Whether you love or hate the current iteration of James Bond with Daniel Craig in the lead role, one thing you have to admit is that there’s very little humor. Despite one or two lines in Casino Royale (and the unintentional hilarity of all of Quantum of Solace), there’s not a lot of jokes, sexual innuendo, or even self-aware winks at the genre that characterize some of the best Bond films of yesteryear. Now, according to Daniel Craig himself, there’s hope that Bond 24 will try to get some of that old irony back again.
Speaking to Vulture (via Digital Spy), Craig admitted that he’s not the funniest guy in the world, but he wants Bond 24 to be a little ironic:
Hopefully we’ll reclaim some of the old irony and make sure it doesn’t become pastiche.
I can’t do shtick, I’m not very good at it. Unless it kind of suddenly makes sense. Does that make sense? I sometimes wish I hammed it up more, but I just can’t do it very well, so I don’t do it.
So while we shouldn’t expect his Bond to begin winking at the camera too much, there’s a chance that we might get back to some of the basics that made James Bond so very … well, James Bond.
I’m glad to hear that Craig’s pulling for a return to irony in the Bond franchise. I admit that I’m not a huge fan of his Bond; even Skyfall felt needlessly long, and less like a James Bond movie than a Jason Bourne rip-off. There’s no reason that Bond 24 can’t be gritty and funny at the same time. Part of the fun of the franchise are the jokes that give the films an edge of not quite taking the whole thing too seriously. While that can go too far (see Die Another Day), the best Bond films balance out the violence with the ridiculous spy-fi nature of the whole enterprise. I’ve begun to miss old school villains like Goldfinger, and old school jokes like Sean Connery’s response to meeting a woman named Pussy Galore. If we can get some of that back, Craig’s Bond might very well rise in my estimation.
As yet, though, we don’t even know what the title for Bond 24 is going to be. There’s rumor that it will be based on Sebastian Faulks’s novel Devil May Care, but that’s still just speculation. We do know that Sam Mendes is back to direct, Craig is back to star and that it will hit US theatres in November 2015. Then we’ll get to see if Craig really can bring some of the old irony back to Jimmy.