It’s
generally accepted now that a big part of the success of Casino Royale’s reboot of
the Bond franchise was its shameless aping of the tone and feel of the Bourne
movies, specifically the Paul Greengrass-directed The Bourne Supremacy. Of course,
this isn’t a particularly new facet of the franchise. Throughout the decades,
Bond flicks have always reflected what’s “hot” during the time in which they’re
made, and while this has resulted in some questionable decisions musically (Let’s
pretend that the Bond themes by A-ha and Garbage never ever ever happened, ok?),
the onscreen choices like adding bits of parkour or Hong Kong martial arts
action usually work out pretty well.
Speaking
of parkour, it accounted for most of Casino Royale’s visual dazzle as
most of the film was centered on
cerebral sparring and intrigue, and now that the series has been
re-established, the action for the next installment must be dialed-up to stay
with the times. Given how well the Bourne–ing of Bond worked the first
time, the producers have decided to go deeper in that vein and have now grabbed
“action designer” Dan Bradley to be the second unit director for Bond
22. Bradley worked on both Greengrass Bourne movies, and since
those films’ car chases and fight scenes left even Casino Royale’s set
pieces in the dust, this is yet another inspired bit of larceny.
Interestingly
enough, Bradley wasn’t merely a designer, but also a second unit director on
the Bourne
films, so I wonder if he was partly or wholly responsible for the much-maligned
“shaky-cam” that rendered Matt Damon’s fight against Martin Csokas in part deux
so unintelligible. Either way, The Bourne Ultimatum fully redeemed
that mistake, so I’m pretty excited for this.