Monkey Man opens on Friday, and I am VERY ready for this movie.
Dev Patel was on The Today Show on Friday talking it up, and I bring this up for two very specific reasons:
- General Handsomeness
- He talks about wanting to see himself and his culture reflected in the action movies he loves.
LET THIS MAN BE JAMES BOND I AM TELLING YOU!
They’re going to cast some plain popsicle as the next Bond, maintaining fifty-plus years of vanilla sameness. Meanwhile, Dev Patel is a whole ass DESSERT, and he is standing RIGHT THERE. Like I’m sure Aaron Taylor-Johnson or similar will give a perfectly fine performance as Bond, and I’m sure the increasingly nationalistic fervor we’re seeing in Britain (and a lot of countries, including the US) will be satisfied by the, er, unwavering continuity of maintaining James Bond as a white guy, but UGH. BORING. There is only so much they can do! Only so much left to be said! It’s been FIFTY YEARS!
People clamoring for Idris Elba to be Bond is as much to do with Idris Elba being a dope as hell actor as it is people wanting to see something new from an old franchise. It’s telling that even at the height of Daniel Craig’s popularity as Bond, even as his Bond films were critically and commercially successful, people STILL wouldn’t shut up about Idris Elba as Bond. Because the thirst is there! And Idris’s moment may have passed but Dev Patel is HERE, and he is ready to QUENCH!
Anyway, we’ll probably get another pasty Bond, and hopefully Monkey Man will be a hit and Dev Patel can write his own checks to whatever he wants next. No matter what happens, though, I will always be haunted by the what if of Dev Patel bringing a character like James Bond into the 21st century, to reflect what 21st century Britain actually looks like.
