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Craig to fans: ‘wait and see’
The sixth and latest Bond, Craig, has met his intellectual match in French actress Eva Green as the smart, stunningly beautiful Treasury official who arranges the money for his “Casino Royale” poker match. She’s no Bond girl strutting around poolside in a bikini, and while she does fall for him (and he for her, in a rare, early example of the spy being consumed by his emotions) it takes awhile.

But from the minute Craig was announced as the next actor to wear that famously tailored tuxedo, he’s been slammed for everything from his blond hair and looks (which are rougher than those of the elegant Bond to which we’ve grown accustomed) to his filmography (“Sylvia,” “Layer Cake,” “Munich”).

“I always said when the criticism started coming through, wait and see what the movie is about because I knew from the very beginning we were going to try and do something,” the British actor told AP Television News. “I wouldn’t have set in on this if we weren’t trying to make a great movie. That was the intention. I was always going, ‘See the movie. If you don’t like it, that’s fine, but wait and see.”’

Regardless of who’s playing Bond, some things have remained constants — the elaborate sets and fashionable costumes, the lavish, jet-set lifestyle and the aura of sexuality, said longtime documentary maker Laurent Bouzereau, author of “The Art of Bond.”

“There’s an element of fantasy in the movies that has been a challenge to juggle,” Bouzereau said. “Aside from Bond, action movies have become more realistic — ’Die Hard’ and such. I think Bond still has to have an element of fantasy, whether it’s sexual fantasy, whether it’s with humor, it’s always there. Even when he kills someone there’s that sort of edge that makes it uniquely Bond.”

Throughout the changing faces of Bond, Bouzereau believes the actor that’s your favorite is the one you saw first.

“With my case it was Roger Moore because the first Bond I saw was ’Live and Let Die,’ and I had a really hard time approaching Sean Connery afterward because I was stuck on Roger Moore,” he said. “I grew up in France and they didn’t have these movies on TV, only in the theaters. It has an influence on the way you perceive the character and sometimes it’s hard to make that leap when they change actors.”

Whitfield, meanwhile, is a fan of the Connery and Dalton films, but said the ones Moore made are a blur.

“They’re wonderful male fantasies, and you don’t really see blood, you don’t see cruelty, you don’t see torture,” he said. “They’re good, clean sadistic fun.”

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