The British news services really stay on top of developments in the James Bond series, which figures, since it's probably the best contemporary evidence that they used to have an empire. (I expect that within a couple of decades, American news services will show the same obsessive interest in who gets cast to play Bruce Willis's two-fisted grandson in Die Hard VIII: Live Free, Die Hard, and Leave a Good-Looking Corpse.) The latest casting news is that Ukrainian model Olga Kurylenko, who recently starred with a shaven-headed, baffled-looking Timothy Olyphant in Hitman, will play the "sidekick" to Daniel Craig's Bond in what will be the twenty-second installment of the time-honored, recently re-booted franchise. The movie also stars Mathieu Amalric of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly as the villain and features returning performers Judi Dench (as M), Jeffrey Wright (continuing to serve as the most overqualified actor ever to play Felix Leiter), and international man of mystery Giancarlo Giannini, who was last seen in Casino Royale being dragged offscreen after being tasered at Bond's request, but who apparently holds no hard feelings, being one of those adaptable European sophisticates.
It all sounds pretty good, except for a couple of things. First, the director this time in Marc Forster, the almost talent-free auteur of Monster's Ball and The Kite Runner, a man who has proven himself capable of practically anything, so long as it blows. But with Craig and the others in place, how badly can he screw it up, you ask? Well, it's reported that the new movie "is expected to follow on from the events of Casino Royale, with Bond picking up the pieces after being double-crossed by Treasury agent Vesper Lynd. Producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli said Camille 'challenges Bond and helps him come to terms with the emotional consequences of Vesper's betrayal'." This has a creepy touchy-feely aspect to it that might as well be calculated to set veteran Bond fans' teeth on edge. Not that we have any problem with James Bond touching and feeling, but in his own preferred style. For instance, in the opening of Diamonds Are Forever, Sean Connery's Bond came to terms with the emotional consequences of the murder of his wife in the previous film, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, by touching the villain responsible for the foul deed, strapping him to a surgical table, and rolling it into a handy flaming pit, after which he looked as if he felt just fine. And Connery hadn't even been in On Her Majesty, which just goes to show how he was willing to go that extra mile to come to terms with something that hadn't happened on his watch. The new Bond movie is due to be released this fall, at which point all will become clear, or at least as clear as a James Bond plot ever is. But here's hoping that, even as we speak, Forster isn't shooting a scene with Daniel Craig waking up in his bed in a psychiatric hospital to discover that Dr. Phil is barging through the door. Or if he is, that there's a flaming pit somewhere in the room.