Originally posted by thejonner:Doug Liman is almost always forgotten when it comes to the Bourne films (it may not be a trilogy for much longer...). While Greengrass did an amazing job, Liman started the whole thing off with Identity. For better or worse, the camera style used in the latter two films has influenced the shooting style of action films since. It may be the most influential technique/gimmick for the next few years. You can't even watch a TV documentary without the camera moving about, zooming arbitrarily for no reason and all manner of stylistic bollocks. Greengrass used the style to reflect his lead character's state of mind. Most other directors - without a bloody clue, it seems - mimic the style without realising what they ought to be using it for - it has become a directorial tic that more often than not serves no purpose.
Anyway, love Bourne and Daniel Craig can say they didn't influence Bond all he likes. They did and he knows it. We all do...
Argh, I forgot about Liman...some fan I am
Personally I think the Bond concept has been squeezed for all it's worth and more, and I'm getting a bit tired of the whole business now. I used to be really into the Bond films and really up on my Bond-age* but that came to a halt a long time ago, and since Tomorrow Never Dies I just don't care for them. I've already discussed my reservations about the Daniel Craig films - I'd rather they just left the James Bond concept to rest in peace and started anew with something else, purely because there's something about the Bond 'genre' that's been missing since Goldeneye/Tomorrow Never Dies. I've always maintained that for me, the best Bond films were The Living Daylights, Licence to Kill, On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Goldeneye - the former 3 because, for the most part, I think they're pretty on the money, and the latter because it had Sean Bean
I think the latter two Brosnan films were pretty crap - the only good things to be said about The World Is Not Enough were Robert Carlyle and Robbie Coltrane, although Sophie Marceau's presence always makes me sit up and take notice - and the Daniel Craig films are just feel like Bourne gone British. For me, James Bond died in the late 90s, and there it should have ended.
*that was deliberate lol.
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