I have my lighter side too, and what better time to haul it out than during the holiday season? In that spirit, a column about the new James Bond movie, starring Daniel Craig, the "blond Bond" (wonder how many ad agencies worked over that one?). But first, some thoughts on the Army's new recruiting slogan, "Army Strong." Yes, the slogan is related to Bond; if these two themes were unrelated, I'd have to give this paper an F.

First connection is that the Army's new recruiting slogan is as much show business as the Bond franchise. The Washington Post (November 22) notes that the slogan takes a bow in ads made for television, miniature movies for the small screen. These moviettes come in 30-second and 60-second versions, and are made by a New York ad agency, McCann Erickson, which won a two-year Army contract. (Bet you thought the generals pooled their military expertise to come up with these things!)

This slogan is only the most recent. The article quotes officers wistful for the good old days of "Be All You Can Be." No one seems to have any regrets at the demise of the strange "Army of One," which made the military seem like Rambo heaven, and not the reality of rows of cots in the boot camp barracks. "Army Strong" may require some explanation, but at least it's not a clear disaster from the get-go. The voice-over provides the rest of the context for the to be sure somewhat puzzling idea. As the Post puts it, a deep male voice explains over martial music that "there's strong, then there's Army strong." It's a comparative, like strong/stronger. Okay, I guess we get it now.

So we're comparing movies to movies in mixing recruiting pitches with Bond. The minute-long TV movies are only shorter versions of the more than two hours multiplex one starring Craig. The Post's news article verges on film criticism too, pointing out that all the soldiers are shown in grassy domestic settings (the one thing we don't want to talk about is the reality of Iraq). In only one scene, it notes, do we see anything even remotely desert-like, the background for a tent raising. And in that the soldiers wear no body armor. Apparently the bullets aren't real, or don't ever hit them, or bounce off, the way they do in Superman movies.

These moviettes are in fact an attempt to address a real problem, one that never appears on the screen: the fact that Army recruiting goals weren't met in fiscal 2006, but that numbers came back up later due to higher signing bonuses and relaxed standards. And we hear from inside-the-Beltway (i.e. Washington) scuttlebutt that nobody likes the idea of reinstating the draft. But none of this comes out in the recruiting movies, even though they're about the real thing. You know, where people can really get shot at. In the desert. Or on a bombed-out Baghdad street.

If the movies about real fighters are getting more fairy-tale-like, the longer movies in the multiplexes seem to be getting realer.  Specifically this latest James Bond movie, Casino Royale. The reviews had prepared me for no gadgets: no cool cars, no cool guns. I noted too less sexually-charged banter, fewer raised eyebrows from Bond, only one "shaken, not stirred," and an almost invisible number of repetitions of the trademark "Bond. James Bond."

That's what's not here. What do we get instead? Bond, a sawed-off square-shouldered workhorse of a guy who spends the first ten minutes of the movie pumping away on foot at full speed after a small-time crook. Yes, there are Superman-like leaps from buildings and onto cranes, and plenty of times where Bond could go splat-though of course we know the rules well enough to know he won't do that at all, and certainly not at the opening of the movie. All in all, our reaction is: this guy is getting seriously aerobic, and it looks like hard work. Plus, his traps are over-developed for the rest of him. Personal reaction.
All this pounding the pavement turns out, indicatively, to end in a screw-up rather than a fantasy finish. Bond shoots up an embassy, a big no-no in international circles. When he goes back to London it's to be berated by the most unamused battle-axe since Queen Victoria, the apparently perennially pissed-off and exasperated Judi Dench as his boss, M. The poor guy doesn't have much stud credibility left after she's wiped the floor with him. He breaks into her moderne flat to try and explain, only to have her tell him that if he says one more word she'll "have him killed." We're convinced she will, too. The guns-for-hire are nothing but small change to M. As he leaves she says this: "Bond. One more thing. Don't ever break into my house again." Whoa. Ready to sign on yet? Didn't think so.

Finally he gets a little rolling around on the bed with a gorgeous woman as if to compensate for these insults to his manhood. But he leaves her alone to go save a plane in Miami, ordering the champagne from room service only for one. He comes back to find her having been tortured to death.

I think M16 needs a new ad agency--maybe McCann Erickson still can fit them in?

Even the card-playing of the title casino (in Montenegro-I'd say it looks like a fun place to visit, but I'd be afraid of being caught in gun crossfire) is drudgery and nothing else. It's about millions for the British government (I could explain, but then I'd have to kill you) and if Bond loses, his ass is grass. He interrupts play to get over being almost fatally poisoned, and to kill two guys who are running after him down a service staircase. He isn't even actually sleeping with his gorgeous female accomplice, though it has to look as if he is to distract his competitor players. Later on when he actually is (sleeping with her, that is), she turns out to be a double-cross and a whole palazzo in Venice falls down.

Damn. This 007 business looks worse than being a SEAL trainee in Hell Week (no sleep, ultra-hard evolutions, freezing-cold water, plus the mental torture: go ahead, just ring the bell, it'll all be over). And when the bad guys get Bond, do they threaten his pecs? Not a bit of it. They thwack at his balls with a knotted rope. Is that humiliating or what? It's probably the way even we studs and wannbe studs would be tortured, but it sure hurts to think about it. This is way too real.

That's the way everything is in this new Bond film. Everything glamorous is a façade or transitory. A beautiful house in the lake isn't a beautiful house, it's a place to wait out the hit men. It's irrelevant whether or not women are hot since they're going to double-cross you anyway. A rhymes-with-witch at the top tells you what to do and treats you with contempt. And your muscles aren't for looking good in your swimsuit or filling out a dinner jacket, they're for the pure functionality of being able to pull yourself to safety when the third-world gun runner is behind you.

Now that, I think, is reality. Not the world of these new Army moviettes.

Realism in the fictional world, fantasy in the real. Something's up here. Prize given for best answer of what. In the meantime, I just hope we still know the difference between the two worlds, and that all those nice boys and girls signing up with their friendly "Army Strong" recruiter will have seen the realistic Bond movie rather than the fantasy on TV.