzerland, Istanbul or India, the hotel manager knows Bond’s name, the maître d' knows when he last dined with them and where he likes to sit. For a secret agent, 007’s discerning tastes precede him. He knows a great restaurant in Karachi. Loves a good conch chowder, especially whilst poolside in the Bahamas. Understands that Dom Pérignon ’53 should never be consumed above the temperature of 38 degrees Fahrenheit. Bond is a total restaurant junkie. Here’s a government employee, on a government salary, and yet he knows every fine dining move.
That’s the fun of these films — watching Bond deftly operate in the world’s best restaurants, hotels, and resorts. We, the audience, respond to his flawless bon vivant moves, and so does everyone in the movie. Even the villains are hospitable. They serve 007 mint juleps while divulging their evil plans. Invite him aboard their yachts. Put him up in their villas in Acapulco. And, to make things even smoother, Bond never agonizes over any of this. Imagine 007 scouring the web for the latest reservations? Puh-lease. Instead he simply rolls up to a place, as he did at Hong Kong’s fictional Royal Rubyeon Hotel in “Die Another Day” — long-haired, bare-chested, and bearded thanks to a North Korean prison stay, 007 saunters through the lobby and asks for his “usual suite.” He is, of course, accommodated.
The first 45 minutes of these formulaic films always play out like this. The bars. The restaurants. The hotels. All of it unfurling like a first-class dream, and we’re only too happy to go along for the ride, pretending it’s us indulging in such luxuries. Watching a Bond film is almost like going on vacation ourselves, and yet never once feeling like a tourist. No matter how campy the adventure, the world outside these rarified halls is a cruel one, and so when Bond is inside them he’s treated to the warm blanket that is great hospitality.
Just like well-honed hospitality, James Bond is a form of wish fulfillment. This is, after all, why author Ian Fleming created the character. On the brink of marriage and fatherhood, Fleming wanted to escape the responsibilities of real life, and so he did so through the Bond persona. The British Empire was waning, the public had just lived through the food rations of WWII, and here was a character through which readers could live a little. So sumptuous are Fleming’s descriptions of Bond’s indulgent diet that there’s even been an artfully rendered cookbook devoted to the literary 007’s meals.
"'The trouble always is,' [Bond] explained to Vesper, 'not how to get enough caviar, but how to get enough toast with it.'" — Ian Fleming, Casino Royale, 1953
Like everything, Bond eventually has to come back down to Earth, and he does so each time the action truly sets in — always toward the latter third of the film. The minute a Bond movie does become an action movie is when things get rote and boring. The villain must be bested, the world must be saved. Gone are the lavish hotel suites, the high-stakes casinos, the snowbound ski lodges, replaced by the villain’s austere lair stuck in something as inhospitable as a volcano. It’s exhausting, confusing, unwelcoming, and — worse still — not worthy of other action franchises. John McClane, Jason Bourne, and Batman all — despite what Carly Simon once said — do it better than Bond. We’d all love to have 007 status at the world’s best restaurants and hotels. But trading barbs with some megalomaniacal lunatic and his pure-bred cat while getting roughed up by a cartoonish henchman as a roomful of goons countdown a nuclear missile launch you’re being paid to prevent? Not so much…
One thing we talk about here at Blackbird is what it would be like to offer a product in which every user is treated like James Bond, no matter where they go. No, not “a sexist, misogynist dinosaur; a relic of the Cold War” as M once called him, but the type of diner who gets the reservation, the off-menu item, the free round of drinks, the best table, and so on. Someone, in other words, who is recognized for their loyalty, appreciated for their taste, and without fail greeted by name. Now that’s a Bond film I’m sure we’d all like to star in.
James Jung
VP, Content
Blackbird Labs, Inc.
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I'm glad you beat the CAVIAR app to the punch, here.