The new James Bond film is proving to be a rollercoaster of emotion not seen since Coco Pops changed their name to Choco Krispies and back again a few years ago.

It’s Dougray Scott (DVDs)! It’s Clive Owen (DVDs)! It’s Daniel Craig (DVDs)! It’s Pierce Brosnan (DVDs) again! It’s Your Mum!

While this was all going on there were more pressing concerns. Like
what the actual movie was going to be like. There was a huge difference of
opinion from two camps within the production. One group wanted Bond to
return to his roots, as a dark and serious spy.

The other camp wanted the new film to be super-modern, and have Bond
fighting a billion aliens made out of lightning, or something.

The last film, Die Another Day, seemed to straddle these camps, with
the first half of the movie being about 007′s capture by the North
Koreans and his espionage in Cuba, and the second half was about ice
castles and sky lasers and invisible cars. Needless to say, the start
of the film was better.

So, with a sigh of relief, the world learned that the forthcoming
movie was going to be an adaptation of Casino Royale, Ian Fleming‘s
first Bond book. It’s set in a casino (duh), so the writers couldn’t
possibly shoehorn too many exploding motorbike chases. At least it’s a
decent grounding for the film.

The worst thing that the producers could do now, apart from making
Orlando Bloom the lead, would be to continue down the stupid road
of celebrity cameos.

That traffic warden guy who was in The World Is Not Enough was fine.
He was in it for a fraction of a second, and harldly anyone knew who he
was anyway. Likewise with Oliver Skeete in the last film.

But Madonna? As a rubbish fencing coach? Writing the theme tune,
singing the theme tune? That’s a step too far in the hecklerspray book
of crappy cameos. But hopefully the people in charge of the films know
when they’ve made a mistake, and they’ll learn from it.

What’s that? Mariah Carey‘s going to be in the next one?

Oh, bugger.

[story by Stuart Heritage]