‘The Most Influential Action Movies Ever Made’
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Conceived in the 1950s and first put to film in 1962, James Bond is in many ways a relic of the past. A Cold War vision of white male fantasy, Bond has had to evolve over the franchise’s six decades, beyond the sexism and racism that marked the character’s influential early chapters. Now, with the release of No Time to Die and the end of the Daniel Craig era, the series is at a crossroads. Who will play the next Bond? But more important, what is James Bond going forward?
On The Atlantic’s podcast The Review, our staff writers Sophie Gilbert, David Sims, and Shirley Li discuss No Time to Die and Bonds both future and past. The trio also share who they want the next Bond to be, why Q is Shirley’s underrated Bond king, and why David considers the Bond franchise “the most influential action movies ever made.”
This episode was produced by Kevin Townsend and edited by A.C. Valdez.
The following transcript contains spoilers for No Time to Die. It has been edited for length and clarity.
Sophie Gilbert: This movie was originally planned for a November 2019 release, and it has been billed as the savior of cinemas post-pandemic. What does Bond mean that he’s so big as a franchise that he is the character that can singlehandedly save cinema?
David Sims: As much as the box office has been rebounding and people are going to see movies, it’s mostly been movies that appeal to younger men. That’s been the demographic that came back first. And I like seeing the superhero movies, but Bond has famously always pulled every demographic. There’s a sort of eternal generational appeal for this almost-60-year-old character.
We’ve become so attuned to what makes a Bond film a Bond film. I was listening to one of the [movie’s] writers talk about [how] you can just have a man walk in and gaze at a car. And in any other movie, You can get an assured reaction from the audience, and I think that says it all about what Bond means.
