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BEST

We’ve tried eschewing the typical “girls, guns and car chases” that traditionally make 007 great and focus on less conventional standout moments of the Bond empire. And no, it’s not just Daniel Craig in swimwear.

1. Sean Connery in pretty much everything

There’s a reason why Connery is considered the best Bond by some. Even while meeting ludicrously named women (Plenty O’Toole, anyone?) or delivering Carry On-esque one-liners, Connery manages to rise about the waft of cheese to ooze sheer unadulterated sex appeal. Gravelly-voiced Scotsmen never go out of style, it seems.

2. James Bond leaps into the 21st century with Casino Royale

After the runaway success of Jason Bourne, the 007 franchise was challenged to produce a meaner, leaner Bond – and when Daniel Craig was cast, the naysayers came out. A beta-male blond Bond in tiny swim shorts? No thanks. Thank god Daniel Craig bulked up and delivered. He comes off as the athletic, physically-trained super spy Bond is meant to be – even if he is wearing a tropical shirt.

3. The Queen finally meets her most loyal subject

OK, so this isn’t actually in a James Bond film. But after years of whispers that the franchise was dead in the water, this was one way to very visibling that Bond wasn’t dead: by having him pop up in the most-watched Olympic ceremony of all time. Plus, you know, corgis.

WORST

It’s worth remembering that James Bond wasn’t always the sleek, efficient killer played by Daniel Craig. In fact, watch any Bond film back and you’re sure to find cringeworthy scenes like the ones below. Just embrace the cheese – America may have Jason Bourne, but we’ll always have Pierce Brosnan parachute surfing over icebergs.

1. The gondola hovercraft in Moonraker

When you’re planning your next 007 marathon, you might want to skip over Moonraker, Roger Moore’s fourth outing in the Bond franchise. While most older Bond films will inevitably jar thanks to a combination of vintage sexism, shoddy special effects and ill-judged racism (Odd-Job, anyone?), Moonraker is just objectively awful. Even the most capable 21st century FX team could not make a gondola hovercraft look cool.

2. Pierce Brosnan surfs a tsunami in Die Another Day

James Bond is meant to be the epitome of a cool, suave killing machine. You know what’s not cool? Parachute surfing. It’s parachute jumping for cowards and gap year tourists on overcrowded Thai beaches.

3. Kananga’s death in Live And Let Die

Live And Let Die was a very weird Bond movie: less secret agent spy fun and more blaxploitation tribute that wound up being, well, a little bit racist – especially considering its hero wasn’t Pam Grier and was actually a white Englishman. (Come on, one of the cars in it is called a “pimpmobile”.) But in terms of sheer ludicrousness, nothing beats main villain Kananga’s death scene. Instead of a satisfying dismemberment or a quip-filled shoot-out, Bond forces him to swallow a shark gun pellet, whereupon Kananga literally balloons and then explodes. What?

Skyfall comes out on Friday. www.skyfall-movie.com

Words: Zing Tsjeng

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What was it that attracted you to this project?

Those two characters, Lisbeth and Mikael. I think that Larrson did a really spectacular job of dramatising the incredibly inhumane things that [Lisbeth] overcomes and I think that Blomkvist appreciates that and can see that. And I like thrillers where the audience is in a slightly resistant place. Their sense of disbelief is much harder because often you put them in a situation that they don’t want to be in and don’t want to experience.

The rape scene of Lisbeth is particularly difficult to digest – why do you think it is important to show that in such graphic detail?

Well, rape is really horrific. I needed people to be horrified and offended by the act itself – so when people say to me “God! The rape in this movie is really upsetting” my attitude is “fuck yeah! It’s supposed to be.” There is a lot of stuff that happens in her back-story that is not part of the first book that informs who she is. So it has to be something that the audience experiences so that you realise that there is so much about her that Mikael doesn’t know and so much that she has experienced first hand so that when she does drops her armour, it’s a real time emotional thing where she allows him into her life and you have experienced what her life has been before that.

For some, listening to Enya has always been a form of torture – do you feel the same way and is this why the song is played during a torture scene?

[Laughs] It was a little sardonic. We were rehearsing the scene and I was explaining that I saw [the torturer] as an audiophile. I like the idea that it was in the late 70s or early 80s that he equipped his dungeon and everything had kind of stayed that way. And when we started talking about the music that should play, it was Daniel Craig who ran to his iPod and scrolled through it and said “This!” and played Orinoco Flow by Enya. We all laughed ourselves silly and thought “we have to do it!”

We heard that Daniel had to get out of shape to play Mikael Blomkvist – but he still looks ripped!

Well, his idea of out of shape is my idea of 10 years of sit-ups. He literally looks the same as he did in Layer Cake – so it’s ridiculous this notion that he got out of shape for this movie, but I did ask him. I said “[Mikael is] not a guy who runs. You smoke 3 packs of cigarettes a day.” It’s what Steig Larrson was talking about – this is a guy that is much more in his head than in his body. He can engage in the things that have happened with Lisbeth but purely intellectually. I always saw the journey as the story of a guy that says “I know the evil that men can do” and she will look at him square in the eye and say “buddy, you have no idea” and by the end of the movie he is a changed man because he has seen it in a completely different way.

Will you direct the sequel?

Oh god. I don’t know that. Not this week!

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is in cinemas December 26th 2011

Words: Seamus Duff

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