Thursday, March 02, 2006

Double-0 Shut Up

Many things have been playing on my mind this week. Most of them I will go into in more detail tomorrow or on Friday.

In the meantime, this is particularly silly.

Now, you are all probably aware of the fact that during the selection period I was firmly on the Clive Owen, um, camp. But for whatever reason, Daniel Craig was perceived by the powers that be to be the cheaper better option. The deed is done. Daniel Craig was offered and accepted the part.

The main problems that the media and the people behind that absurd website seem to have with Daniel Craig is that he is not very Bond-like. One critic in last Saturday's The Sun compared this "disappointing miscasting" to another potential cultural spectacular: losing the Great British Pound to the Euro (which, by the way, I don't particularly care about either. Would the new money have the Queen's head on it? Am I bothered? Can I still spend it? Yes. Ok then. Silence!)

These are, apparently, the main reasons that Craig has been miscast:

1) He got two teeth knocked out by an extra while rehearsing an action scene.

2) He doesn't like guns.

3) He got seasick when delivered to the casting announcement on a furiously quick SAS raft thing.

4) He's blonde.

For crying out loud.

I don't remember anyone complaining when Sigourney Weaver was cast as Ripley in Alien (the fact that I was six at the time is beside the point) because she didn't have any real life experience in kicking xenomorphic butt. I also don't remember anyone complaining about Tom Hanks being cast in Philadelphia because he didn't actually have AIDS in real life. And I don't remember anyone complaining about Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal being cast in Brokeback Mountain just because they're not gay off screen (and for those of you who might be thinking, but why couldn't they get two gay actors to play those parts? I say to you, would it have been the same if it had been Rupert Everett and Sir Ian McKellan going at it on the range? No. I don't think so.)

Getting back to Daniel Craig. I think people are forgetting some very salient points.

First and foremost Daniel Craig is an actor. He doesn't do the things he does in movies in real life. In real life he's like anyone else.

Well, he's like me, anyway. He's probably not much like you.

Secondly, does anyone seriously think that the makers of Casino Royale will be keeping in the bits where DC hesitantly picks up his Walther PPK between his thumb and his forefinger? Or that they'll keep in the bit where he projectile vomits over the edge of his Sunseeker yacht after a high speed chase down the Nile? And that the bit when the Bond Girl slaps him round the face and leaves a really nasty hand print won't end up on the cutting room floor?

And as for the blonde hair. Well cause, you know, like that's so important. I can just imagine it ... people leaving the movie theatre, muttering things like, Well, I thought the bit where he saved The Houses of Parliament from being destroyed by that nuclear weapon by cutting the wires while riding it and jumping off at the last second before it blew up over a field would have been so much more believable had his hair been slightly more, I don't know, "burnt chestnut"?

Because of the films that I have seen him in, I think that Daniel Craig is a more than proficient actor and will be able to conjure up just the right amount of grit, darkness, brooding, menacing and sex-appeal to play 007 more than adequately. I am sure that he will make me suspend my disbelief long enough for me to enjoy the two or so hours of iconic opening credits, catchy theme tune and mindless, popcorn, formulaic action sequences and wanton destruction.

And lets not forget one other critically important thing about Daniel Craig.

He looks damnfine in a tight pair of beach shorts:

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