Burn Notice, Season 5, Episode 4

Burn Notice goes hi tech as Michael matches wits with a ruthless young hacker.

Because of the end of this episode I am now convinced that I never saw the first 4 episodes of Season 5, and the rest of it makes so much more sense.

Remember how I wondered where Barry was in the last review? Well, someone must have heard me, because this is a Barry centric episode. While Michael and Max are trying to recover some vitally important information off a table, and Michael is annoying the life out of Max by continually harping on continuing to go after who burned him, despite all evidence saying that chapter of his life is done and dusted, Barry comes to Fiona and Sam for assistance.

Apparently everyone's favourite money launderer has a brother (as people often say when hearing this: 'there's two of them?), Paul (played by John Ross Bowie, better known as the speech impaired Barry Kripke from The Big Bang Theory, he doesn't have the speech impediment here and he's slightly less nerdy, but I can't see him as anyone other than Kripke), who has gotten himself into financial difficulty with a computer hacker.

I didn't know who the hacker would be, but the moment I saw the name Big Show in the credits, I knew who a heavy would be. I'd actually thought Michael may encounter the 7' 400+ pound wrestler, but it was Sam and Jesse, it was rather comical to see him throwing the two men (neither of whom are really what you'd classify as small) as if they were rag dolls. He turns out to be scared of the hacker, who is a relatively petite 20 something called Eva (Aviva Farber's portrayal actually put me in mind of an older, tech savvy version of Loretta McCready from Justified).

Michael then has to pull double duty to help the gang out with Eva. Max showed what a genuinely stand up guy he is by pulling a few strings to get them government level access to help Michael out on what is an unsanctioned operation. Max seems to be slightly in awe of Michael by now, largely because he makes hard things about their job look so easy and he has time to do other things outside of it.

Eva turns out to be one of his most dangerous opponents. Possibly due to her sheer ruthlessness, she had her giant accomplice scared to death of what she'd do if he double crossed her. It winds up taking everything Michael and the gang have to foil her and pull Barry's brother out of his situation.

Michael's PTSD seems to have conveniently vanished, which makes me wonder why he had it in the first place. As he's wrapping up his mission with Max he finds his partner dying of a gunshot wound on the floor. It becomes apparent that it's a set up and Michael is meant to take the rap for it. Why? Maybe he wasn't being paranoid when he insisted that the people behind his burning hadn't gone away and that they were still inside the Agency.

The new improved Charger makes it's reappearance as Fiona roars to Michael's rescue, using it as his getaway vehicle. 

The gloves are off and Michael is back to being a marked man.

Burn Notice, Season 5, Episode 3

It looks like the CIA has given Michael some time off in this episode and just as well because it coincides with him realising that he has PTSD and the reappearance of his brother Nate in Miami.

I'll deal with Nate first and then get onto the other thing. Personally if I was Michael and I heard my little brother was coming back to town, I'd find a reason to be elsewhere. Admittedly he'd never hear the end of it from Maddie, but for some reason Nate and trouble go hand in hand, and Michael nearly always winds up almost getting killed.

I will give him this, he is trying to do the right thing, he's left Las Vegas because it's not the best place for someone with a young family and a gambling addiction to be. I don't know what shape his marriage is in, because we don't see his wife, but he has brought his son with him to bond with Grandma Maddie, and this is the first time we see young Charlie Westen. At this stage the role is probably played by a baby sized doll, because all we get to see is a baby shaped object wrapped in a blanket being nursed by Maddie.

As is usual with Nate he brings trouble with him. Someone he used to know died and left his wife with a mountain of gambling debts owed to a violent and thuggish loan shark. Of course Nate recommends his big brother and Michael can't help himself.

The shark is a piece of work and Michael realises that the best way to do things here is to present himself as another low life owed money and set up the bad guy at the same time.

I have to admit Trey on the run from Vegas was one of Michael's best aliases. Along with a sleazy personality and a grating voice he also gave him the little quirk of continually getting well known cliches wrong (like: getting juice out of a stone), and refusing to accept it when someone tells him the real saying.

The plan is to set the loan shark up as an undercover cop and let his boss take care of him. They do this successfully, but then get blind sided when he turns out to be an actual undercover FBI agent. The show did that really well (like I said I either didn't see these episodes before or they have been completely erased from my memory banks), because up until the reveal I didn't see it coming.

Michael and Co then have to work fast and think on their feet to put the real bad guys away and get the undercover agent out of the pile of manure they dumped him in.

Given the nature of what they were doing there was very little of Maddie and Jesse in this episode. We got Maddie at the start bonding with baby Charlie and Jesse made a cameo appearance as a crooked police administrator working with Michael's low life Trey.

I have to admit I had issues with Michael's PTSD. I'm not surprised he's got it, most people would have by now if they lived his life, but why now? It just seems like a rather convenient plot point to have Michael lose it or freeze at exactly the wrong moment.

He was also back in the loft with Fiona, so maybe the apartment was for her (although she seems to spend all her time at the loft) or she didn't go through with the lease on it.

I can see Nate becoming a larger part of the show from this season on, and where the hell is Barry?

Burn Notice, Season 5, Episode 2

As expected worlds collide in the second episode of Season 5 of Burn Notice.

Again I have no recollection of this episode, given the shocking way network TV (and by this stage I was watching Burn Notice on network TV, as the pay TV network had caught up) treat viewers down here, I may have either missed a few at the start of the season or they were just never shown, or if they were, they were buried at some time when only insomniacs are watching.

Max gives Michael his new assignment, babysitting a British scientist, who uses his trips overseas as excuses to drink and womanise. Although I knew it wouldn't turn out this way I kept thinking of an episode of Get Smart. Agent 96 had to babysit a British scientist, and it turned out that the person he thought was the scientist, was in fact the British agent, and the person he thought was the agent was the scientist. It was a ruse and all done because the looks were reversed, the scientist was a young good looking guy and the agent was an old awkward looking guy. In his Flashman books George MacDonald Fraser says more than once the reason that people believe Flashman is a hero (he is actually one of the world's biggest cowards) is because he looks like what people expect a hero to look like. Anyway the scientist looked and acted like a nerdy, British, socially awkward (extremely sleazy though) science geek. The problem with his drinking and womanising is that he's very likely to say something he shouldn't to the wrong person.

While Michael's doing his paying job, Jesse has a white knight gig, it does in fact pay because it involves his security job. He's dressing very snappy these days (although I've never liked purple as a shirt colour and Jesse just doesn't look right in a tie) and driving a flash car. Michael openly wonders how much the lease payments are costing him, but I figure it's probably a company ride.

A young Japanese lady is looking for her younger sister, who appears to have been abducted on arrival in Miami. She's not the only young female Japanese national it's happened to, either. Initially Michael doesn't want to get involved, because he has another job these days, but is rail roaded and shamed by Jesse, Fi and Sam into it. I can kind of see Michael's point. He's done a lot of white knighting and he never got paid for about 90% of it, surely he's balanced the ledger. It's related to Jesse's job, Sam is largely retired and does this sort of thing for fun, and whenever Fi wants money she picks up a bounty hunting gig or runs some guns.

Being that this involved Japanese girls we got the chance to bring the Yakuza into the game. The target was a heavily tattooed Yakuza member, missing part of one index finger, also a classic tell that the person is involved with the Yakuza. Interestingly Fi called him Japanese Mafia and Sam first mentioned the Yakuza (I'd never heard of the Yakuza until it became a plot point in an episode of Remington Steele, it tied in with the title character's obsession with old movies, as that was the title of a 1974 film starring Robert Mitchum), but I guess it fits, because that's largely what they are.

They manage to wound the guy and take him hostage. Thing is he's a hardcase who won't respond to Michael and that's no good to them. Enter Madeline Westen. She agrees to pretend to be a nurse and see if kindness can do what the threat of torture can't. To sell the conceit that she's some nurse they grabbed off the street to treat their wounded gang member Michael has to act rough with her. Maddie says she can take it, which she can, but seeing Michael channel his abusive alcoholic father shakes her more than she wants to admit.

Two things about this kind of bothered me. Not Michael shouting and at one stage hitting his mother, I didn't like that, but it made sense within the context of the show and did what they wanted it to do and Maddie agreed to it all, although I think the whole thing damaged both mother and son even further. One was how quickly the Yakuza came around and started offering to escape with Maddie and even gave her the vital information. He did say that Michael and his accomplices would kill her, which if they were really what they were pretending to be is true, but wouldn't his team do the same thing to her once they had him back? The other was Fiona's reaction to Michael's hard man act and his mother's response to it. I always thought she knew that Frank Westen was an abusive arsehole, but she clearly didn't. Maybe it's because we the viewers are privy to more information than the individual characters are because we actually get to go into Michael's head.

Because Fiona is kind of superfluous with the Yakuza thing, Michael asks her to keep an eye on his scientist. She plays a wild child. Oddly enough he saw her as British and while she altered her accent slightly, I didn't see it as British, it was closer to what she uses when she's pretending to be a 'lady who lunches'. After taking a wild drive down the road where Fiona had her eyes closed and was going at over 140 mph, the scientist realises that he needs to mend his ways and he doesn't really want to live on the wild side as much as he thought he did.

Max congratulates Michael on a job well done, but does give him a verbal slap for involving his friends on the mission without authorisation. This is going to be a problem as long as Michael is working for the CIA. They're a package deal. You get Michael, you get his friends, and he won't stop doing his charity gigs on the side, either. Push is going to come to shove at some point.

Jesse gives Michael some money for his help on the job, Michael as usual tries to refuse it and then when he can't give it to Maddie, but she gives it back to him and tells him to use it on fixing up his Dad's car.

He's also moving out of the loft by the looks of it and into a nice beachfront apartment with Fiona, so that's getting serious, and to prove it he even looks at putting in a shelf for her snow globe collection.

Burn Notice, Season 5, Episode 1

Yes, I'm back and so are Michael Westen and his merry band of mayhem makers.

I honestly don't remember this episode at all. I can remember one line, but I could have seen that on a previously on Burn Notice thing at the start to bring people up to speed if they missed an episode or two or can't remember what happened.

If you can remember when last we saw our intrepid hero the CIA had welcomed him back with open arms.

Yeah...well...sort of...not really.

Michael is working with the CIA and performing covert missions for them, but he's not actually on their payroll as such, he does what they tell him and under their auspices, but he's not really a CIA operative (which he never was from what he said at the start of the very first episode, he was a sort of go between). He performs his work with a fast talking smoothie by the name of Max (Melrose Place's Grant Show). I kind of like Max, I really hope he doesn't turn out to be evil. He gets totally thrown when things don't go according to the CIA's 'carefully' thought out plans, but he keeps on going and he can think on his feet, he just doesn't dance as fast as Michael, Sam, Fi and Jesse do.

Understandably Fi and Sam, Fi in particular, are a little bit put out by the kink Michael working for the CIA puts in their lifestyles. Fi spends her time whining and Sam is back living at Maddie's place and managed to find what was left of Michael's Charger and put it back together again. The engine works, but the body is going to need a whole lot of work before it's anything like roadworthy.

Much to Michael's surprise, and possibly chagrin, Jesse quit the CIA after he got back in. He found a job working private security. He preferred field work and while he doesn't agree with Sam that he pulls down big bucks, I am betting it pays better than driving a desk for the CIA.

Mostly what Michael does with Max is track down the people behind the organisation that burned Michael, this is important to the Agency, because it had tentacles inside the CIA itself, and possibly still does.

They go after a character called Kessler, he's holed in Venezuela and his guard detail is headed up by a Russian trained Cuban. Because Michael can't speak Spanish (I know he never learned because he hates Miami, but he spends a lot of time south of the border, so really should consider it) he has to pose as a Russian. They didn't want to subtitle everything, so the Russian Michael is pretending to be has to speak English. Unfortunately this means Russian accented English. I think I've spoken about Jeffrey Donovan and accents before. He does a number of extremely impressively authentic sounding US dialects, but once we move out of the continental United States we're in trouble. His British and Irish accents are dreadful and if anything his Russian one tops them. I kept expecting him to ask questions about moose and squirrel (a little Rocky and Bullwinkle reference there for those old enough to remember them).

He insisted on bringing Sam and Fi (or as the CIA called them 'the former SEAL and the girl') along for this one. I really didn't take to Fi this time. She whined her way through the entire episode. She whined about Michael working for the CIA and not spending a lot of time with her or letting her in on a lot of what he does. She whined about the travel arrangements with the CIA, the fact that they weren't calling the shots, the accommodation...Please Fiona, give it a rest! Admittedly Sam was rather put out when he was informed that he couldn't use Chuck Finley as his alias, but mostly he kept his mouth shut and got on with business.

Unfortunately Kessler killed himself before they could get him, so Michael really hadn't gained anything, but all indications are that Max had relocated to Miami and that was where they were running things from now on. Someone at the CIA must have decided that 'the former SEAL and the girl' were useful.  

A nice way to introduce Michael's new life and involve Sam and Fiona at the same time. Of course being based in Miami means that Maddie and Jesse will also get plenty of screen time.

Roll on Season 5!

Bond Girls From Dr. No to Skyfall

The girls in Bond films are one of those MUST HAVE elements and they're often discussed, but generally in terms of how attractive they are. No series of posts on the James Bond films would be complete without one that looked at all those wonderful ladies who have helped make them what they are. I did originally consider making this a ranking, but that like the rating of the films themselves is very subjective, not to mention a bit tacky, plus it's been done to death by all and sundry over the years. So what I'm going to do here is mention each character and the actress who portrayed them and have a brief look at how I saw the performance and the character.

Dr. No - Honey Ryder/Ursula Andress

Honey Ryder was the first time any of us really got to see a Bond girl on the screen. Linda Christian played a character called Valerie Mathis in the 1950's TV adaptation of Casino Royale, she was kind of a replacement Vesper Lynd, but I don't count her as such. The character of Honey and the actress Ursula Andress have both become associated with her iconic introduction where she rises out of the water like a mermaid given human form, wearing the white bikini. As a character Honey struck me as both inconsistent and unnecessary. The story doesn't change much if she's not there. I've never seen Andress as a particularly talented actress either. I know her dialogue was dubbed due to her accent, but even then she doesn't bring much to the role other than physical attractiveness.

From Russia With Love - Tatiana Romanova/Daniella Bianchi

Prior to being cast as the naive Russian cryptographer Tatiana Romanova in From Russia With Love, Daniella Bianchi had been Miss Italy in a beauty pageant. It's not hard to see why. Even now 50 years and many girls after, she remains one of the most beautiful women to star alongside any incarnation of James Bond. Tatiana is vitally important to the story, it simply doesn't work without her. For one Rosa Klebb would have stabbed James with the toe of her poison tipped shoe (she actually did in the book) if Tatiana had not been on hand to shoot her former boss. Despite her dialogue also being dubbed, Daniella Bianchi uses her face and her body to put in a more than credible performance alongside Sean Connery and I think it's one that's often underrated.

Goldfinger - Pussy Galore/Honor Blackman

Ursula Andress' Honey Ryder tends to be known for one thing and that's her entrance in Dr. No. Honor Blackman's Pussy Galore is similar, but she's remembered for the risqué, frankly quite silly name. When asked to name a Bond girl a lot of people say Pussy Galore, because whatever else it does, the name sticks in the memory. Despite being a fairly small role, it is vital, because without her Goldfinger's raid on Fort Knox would have worked. The performance of Honor Blackman though was oddly flat and one note. Being already known as an actress for her work on The Avengers I expected her to bring more to the role, but she unfortunately didn't.

Thunderball - Dominique 'Domino' Derval/Claudine Auger

Like Tatiana, Dominique 'Domino' Derval (generally known as Domino) performs the vital task of shooting the SPECTRE operative in Emilio Largo, which saves Bond, although it has the consequence of saving herself and James as it allows them to leap to safety before the boat they're passengers on crashes and blows up. She's used as scenery most of the time, but her presence is needed because she's how Bond gets in with Largo and how he works out who has the missing nuclear missiles. The elfin Claudine Auger (also a former Miss France) does a good job with the role, despite her dialogue also being dubbed for the most part, but it mostly involves looking pretty in and out of the water.

You Only Live Twice - Aki/Akiko Wakabayashi & Kissy Suzuki/Mie Hama

Yes, there are two Bond girls in my opinion in You Only Live Twice. Top billing went to Mie Hama, but the larger role is actually that played by Akiko Wakabayashi. Aki is a wild Japanese agent who provides Bond with his introduction to Japanese intelligence in the form of Tiger Tanaka, and it's Aki who ingests the poison that was meant for Bond, this kills her. She's the first of the Bond girls to die in the course of the film. To a large extent the role was invented by the actress as a way of getting out of a extraordinary situation which could have resulted in her co-actress committing ritual suicide. She plays it very well and with a great deal of energy, she deserves most of the acting credit in a female role in the film.

The role was reduced from the book and she's really not required to do a lot other than be pretty and appear in a bikini. Just as well, because Mie Hama could not act. She'd done a lot of Japanese monster films, but she was dreadful in You Only Live Twice, she wasn't helped by the dubbing of her voice not sounding at all Japanese. The character could have been easily written out, but she appeared in the book and the screenwriter; Roald Dahl, had already made significant changes. She's never actually referred to as Kissy (very silly name) in the film, but is credited that way at the end.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service - Tracy Di Vincenzo (Bond)/Diana Rigg

If I'd rated the girls Tracy and Diana would have rated highly on all counts: depth of character, importance to the story, attractiveness and acting ability. Diana Rigg was the best actress they'd cast by a long shot and one of the most beautiful (although Daniella Bianchi edges her out for the title there). The character of Tracy has a proper backstory, she helps Bond and winds up marrying him, she is unfortunately killed at the end, but that provides the impetus for Bond's revenge mission in the next film. The only thing wrong with it on film was that due to George Lazenby's lack of acting talent, not even Diana Rigg could make the relationship believable or generate any chemistry between the two, but she is a very memorable Bond girl, even without that.

Diamonds Are Forever - Tiffany Case/Jill St John

As a character she's saddled with that stupid name and a giant size attitude, she lacks class, which makes one wonder why Bond is interested in her. She's not all that necessary to the plot and I kept wondering why she continued to pop up once Bond had smuggled the diamonds into the US. She's more of an annoyance to him than anything else. Jill St John was the first American Bond girl and the first redhead (Diana Rigg is not a natural redhead), she fills out a bikini nicely, but her acting leaves a lot to be desired.

Live And Let Die - Solitaire/Jane Seymour

Being an English rose in appearance and yet having been born and raised as a virginal tarot card reader on a Caribbean island, Solitaire (that's the only name she ever has) is one of the odder Bond girls. She's not really all that vital to the plot other than James has to sleep with someone and it allows Roger Moore to make a lot of bad tarot card jokes. It's another example of how a role can be improved when an actress with some ability is cast in the role. Jane Seymour remains up there with Daniella Bianchi and Diana Rigg for sheer beauty.

The Man With The Golden Gun - Mary Goodnight/Britt Ekland

The question I find myself asking about both character and actress is why? If they wanted a Bond girl they only needed to cast Maud Adams as Andrea Anders. Britt Ekland has never been able to act and having her playing a fairly comically inept inexperienced agent with the ridiculous name of Mary Goodnight is only exacerbating the problem. She's more annoying than anything and yet another example of why The Man With The Golden Gun is one of the worst Bond films ever.

The Spy Who Loved Me - Anya Amasova (Agent XXX)/Barbara Bach

As a character I love Anya. She's got a proper name (forget the stupid code name of XXX) and she's kind of a Russian female equivalent to Bond. She has a definite impact and can almost out spy him, plus she has an avowed intention to kill him after the mission (that's the one flaw, she gives in a little too quick). A lot of people have issues with Barbara Bach's portrayal. For an ex model, who was cast late in the day I think she did a good job. She is a little wooden in parts, but she enters into it all with gusto and does a passable Russian accent.

Moonraker - Holly Goodhead/Lois Chiles

Holly was an attempt to make lightning strike twice in the same place. She was meant to be a CIA equivalent of Anya, only with a Phd in aeronautics as well. She bobs up here and there for some pretty strange reasons. The name is another play on words similar to Pussy Galore, but not nearly as memorable. For an ass kicking CIA agent she's not very effective and needs a lot more saving than she should. Because of how poor the performance was I thought Lois Chiles was another ex-model, but apparently she was an actress. It's a lifeless performance and taking money for it is almost cheating.

For Your Eyes Only - Melina Havelock/Carole Bouquet

Melina is a strong girl, she's a dab hand with a crossbow and knows how to look for ancient cities under the sea. She's out for revenge for her parents and if it weren't for her Bond would never have recovered the code breaking machine that is at the heart of the story. She was played by French model/actress Carole Bouquet, who had the perfect look for the role, she's a little uncertain at times, but holds her own throughout.

Octopussy - Octopussy/Maud Adams

The character is rather silly before the name. She's an internationally notorious outlaw based in India, but is gradually moving from crime into legitimate business. She has another name (she has to), but they never use it, which is lazy writing more than anything. Maud Adams had impressed in The Man With The Golden Gun, but with a multifaceted character she's way out of her depth and flounders through the film.

A View To A Kill - Stacey Sutton/Tanya Roberts

Stacey suffers from the need to have a Bond girl and then make her relevant to the plot, so they turn her into a seismologist, she's not at all believable and she seems to need James to save her all the time. She's rather whiny to be honest. Tanya Roberts got a raw deal here, she wasn't that great an actress, but she did handle action pretty well, so they give her a character that is the modern day equivalent of a damsel in distress. I think most people wanted James to drop her off the bridge at the end.

The Living Daylights - Kara Milovy/Maryam D'Abo

I had not thought it was possible to create a more useless character than Stacey, but they topped her with Kara. As a secret agent Kara makes a great cellist. There's just nothing at all believable about the character. She doesn't need saving as much, but that in itself is ridiculous because she suddenly develops all these skills and abilities that had never been evident before. Maryam D'Abo is a very pretty lady, but her acting ability is on par with Britt Ekland's.

Licence To Kill - Pam Bouvier/Carey Lowell

I really like Pam as a character. She's tough, smart, resourceful. She's the complete package. Probably the best since Anya. If Holly had been more like Pam, Moonraker would have been a better film. Generally she works independently of Bond and she seems to save him more than he saves her. They also got lucky when they cast Carey Lowell, she was predominantly a model before, but understood the role and played it to perfection, she's also stunningly beautiful.

Goldeneye - Natalya Simonova/Isabella Scorupco

Both character and actress are overshadowed by Famke Janssen's delightfully over the top villainess Xenia Onatopp. It's a shame really because Natalya is every bit as resourceful as a number of Bond girl's and a good deal more useful than plenty of them. She's a vital link to the story and someone without whom Bond would not have been able to complete his mission. Isabella Scorupco is more of a model than an actress, and she's usually blonde, which Natalya is not. It's a multi layered character and the performance matches it, there could have been more chemistry with Pierce Brosnan, but it's not totally absent and that has a lot to do with a fairly clumsy love scene that was inserted because it's expected. She's consistently underrated, but I quite like her even though she's not astonishing or even all that memorable.

Tomorrow Never Dies - Colonel Wai Lin/Michelle Yeoh

Oh they struck so much pay dirt with both character and actress! She actually overshadows Bond, she carries him through this from the time they reluctantly agree to work together in Asia. If they'd made Tomorrow Never Dies with Wai Lin as the central character and Bond as the eye candy/sidekick it would have been a better film. I really like her, does it show? The second brilliant move after creating a fantastic female character that was more than just scenery was casting Michelle Yeoh. Yeoh's background was working with Jackie Chan and she was one of the few actresses he'd allow to do her own stunts, she wasn't allowed to in this for insurance reasons, but she did do her own fight scenes and she was excellent. She's close to being one of the best actresses to ever appear in the films and her performance matches that rating.

The World Is Not Enough - Elektra King/Sophie Marceau & Dr. Christmas Jones/Denise Richards

Yes another two! Technically Elektra is probably a villain, but that isn't revealed until late in the movie and James doesn't seduce her so much as she does him. She's a vitally important catalyst and Bond even falls for her, even though she was faking it. She's the only role I would classify as a Bond girl where James actually causes her death. Sophie Marceau was an experienced and respected actress when she took the role and she makes it her own, she almost sizzles off the screen.

Elektra was a hard act to follow and Christmas Jones just can't do it. She's quite abrasive, which makes her annoying and unbelievable. Like Stacey she suffers from having a job that she simply doesn't sell, she's a nuclear physicist responsible for assisting with disarmament, yet she looks like she's too young to have graduated college yet. Denise Richards is unfairly slated for the role. First of all comparing her to Sophie Marceau is downright mean (the two are on totally different levels) and then it's clear she suffers from lack of direction and she's trying to sell a role which simply doesn't work. Under the circumstances she does the best she can and I've always felt Eon threw her under the bus.

Die Another Day - Giacinta 'Jinx' Johnson/Halle Berry

Did they not learn from Holly and Moonraker? I don't know why it is, but American agents (Jinx is NSA and Holly was CIA) and Bond simply don't seem to work. Maybe it's because they're on the same side and if Bond wants American help he has Felix Leiter or Jack Wade to call on. Jinx starts out looking like an equal and winds up having to be saved before going back to being Bond's opposite number for the NSA. For some reason Eon thought the character warranted her own spin off series. Thankfully MGM canned that before it wound flushing a lot of money down the drain. Now if they'd been able to get a Wai Lin spin off out there, yes please! Halle Berry came to the role fresh from an Oscar winning performance in Monster's Ball, but didn't seem to really know what was expected of her. Her comments about the role indicate that she saw it as a clotheshorse rather than an acting performance. She never struck the chord that they wanted with audiences and while Denise Richards wore a lot of flak for Christmas Jones, Berry escaped a lot of the harsher criticism that she deserved for Jinx.

Casino Royale - Vesper Lynd/Eva Green

As a character and a performance Vesper just works. From the moment she walks into the train and sits down opposite Bond they simply click. The character is well written and behaves the way one expects her to. The relationship between her and Bond is believable and solid. Such a shame she dies. Eva Green was perfectly cast, she should have been named Vesper. She's a beautiful woman and you can get lost in those big dark sparkling eyes. There's more chemistry between Green and Craig than I can remember seeing between any other actress and actor in the franchise's history. Her death scene and the rage Bond feels is more real because of that. If I had to rate the girls and I do this more on character than anything else I put Tracey, Pam, Wai Lin and Vesper at the top of my list.

Quantum Of Solace - Camille Montes/Olga Kurylenko

Camille seems to be in this film because there's an unwritten law that says Bond must perform some of his mission with a beautiful woman by his side. Admittedly they both want the same outcome, but they're going after different targets. I kept asking myself why Camille was in this film and why was I supposed to care. A better option would have been to use Agent Fields as the girl. Olga Kurylenko gives a flat one note performance that languidly runs from the range of A - B, there is no chemistry with Daniel Craig and really the actress could only go up from here.

Skyfall - Severine/Berenice Marlohe

There isn't really a clearly defined Bond girl in Skyfall (cases can be made for thinking of both Eve Moneypenny and M as the Bond girls in Skyfall), but as Bond sleeps with Severine she makes as a good a choice as any. Her only real function in the film is to prove what a callous bastard Silva is when he shoots her in the head. It wasn't necessary because I think audiences had already worked that out for themselves by that point. Berenice Marlohe did as best she could with what she had to work with, but she's not particularly memorable and the performance reaches no great heights.

So there we have it, Bond from go to whoa. I'll come back when SPECTRE has been released and do it all over with that again.

The Bond Films - 1962 - 2012

Having shotgunned all 23 of Eon's Bond movies over the past month I thought I should do a round up  of how I viewed them and rated them. I can't do a 1 - 23 ranking and I think in some ways that's a little unfair to the individual films and those involved with them, besides anything like that is fraught with disaster, because it's highly subjective and personal. I have a friend who rates some higher than I do and rates others much lower. My wife likes some I can't stand. I'll break them up into four categories: The 00's (the best of the best), Shaken Not Stirred (good, but not great), The Felix Leiters (mostly bad, some good) and The Blofelds (all bad).

Because they're grouped I don't do specific order, but I'll list them in order of release date.

The 00's:

Goldfinger: this is where the Bond that most people identify with really started. It was the franchise's 3rd film and had a number of things associated with it that recurred and that are still associated with the character. It featured the first big hit song sung by Shirley Bassey, it had the first genuine pre credit sequence that was like a mini movie on it's own, it was the second appearance of Desmond Llewelyn as Q, but the first time we saw him cultivate the grumpy old inventor character that became the hallmark of MI6's gadget master, Goldfinger was a larger than life villain, with an equally interesting henchman in the mute Korean manservant with the razor edged top hat, it was the first appearance of the DB5, which although it isn't used often since is still one of the agent's most memorable vehicles. Pussy Galore remains one of the best known Bond girls, largely because of her silly and risqué name. It has some great lines: 'I never joke about my work, 007.' 'No, Mr Bond, I expect you to die!' Connery played the role to perfection. Guy Hamilton's over the top directing really set a standard that others strove to match.

The Spy Who Loved Me: in Roger Moore's 3rd outing he and the character clicked. The plot was insane, but it worked. Lewis Gilbert was a welcome change from Guy Hamilton's directing which had spiralled out of control to the extent that he didn't seem to care about the acting, just the stunts. Russia's Agent XXX, Anya Amasova is the closest that they had come at that point to getting a female equivalent to Bond. Some don't like Barbara Bach's performance, but I thought she did quite a good job. Two elements: the submersible Lotus and the Union Jack parachute have forever been associated with Bond since and are always remembered from the film. Jaws was the most memorable henchman since Oddjob and became one of the most loved. After a departure from what people felt of as genuine Bond films in Roger Moore's first two outings as the character it got back to that feel and storyline, and Stromberg was Blofeld in everything, but name.

Goldeneye: two words that immediately make this a superior film: Martin Campbell. With Campbell as director and Pierce Brosnan in the role he was born to play, Goldeneye rejuvenated the franchise and brought it back triumphantly after a 6 year hiatus. Brosnan was surrounded by a fantastic cast: Judi Dench as the best M ever (a role she would repeat in 6 other films), Robbie Coltrane playing Valentin Zukovsky, Sean Bean as the two faced Alec Trevelyan also known as Janus and the over the top Xenia Onatopp played by Dutch model Famke Jannsen. It would become the measuring stick for the Bond films, and unfortunately none of Brosnan's other Bond films lived up to it. It does lose some points for the naff Tina Turner, U2 written song, though.

Casino Royale: when you need to rejuvenate something call on Martin Campbell. That's what they did here to reboot Bond. There's almost nothing about this film that does not work. It's dark, brutal and brilliant. This feels like a spy movie. This is Bond for the 21st century. New Bond Daniel Craig is ably supported by Judi Dench, the surprising Eva Green in the role of Vesper Lynd and Mads Mikkelson as Le Chiffre. I've said it before that this is about as close to perfect as a Bond film can get.

Shaken Not Stirred:

From Russia With Love: the second Bond film and the producers and director had found their feet a little now they'd worked out exactly what type of film they wanted to make. The story is solid and has a good Cold War feel about it. Tatiana Romonova as played by Daniella Bianchi still makes one of the most stunningly beautiful women that has ever appeared in the films, even 50 years later. The other co-stars in Robert Shaw and Lotte Lenya play their roles to perfection and lift the film as a whole. Connery was still growing into the role. The casual sexism which is amped up from Dr. No drops it down a notch or two, this was something that seemed more prevalent in the Terence Young directed Bonds than in those he didn't helm. There's some very dodgy green screen work that also lets the film down.

You Only Live Twice: I'd always remembered this as a fairly uninspiring entry, but my mind changed on this most recent rewatch. Again the story has a bit more to it than some of the others, that may be due to Roald Dahl's scriptwriting. The beefing up of the Aki role, which while accidental, works very well. Lewis Gilbert's artistic direction was a welcome change and fitted the times. Donald Pleasance in the Blofeld role remains the best version of the character. It's let down by a few things: one is Nancy Sinatra's clearly nervous rendition of the song, the addition of the ninjas was really too over the top, Mie Hama's atrocious acting and the very unconvincing disguise of Sean Connery as a Japanese fisherman.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service: I'd let the poor performance of George Lazenby as Bond colour my view of this. I went into it expecting it to be a Blofeld or maybe a Felix Leiter, but the more I watched it and thought about it wound up in Shaken Not Stirred. It's not perfect by a long shot, but it has one of the best stories in the entire franchise, it's certainly one of the best Fleming ones. Diana Rigg as Tracy Vincenzo, the woman Bond marries, proved that Bond girls weren't just pretty scenery, they could act as well. The setting and the stunts are wonderful to look at. However it's hard to get past the minuses in this one. Lazenby's total and complete lack of acting ability are chief among them and related to that is absolutely no chemistry between he and Diana Rigg. The decision to replace Donald Pleasance with Telly Savalas, who aside from being bald bears no resemblance to the other man, as Blofeld is mystifying and then there's Peter Hunt's horrible directing.

For Your Eyes Only: this really should have been filmed after The Spy Who Loved Me as intended. There are still elements of the script that indicate this, the pre credit scene with Bond visiting Tracy's grave and then his encounter with 'Blofeld' are evidence of it. It's a good solid revenge story, with some lovely settings and a better than expected performance from former model Carole Bouquet as the vengeful, crossbow wielding Melina Havelock. It was John Glen's first outing as director and he did a good job, it's probably the best of his films. Julian Glover and Topol have a great time chewing up the scenery as the villain Aris Kristatos and the roguish smuggler Columbo respectively. Sheena Easton's theme song remains my favourite of the entire series. James Villier's performance as a highly critical Bill Tanner was badly judged though and I still think Bond should have punched him in the face. Moore is already starting to look a little old.

Licence To Kill: surely this is in the wrong place people are thinking. It's not. I've never quite understood the level of hate for this one. Dalton does a better job in Licence To Kill than he did in The Living Daylights and he was starting to get a feel for the character and how he should play it. He's got a great co-star in Carey Lowell as the feisty Pam Bouvier and seeing Q in the field was a heap of fun. Part of why fans don't like it can be attributed to the storyline, which isn't a spy story, it's a straight action revenge story with drugs at the heart of it. As a spy story it's a failure, as an action film it holds up pretty well. The side story with the Chinese DEA agents could have been done away with, it's unnecessary and really doesn't add anything to the plot. There is an air of ticking off the boxes for what makes a successful action film which can be a bit tedious at times and makes the film more pedestrian than it should be.

The World Is Not Enough: another film that I think gets a bad rap, mostly for Denise Richards as Christmas Jones, who I also don't think is as bad as she's been painted out to be. It's a rollicking story, although it makes no sense on a number of levels. Pierce Brosnan gives his usual polished performance as does Judi Dench, although I think this is her worst outing as M. Sophie Marceau is always welcome and Robbie Coltrane's Zukovksky lightens things up a little. The pre credit sequence is one of the best they've ever done and I think it still holds the record as the longest (Skyfall may challenge it). What really drags it down is Michael Apted's by the book directing job and it displays why he was the wrong director for a Bond.

Skyfall: now how did this not end up in The 00's? It's a great film, it really is and the highlights are Javier Bardem as Silva, Judi Dench as M and Naomie Harris as Eve Moneypenny. Sam Mendes' direction with it's highly artistic flair is also something wonderful. It may elevate itself on a few more watchings, but at present it just doesn't quite get there for me. I have a hard time explaining why, it's just a feel, it could be the unnecessary inclusion of Severine and the feeling that the entire Macau incident doesn't quite fit with the rest of the film as well as the questions I keep asking about how Silva got from where he was to where he is and how he planned the entire thing and the lengths he went to.

The Felix Leiters: 

Dr. No: there are some good things about this. It was the first James Bond film and that can't possibly be bad, but due to the time it was made and the minuscule budget it has a very amateurish look to it. It's also dated very badly. None of the acting really hits a high note. The scenery is nice. There's the iconic appearance of Ursula Andress as Honey Ryder, but the character is unnecessary and the actress can't act. There's also things like the clear appearance of the glass as the tarantula crawls along it in the scene in the hotel room. Admittedly it could have been a lot worse and it did do enough to bring audiences back for the next instalment and they improved on it.

Thunderball: whereas On Her Majesty's Secret Service gets hammered I think this one gets off too easily. I actually thought it was a Shaken Not Stirred before I rewatched it, but in the intervening years between watches the suck fairy visited it. The pre credit sequence is fantastic with the jetpack, but after what Guy Hamilton did in Goldfinger, Terence Young's direction in Thunderball does not sit comfortably, the sexism and misogyny plumbed new depths (I refer of course to the scene at the spa in which the very classy James Bond blackmails a nurse into having sex with him. Who thought it was a good idea to include that in the film, I do not know). There's the whole way throughout it Bond behaves like a bumbling detective, possibly an indication that Connery was already beginning to tire of the role, of course back then they made a film a year, which is quite a punishing schedule for anyone.

Diamonds Are Forever: this came very close to being a Blofeld. There's a lot more wrong than there is right, which is a shame because Guy Hamilton directed.  Connery returned to the Bond role. The setting of Las Vegas works and I liked the small comic cameo from Q, as well as the line with Plenty O'Toole (some of Connery's best work with a quip) but that's about it. The song gets better the more you hear it, but it is not Shirley Bassey's best work. A lot of people hate Mr Wint and Mr Kidd, but I kind of like them, they're an unusual thing in films back then and the actors give the impression that they know the sole thing is a giant piss take and they approach it that way. Tiffany Case is a stupid name and as an actress Jill St John makes a good bikini model. Willard Whyte is one of the worst characters they ever dreamt up and Cubby Broccoli's dreams about his friend Howard Hughes had no business making it into the script, but they did. Then there's the chase with the moon buggy, the inexplicable casting of Charles Gray as Blofeld (maybe this film really does belong in the Blofelds?). It really did show that it was time for a change.

Live And Let Die: I didn't like putting this film here, because it was my first one and for that reason alone I liked it. It brought Bond into the 70's, it did away with the hat and until Geoffrey Wright, David Hedison made the best Felix. Jane Seymour was one of the most beautiful Bond girls ever as Solitaire. Paul McCartney's opening theme was, and still is up there with the very best of the songs. Moore makes a good start as the new Bond and sets the tone for the jokier, campier Bond he would be. The drugs storyline and clear attempts to exploit the blaxploitation theme aren't really Bond things. Some of it is downright stupid and so over the top that it makes the audience groan.

A View To A Kill: this is another film that nearly became a Blofeld. The only things that saved it were Christopher Walken's performance as Max Zorin, Grace Jones as MayDay and Patrick McNee's Tibbet, and Duran Duran's excellent piece of pop fun as the song. The rest of it is really silly and trivial, the stunt sequences seem much like the format and the star; tired and over used. Tanya Roberts spends most of her time screaming for James to save her and is very needy. Sequences like the one with Pola Ivonova just seem to be inserted because. The climax on the Golden Gate Bridge looks badly faked and I think by that stage audiences were just hoping the damn thing would be over.

Tomorrow Never Dies: after Goldeneye great things were expected of the new Bond and unfortunately this film didn't deliver them. The idea about a mad megalomaniac media magnate should have worked, but it didn't. I always felt Carver just wasn't threatening enough to be a good Bond villain. The casting of Michelle Yeoh as the ass kicking Bond equal Wai Lin worked (this is what they wanted Jinx to be, but she just wasn't) and is the best thing about the film. It was pretty poor after Goldeneye and that may have been the problem.

The Blofelds: 

The Man With The Golden Gun: there was no way this wasn't going to end up here. There is only one saving grace about this film and that's Christopher Lee as Francisco Scaramanga. The rest of it is Awful with a capital A. It really should have been given a rating of A for Avoid. It hardly gets anything right. Audiences were offended enough by the presence of Sheriff J.W Pepper in Live And Let Die, but at least then he was at home, placing him in Thailand as a tourist when he can offend all and sundry with his racial taunts was a major mistake and if it was as rumours suggest director Guy Hamilton's idea, then its just as well this was his last Bond film. It took them 35 years to come up with a song to top Lulu's The Man With The Golden Gun for awfulness. Midget Herve Villechaize was meant to be amusing as Nick Nack, but he just came across as annoying. Britt Ekland is next to Mie Hama the worst actress to ever play a Bond girl, at least Mie Hama's dialog was dubbed. Christopher Lee aside this is a train wreck of a film.

Moonraker: weirdly enough this made an absolute killing at the box office. I can only presume that was due to it coming after The Spy Who Loved Me. It was written in a hurry to cash in on the science fiction craze started by Star Wars and it shows. It's a shame that Lewis Gilbert, who was a damn good director, had this piece of crap as his swan song. Even star Roger Moore made fun of it later on. I understood the return of Jaws, but what they did with him, playing him for laughs because kids who wrote to Lewis Gilbert wanted him to be the good guy was just wrong. Bernard Lee also sadly bid the world of Bond farewell with this substandard film (he passed away before For Your Eyes Only could be filmed). They tried to make lightning strike twice in the one place by creating the character of Holly Goodhead and making her a CIA agent, but Lois Chiles' lifeless performance killed that idea stone dead. They didn't even have an actor of Christopher Lee's stature to try and salvage some respect out of it.

Octopussy: the idea of setting a Bond film in India isn't a bad idea, but that's about where it ends. Moore was even then too old, into his mid 50's and should have been pensioned off after For Your Eyes Only. Maud Adams actually did a decent job as Andrea Landers in The Man With The Golden Gun, but she was totally out of her depth here and even she didn't like the fact that her character didn't have a real name and was only ever referred to as Octopussy. The casting of the French former matinee idol Louis Jordan as Afghani prince Kamal Khan was interesting to say the least. The actor made a lovely meal out of the scenery, but I doubt if he hadn't been a good friend of the Broccolis that he ever would have been given the job. Vijay Armitraj as an Indian based MI6 agent was laughable and not in a good way. Things like the fake crocodile, Bond dressed as a clown, the whole thing was silly beyond belief and how they even got it made in the first place is a real head scratcher.

The Living Daylights: it's rather unfortunate that a real stinker introduced Timothy Dalton as Bond because it cast a pall over his tenure in the role. There's very little good about the film. Dalton is unsure of how to play the role and it shows, he tries to channel Connery and looks uncomfortable. Maryam D'Abo was woeful as Kara Milovy and they didn't help by giving her an even worse, stupider character than Stacey Sutton to play. There's some nonsense about drugs in Afghanistan combined with a plot to pin everything on a Russian general and it all became rather tedious. They also managed to shoehorn Felix in there for reasons that are never properly explained.

Die Another Day: there were high hopes for this being the 20th Eon film and the 40th anniversary film, and that may have been the problem. It's not like the films don't have nods to what went before over the years, so why try and cram as many as possible into the one film because of the number it is and the year it was released. The entire idea of Moon/Graves is ridiculous and stretches belief to breaking point and beyond. Halle Berry as Jinx is a massive failure when you consider the way the character was built up, even the actress herself seemed to be more in love with the character because of her fashion choices and the way she dressed than anything she did in her capacity as a NSA agent, and they were going to make a spinoff based around her? Then there was the invisible car, it was just too stupid for words. Brosnan said he wanted to go on, but he sleep walked his way through Die Another Day. Madonna's song is up there with Lulu's. Very disappointing and it almost killed the franchise.

Quantum Of Solace: it did have a hard act following Casino Royale, but it failed spectacularly. One was the directing, something over which star Daniel Craig had far too much influence. Then there was the script, most of which was rushed due to the writers strike and then got producer Michael Wilson (who isn't a half bad script doctor) and director Marc Forster and star Daniel Craig involved and that all spelled disaster. Olga Kurylenko was still finding her feet as an actress and had no chemistry with Daniel Craig. The villain was not believable or particularly threatening. The story moved away from where it had been going for most of the time and only returned in an after thought at the end. The theme was hands down the worst of the entire franchise's history and that took some doing. The word abomination springs to mind and only the success of Casino Royale and a belief that they couldn't possibly do a worse job is what kept audiences there for Skyfall.

SPECTRE (speculation) - November 2015

Background: seeing as how I accomplished my original goal in watching all of Eon's Bond films from Dr. No to Skyfall, and that the publicity machine is ramping up for their 24th adventure due to hit screens in November of this year I should share my thoughts with how I feel about what I've heard so far and give a little background to clarify it all.

The organisation of SPECTRE (SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion) was James Bond's opponent in 6 of the first 7 Bond films, although it wasn't as big a part of Ian Fleming's books (Bond was generally pitted agains SMERSH in the books), the organisation's leader Blofeld was Bond's opponent in 3 consecutive films, beginning with You Only Live Twice and concluding with Diamonds Are Forever, a wheelchair bound villain with a bald head (Blofeld was generally bald, except for in Diamonds Are Forever when he was portrayed by Charles Gray) and a penchant for fluffy white cat, appeared in the pre credit sequence of For Your Eyes Only and attempted to kill Bond, before having the tables turned and being dropped down a chimney. The character was never named and the face never revealed, but it is widely believed to be Blofeld and Cubby Broccoli's way of sending a message to Kevin McClory, who claimed ownership of the character at the time. It was also driven by McClory blocking the use of SPECTRE and Blofeld with The Spy Who Loved Me, and another clear sign that For Your Eyes Only was meant to be filmed after The Spy Who Loved Me, before being shunted out of the way by the hastily put together Moonraker so that Eon could cash in on the late 70's science fiction film phenomenon.

SPECTRE first appeared in the novel Thunderball along with the organisation's villainous leader Ernst Stavro Blofeld. The cat fetish is something the movies invented, it's not a quirk of the character in the novels.

Thunderball was the novel that Ian Fleming initially developed as a script with Kevin McClory and Jack Whittingham, then after leaving that project released it as a novel. This prompted legal action from McClory, in which McClory was awarded the film rights to Thunderball, but Fleming retained the literary rights. McClory also claimed the film rights to SPECTRE and Blofeld. Official Bond author Raymond Benson was still able to write and release Bond novels featuring SPECTRE and Blofeld and one of them; For Special Services, features Nena Bismaquer, Blofeld's daughter.

Eon did manage to use SPECTRE and Blofeld in 3 films during the 60's and early 70's, but copyright issues prevented them from being the central villains in The Spy Who Loved Me (there's very little doubt that Stromberg is Blofeld with another name).

MGM/UA took legal action in 1998 against Sony and McClory to prevent them from making something called Warhead 2000 AD (I believe it was another remake of Thunderball, in which McClory intended to have Timothy Dalton reprise his Bond role and feature Sean Connery as Largo). McClory had the rights to film Thunderball at least 10 years after the first film and he was allowed to make Never Say Never Again, but enough was enough. MGM/UA settled with Sony and abandoned the claim, however McClory's rights to SPECTRE and Blofeld were unaffected.

The Bond films continued to use standalone villains until Casino Royale when they invented Quantum, which is really SPECTRE with another name. Then in 2013, following the release of Skyfall, MGM and the McClory estate (Kevin McClory passed away in 2006) formally settled the issue with Danjaq (Bond's parent company), LLC and MGM acquiring the full rights to SPECTRE and Blofeld.

Not all that long after it was announced that Bond 24 would be titled SPECTRE. There has been a lot of speculation that Quantum was really SPECTRE under another name, and while it is mentioned in early releases about SPECTRE the film, I think Quantum will morph into SPECTRE.

Story: clearly as it has not yet been released, and filming only started late 2014 I don't know anything about the story other than what has been made public. Neil Purvis, Robert Wade and John Logan are in charge of the script again. That makes SPECTRE the 6th consecutive Bond film for Purvis and Wade and Logan's 2nd after coming on board for Skyfall.

The story seems to continue on from where Skyfall left off, with the new M Gareth Mallory still fighting off attacks from those within the government questioning the need for MI6 in general. A cryptic message from an unlikely source sets Bond off on the trail of a shadowy organisation using the name of SPECTRE, the closer Bond draws to a hidden truth, the more likely it is that everything he's fought to protect is in jeopardy.

At some point in the film I believe it will be revealed that Quantum was really a front for SPECTRE and I'd be surprised if Blofeld didn't make an appearance in some way, shape or form. As Raymond Benson already floated the idea that Blofeld has offspring, they could also be involved or take the place of their evil father. This continued exploration of Bond's past, started in Skyfall, really puts paid to the theories that the name and number are really just a rotating alias.

Casting:

Director: in another winning move the franchise retained Sam Mendes as director. He initially said that he wouldn't direct the 24th film in the franchise, but after seeing some of the script changed his mind as he found both that and the plans for the long-term future of the franchise appealing. That decision makes Mendes the first director since Martin Campbell to do two Bond films and the first since John Glen in the 80's to direct films consecutively. After Skyfall he's only behind Campbell for mine as a Bond director and I'm very confident that he'll do a great job with SPECTRE, he's also going to be backed by a top notch cast.

James Bond: even though Craig has a contract for this film and possibly even another one beyond it, there's always speculation about who will play Bond in the next film. The names of Hugh Jackman and Idris Elba were thrown out again (I don't know why people keep putting them up there, they're not going to get the role and I don't even know if the actors actually want them). The actor I personally feel could replace Daniel Craig is a guy called Philip Winchester. He's 33, so even if Craig does another film after SPECTRE (highly likely) then Winchester would still be young enough to take the role on. He's quite tall and although he's blonde, Craig has shown that this is no longer a deal breaker. He currently plays the rather Bondian Michael Stonebridge in the TV series Strike Back, and it's not a stretch to see him go from that role to Bond, he can act as well. It's currently a moot point, though because I can't see Daniel Craig even considering stepping down from the role until after he's finished the 25th Bond film.

Franz Oberhauser: I don't know anything about Oberhauser as a character, but the casting of Christophe Waltz has done nothing to end speculation that the name is really just a Blofeld alias. If Waltz has been cast as the new Blofeld it's a master stroke, he doesn't have any of the physical facial quirks associated with the character, but he is a brilliant actor as his two Academy Awards (Inglourious Bastards and Django Unchained) attest. Interestingly he made his name in Quentin Tarantino films (I wonder if he threw another tantrum when he heard about the casting) and his villain from Inglourious Bastards was particularly chilling. It is going to be an absolute treat to see he and Craig acting together.

Madeline Swann: I kind of hope Swann isn't another Severine, just cast for looks and having little to no influence as a character on the plot. French actress Lea Seydoux is a very attractive young woman, but she is importantly more of an actress than a model and has a rising profile both in and out of her native France. She has appeared in Tarantino's Inglourious Bastards and also had the role of Isabella of Angouleme in Ridley Scott's Robin Hood. It's a promising start.

Lucia Sciarra: now this is the casting that has everyone buzzing. The beautiful Monica Bellucci landed this. At 50, Bellucci, while still stunning, is the oldest Bond girl, unless you consider Judi Dench to have been the Bond girl in Skyfall. Lea Seydoux's character has been acknowledged as the Bond girl, but people may feel differently depending on how large Bellucci's role is and how much influence it has. This is the second time she's been associated with a Bond film (she was a strong contender for the role of Paris Carver in Tomorrow Never Dies). There's been speculation that she may be Blofeld's daughter or even Blofeld, and could be the person who heads SPECTRE, although that's more likely to be Waltz's Oberhauser. Again the prospect of seeing her on screen with Craig and Waltz is mouth watering.

Denbigh: the character of Denbigh (only the one name) is listed as working for Whitehall and that means he's probably a minor character, possibly a politician or bureaucrat, but the casting of Andrew Scott, best known as Moriarty in the Sherlock TV series has me wondering if there's something else to the character.

Mr Hinx: this is listed as a bodyguard/henchman role, it's being filled by Dave Bautista. Dave Bautista is best known as simply Batista; a highly successful WWE wrestler (won the Heavyweight title and the Tag Team title on more than one occasion), he moved into acting a few years ago with guest roles in TV shows and films concentrating on his impressive physique. He's been most recently seen as Drax the Destroyer in Guardians of the Galaxy. His sheer size and physicality makes me think he's going to be a Jaws style henchperson and a handful for Bond.

M: Ralph Fiennes will reprise the role he took on at the end of Skyfall as M, replacing Judi Dench, and what is known about the storyline indicates that he's facing the same battle she was in justifying his position and the existence of MI6. The return of SPECTRE won't make that any easier. The youth of Ralph Fiennes when compared to his predecessors: Bernard Lee, Robert Brown and Judi Dench, may see him take a more hands on role than before.

Miss Moneypenny: Naomie Harris has stepped back into the role of M's frighteningly efficient assistant. Her previous field experience as well as how good she was at that may also see her be her bosses' bodyguard as well. I hope she isn't just stuck behind the desk flirting hopefully with Bond.

Q: Ben Whishaw acquitted himself wonderfully as the old man in a young person's body playing the humourless (I never joke about my work) Q alongside Craig in Skyfall. He'll do the same in SPECTRE and may unveil a few more gadgets.

Mr White: Jesper Christensen confirmed that he was back, presumably with a limp, as one of the main people in Quantum, although I'm willing to bet he and Quantum both dance to the tune called by Blofeld and SPECTRE.

Bill Tanner: Rory Kinnear is back as Tanner, now that his assistant role and probably bodyguard one to M has been usurped by Moneypenny and his technical knowhow superseded by Q, it's hard to see exactly what he'll bring to the table or where he fits in, he may transition into the Chief of Staff role that the character originally held before being hip and shouldered out by Colin Salmon's Charles Robinson.

Not possible to do the Curse of the Bond Girl, Pre credit sequence or Gadgets section here.

Music: it's mostly still a mystery. Thomas Newman will be the composer ageing. Ben Whishaw said that he knows who will perform the theme, but understandably was not allowed to reveal the identity. Adele actually wouldn't be a bad choice to do a Shirley Bassey and become the second artist to do more than one Bond theme, and the only person to ever perform consecutive themes. Other than that I'm coming up blank.