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Twice in my life I have watched an action movie and left the theater so psyched that I can’t stop singing the film’s theme song and practicing jujitsu on random pieces of furniture. The first time I had just seen Batman Begins and when I got home I made a sheet into a cape and karate kicked a lamp in the chest.
The second time was this week after watching Casino Royale, the new James Bond film. I strutted from the AMC humming the classic James Bond bass line, aiming my imaginary pistol (with silencer attached) at innocent bystanders on the sidewalk, and generally hulking around with my traps rolled up to my ears like I was Daniel Craig, a.k.a. The Blond Bond, walking up a beach in skimpy Euro-trunks.
Batman Begins and Casino Royale, at first glance, don’t seem that alike, but they are. For two reasons:
1. They show how the hero became the hero. Casino Royale begins with James Bond getting promoted to “Double-O” status (and I agree with Dods – they could have started even earlier, when James was in elementary school, making out with girls under the bleachers, beating the crap out of bullies, and drinking martinis from a Transformers thermos), and Batman Begins follows Bruce Wayne from young boy with a fear of bats to a superhero with titanium abs.
2. James Bond and Bruce Wayne are vincible. Batman wasn’t born on a different planet, and he wasn’t bitten by a spider. He’s just a rich guy with great reflexes, a mastery of the martial arts, and a chip on his shoulder. And in Casino Royale, Bond almost dies like eight times. It’s a good thing he keeps a defibrillator in his glove compartment. I do too, but only because I need it to get the Jetta’s back right window up every time it rolls itself down.
Both movies focus on (relatively) regular guys, who have turned themselves into killing machines. And because I’ve seen at least part of this transformation on screen, I’m confident that I could morph myself into an American version of James Bond (Batman has way too much money – that’s the limiting factor there). All I would have to do is hit the gym, concentrating especially on my traps, learn a few foreign languages, lose my aversion to firearms, and work on my pick-up lines. Then I would be James Bond.
No you wouldn’t.
A Why not?
Because you would still be afraid to die. James Bond and Bruce Wayne are both orphans, which fuels their recklessness.
A Fine. So just pretend I’m reckless, too ; )
You’re gonna have to stop inserting winky-faces if I’m supposed to take you seriously as a reckless secret agent.
A Good point. > (
What’s that?
A A smiley face with a fierce look of determination (note the inverted eyebrows) and a frown.
That’s about as intimidating as a poodle puppy.
A With long fangs and blood dripping out of its mouth?
No.
I was so excited after watching Casino Royale that I went home and wrote myself into a James Bond movie. It’s basically exactly like any other Bond movie except I play Bond and Bond has some of my personality traits. I kind of got confused as to when James Bond should be James Bond and when he should be me, so you’ll probably get confused too, but just think of any inconsistency as a plot twist or something.
This is the first scene from the movie, and it helps explain how James Bond showed promise as a secret agent from a young age:
A kindergarten classroom in 1985. We see all the kids, and then we see a boy, JAMES BOND/ME, who looks younger than his classmates because he’s only three years old. Despite his age, he has a determined demeanor, and his face looks like this: > ( if you were to turn your head ninety degrees to the left. We see the female TEACHER, who is in her early thirties, hot, and wearing horn-rim glasses and a cardigan with a plunging neckline.
TEACHER: Blah, blah, blah.
INTERRUPTING PRINCIPAL OVER THE LOUDSPEAKER: I have a very important announcement: there’s a bomb in the building, kids! Aaaaahhhhhhhh!
KIDS: Aaaaaahhhhh!
TEACHER: Aaaaaaahhhhh!
I stand up on my desk and yell for everyone to remain calm, but nobody listens, so I take out a gun and fire it at the ceiling. Everyone shuts up.
ME (to Teacher): Let me handle this. You’re freaking out, the principal’s freaking out, someone’s gotta take charge.
TEACHER: You’re too young, James. I know we allowed you into kindergarten two years before you were eligible, but that was only because you have an English accent so we assumed you were smart. But you’re not actually that smart. You can’t even read or tie your shoelaces.
ME: Fine. But you’re totally stressed out, so let me give you a back massage.
TEACHER: Okay.
I walk behind the teacher and start massaging her back, and at first she’s very rigid, but then she’s like, “Oh, James!” Right when she starts to loosen up, I snap her neck with a quick twist and I’m off to the Principal’s office. I bust down the door.
PRINCIPAL: Aaaaaaaahhhh!
ME: Chill.
PRINCIPAL: Okay.
ME: Where’s the bomb?
PRINCIPAL: I don’t know.
ME: Why?
PRINCIPAL: Because when the terrorist called in the bomb threat, he didn’t say where it was. He only said that I’d know when things came to a boil. And I said, “What?” And he said, “You’ll know when things come to a boil,” and then he kept repeating the word boil, like it was supposed to mean something.
ME: The boiler room, you idiot!
And I snap the principal’s neck just for being stupid and putting us all in danger. Then I run to the boiler room where, sure enough, I find a ticking time bomb. There’s only ten seconds left until it explodes! I see a bunch of wires, but I don’t have time to dismantle the bomb, so I just pick it up and throw it out an open window. It lands on a school bus, and the bus explodes, and a fourth grader, who is on fire, runs from the bus, but he’s a small price to pay for saving the whole school, and he shouldn’t have been hanging out in the parking lot smoking pot anyway.
---
That’s the first scene. Soon after, the CIA comes to my house and asks if I want to go to Secret Agent Camp. I say sure.
Time out.
A Why?
Because your screenplay sucks so far.
A Why?
Because it’s totally unrealistic.
A It’s kind of realistic.
No, it’s not.
A Well, it doesn’t have to be realistic.
Yes, it does! That’s the whole reason you liked Casino Royale – because it was at least plausible. There were no ridiculous plots to blow up the world, and no invisible cars, and no Pierce Brosnans pretending to be athletic.
A True.
And you liked the fact that Bond was susceptible to the charms of a smart and beautiful woman, that he didn’t treat her like a disposable inflatable doll, and that he grapples with the moral taxation inherent in leading the life of a secret agent.
A All true, actually.
As much as I liked Daniel Craig as the new Bond, what really made Casino Royale for me was the new Bond Girl, Eva Green. First of all, she’s beautiful. Second of all, they allowed her to be intelligent, which makes for a much more compelling love interest. Here’s a graph to explain how a smart pretty girl brings much more to the table (over the long haul) than a hot slut:
Unfortunately I can’t use Eva Green in the Bond movie that I’m writing because she already appeared in Casino Royale, so let’s just assume that the Bond Girl in my movie shares all Eva Green’s physical traits, but let’s give her lighter hair and a barely detectable, but very beguiling accent just so nobody can say, “Hey, that girl is just like Eva Green!” When she’s trying to say, “Bagel and cream cheese,” she will instead say, “Beh-gul and cream cheese.”
But this is why I would never be a good secret agent: I would always be falling for my “contact” and asking her to move to coastal Montenegro with me to open a quaint bed and breakfast. Obviously it would be hard to be an effective secret agent while running a bed and breakfast in Montenegro, but more importantly, I would probably die a lot because the Bond Girls usually end up working for the bad guys.
So there would be many scenes like this one:
I exit the house and walk onto a porch that overlooks bluffs and blue Mediterranean. BOND GIRL is waiting for me, topless, wearing only a sarong. I am wearing an apron that says, BOND. CHEF BOND, and I am holding a tray full of freshly baked chocolate chip muffins. I am also wearing oven mitts that look like lobster claws because the tray is hot.
ME: Good moooooorning! I made chocolate chip muffins!
The Bond Girl smiles, then stops smiling. She pulls out an AK-47 and aims it at my head.
BOND GIRL: Chocolate chip muffins? More like, semi-automatic CLIP muffins!
ME: What?
But she’s already opened fire, and I have to use the muffin tray to block the bullets, totally ruining the muffins and pissing me off. When she runs out of bullets, I throw the muffin tray at her forehead, Frisbee style, which momentarily stuns her. Then I strangle her with my lobster claw oven mitts, but while I’m strangling her, I’m crying my eyes out because I really liked her.
---
But that scene, as good as it is –
It’s not good.
A Whatever.
As good as it is, it wouldn’t have a place in my Bond movie because I wouldn’t want the Bond Girl to be a bad guy. That’s why I’ll never be a good screenwriter. Instead of the above scene, I included moments like this one:
I am on that same porch with the Bond Girl and she’s wearing the same thing, and smiling at me, but she isn’t going to try to shoot me this time.
BOND GIRL: Thanks for bringing out the behguls and cream cheese.
ME: You’re wel – Wait. Say bagel again.
BG: Behgul.
ME: Hahahaha. No. It’s BAY-gul.
BG: BEH-gul?
We both laugh.
ME: Say Las Vegas.
BG: Las Veh-gus.
ME: Hahaha. No, Las Vegas!
We laugh again, then make out.
---
Oh my God, that’s awful.
A Sorry.
That scene sucked worse than the first one.
A And there’s more where it came from. That dialogue goes on for like seventeen pages, with me making the Bond Girl say different long-A words. I cut it down for the column’s sake.
It’s sappier than Aunt Jemima hugging a maple tree.
A I know. Nobody’s ever going to let me write a Bond screenplay.
And unfortunately, I don’t think anybody’s going to let me be a secret agent either. Whenever an Bond Girl showed up, I would be way too eager to cash in my license to kill for a license to run a bed and breakfast in Montenegro. That would not only make me an ineffective Bond, but it would also make for a bad movie. And I would get killed a lot.
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