James Bond, we concede, is the ultimate spy fantasy. The fancy tales of a debonair civil servant who rushes to save the world while dallying with beautiful molls has left audiences fascinated for half a century in films alone.
Now Bond, in his 23rd celluloid avatar, gets a ringing endorsement from none other than the newspaper once known as the “Vatican Pravda”.
The papal endorsement for Skyfall with five articles in L’Osservatore Romano, including an interview with Daniel Craig, must easily rate as the holiest blessing Bond has ever got. The Vatican editor had obviously taken Pope Benedict’s mandate to rejuvenate the 151-year-old Holy See mouthpiece quite literally, devoting so much space to what is now hailed as the best Bond film ever.
Bond has not been known to be overtly religious in any of the novels or films even if he may have seemingly needed more than a miracle or two to escape from the clutches of villains in desperate situations. Apparently, Bond seems almost real in his latest incarnation as the papal newspaper notes: it makes him “more human, capable of being moved and of crying: in a word, more real”.
It’s not as if Bond has moved on from temporal matters to tackle religious issues in Skyfall; but to get the Roman Catholic Church, if not God himself, on their side must be good for the filmmakers behind the world’s longest running spy saga with a single character who is a modern metaphor for good triumphing over evil.