Bond and America and Spectre

Originally Posted on November 10, 2015.

It does not seem to have just been my imagination that when American reviewers got their two cents in and suddenly the criticism of the series appeared a whole lot more brutal. The Australian took notice of the tendency too.

The article is mostly a round-up of the less complimentary things American critics have said, but it does offer a reminder that the United States has always been a less friendly market for the franchise than its native Britain--because of factors ranging from the U.S. being disinclined to import its pop culture (and especially its action heroes), a sneering attitude toward the films as bespeaking a perceived British "self-importance" (i.e. Britain still being a "world power" when this has long ceased to be the case), or the frankly unflattering things Ian Fleming often had to say about the country (especially in his later books).

One result is that they may be less forgiving of the weaknesses that pretty much everyone admits on both sides of the ocean.