James Bond 007 film-by-film thread

Never Say Never Again:

Ah, now this one is really leaves me both a little bit confused and annoyed.

I hate this film, and I have never considered it worthy of being ranked alongside any of the Eon productions, even their lesser offerings.
It came across as a very substandard Bond when I originally went to see it in the theater. To be a completest I picked up the DVD when it was initially released, and boy, did I ever regret it. It was multiply worse than I had remembered and I quickly rid myself of that stinky piece of polycarbonate.

Simply, it's a remake of Thunderball, but without the style, wit or inspiration that propelled those early Bond films. And even though I'm not a big fan of Thunderball, it's much more watchable than this steamy pile.

As I recall, the original story was the only Fleming based novel that was not under license to the Broccoli/Saltzman/Wilson production team because the original screenplay (which derived the subsequent novel) was co-written by Fleming and others. So this story was up for grabs if anyone wanted to do a remake. The potential was there because the novel is an excellent espionage story. But this movie is bland, boring, derivative, lame, and mind-bendingly pointless. There are a small handful of brief, enjoyable bits in the film that recall the better moments of the Bond legacy, but they're not enough to rescue what is basically a bad movie.

So, a pass for me.

 

At least Berry became a decent actress. Roberts and Richards are very beautiful but they are both horrible actresses that somehow still managed to earn a living "acting".

 

A View To A Kill:

Yeah, this one is certainly bottom of the barrel Bond.

AVTAK is the only Bond film I have not seen in the theater since Roger Moore took the helm. (I was pretty busy with school at the time and wasn't getting out much. Plus the reviews were not very kind.)
I finally saw the movie when the initial series of Bond Special Edition DVDs were released. At the time, I didn't think it was too bad. Better that I expected anyway. But I was never interested enough to go back and see it again, until I picked up the Bond 50 blu-ray set not too long ago. This time, I found the movie almost unwatchable.

I think it starts off O.K., but it just goes downhill from there. The production seems low grade, and the plot is uninteresting. Tanya Roberts has got to be the most uninspired Bond girl in franchise history. The airship chase was so stupid it was out loud laughable. The last half of the movie is just dead. But yeah, Duran Duran did their Duran Duran thing well enough. The title sequence sounds great on blu-ray. And, unfortunately, Roger Moore definitely was in for one film too many, which is too bad because I've always considered him to be a great Bond despite the movie.

Eon's low point in the Bond franchise.

 

Production values is a bit cheesy. But I like this Bond film just wish it had a better composer. Love Legrand, but not his Bond score.

 

View To A Kill

This is my wife’s favorite Bond movie. I think that’s because she was born and raised in the bay area.

This also was the last movie we saw in a theater before we were married, so that may have something to do with it. She finally got her Bond!

So yeah, we've been married like a thousand years. But I digress.

I find the movie decent, if about 2/3 of the way in, I skip about 15 minutes of it. The whole big house thing seems like a waste of time.

I actually like Walken’s crazy, unhinged, unbalanced act. He kills a lot of people, but they are all his own bad guys.

But I mean Dude, what were you thinking? Don’t get out of the blimp!

 

Oh, I forgot to mention one other thing about A View To A Kill that I think warrants its bad rep...Grace Jones. OMG, she cannot act. So painful to watch her try.

 

I can watch all 3 of them with the sound off.
(if my wife reads that my thousand years will be up)

 

Never Say Never Again is a weird Bond movie. It just doesn't quite have the right feel to it. Barbara Carrera's character is pretty entertaining. and when she tries to get Bond to say that she's the greatest woman he's ever had, his reply is so awesome 'well to be perfectly honest...there was this girl in Philadelphia'

 

The opening training scene is straight out of Predator, Bond sAves the damsel then gets stabs is the best bit..later throwing his own sample urine on villains face was brilliant,very funny.

 

Not surprising that A View To A Kill is getting a bashing so far. It nearly always does.

The pre titles looks expensive and starts well, but there is no real pay off. Beach Boys ripoff was a rotten idea. It ruins the flow of the soundtrack as well as spoiling the action.

Not keen on the titles. Very dark and the 80s look on the models is tacky. Great Duran Duran song though. Probably the song which for me strikes the perfect balance between the movie and the artist, in that it is a great Bond song and a great Duran Duran song and fits perfectly in amongst their hits and 007 hits.

This doesn't have the out and out silly moments of Octopussy, and yet is a silly movie, although it then veers off into some dark moments such as Zorin gunning down all of his men.

Moore looks younger here than the last time. He's had work done and his hair lacquered on, and I guess without that he'd have been very wrinkled by this time. He also seems trimmer. It all should have helped him through his last outing, but in Octopussy he did a fair amount of his action work, whereas here he can't even do a spot of running. There's an awful scene as he exits the Eiffel Tower where you can see the stuntman doing the run before the close up of Roger. Plus all the stuntmen look completely different from him, terrible work.

There is a fight at Zorin's chateau that looks useless and a fight at Stacey's house with I think it looks like Harpo Marx. A fire truck chase versus the Keystone Cops, and a high speed blimp escape. You couldn't make it up. Sometimes they get the action right. The horse chase is corny but better.

This is the Bond movie where you get to see Grace Jones mount Roger Moore. He survives.

There are loads of corny one-liners, a mad german schientust juggles sticks of dynamite, Bond invents snowboarding and a stereotypical French taxi driver improves his English - "Oh ma caaarrrrrrr!"

Then there is the Bond girl. We'd turned a corner after the 70s, but here we hit an all time low. Stacey is supposed to be a serious character holding down an important job, but Tanya Roberts looks like an 80s airhead. She's way too young for Bond. I'd survive her not being believable as a geologist, if they just stopped her from screaming "James" over and over. Grating.

Somehow this film dances out of the fire. It has some redeeming features. The Patrick Macnee / Roger Moore teaming works perfectly. Some lovely humour there. Alison Doody and particularly Fiona Fullerton look fantastic. Zorin is a suitably over the top baddie. The set at the mine is impressive. It has some of the best and most iconic locations, Eiffel Tower and Golden Gate Bridge in one movie.

Then the great theme song is coupled with one of the best Bond soundtracks. John Barry comes up with a great secondary action theme, first heard in the pre titles snow chase. A beautiful romantic version of the main theme for Bond meeting Stacey. Plus more great cues for the horse chase, the horse stables, Patrick Macnee getting killed, Bond hiding underwater, Bond escaping in the mine, Bond rescuing Stacey at City Hall and the blimp heading to Silicon Valley.

Probably gets dragged up to lower mid table.

 

A View to a Kill (1985)

Oh dear. This is very bad. The story itself is uninteresting and plodding with a dead-end first half (concerning horse doping) that has little connection to the second half (flooding Silicon Valley). The story is just a bit of a plodding bore and it feels oddly small in scale. I was not engaged and I ended up watching all the non-action scenes at x2 just to get it over with as fast as possible. I also watched it over two days (initially giving up on the film at the 40 minute point due to acute boredom).

The quality of the filmmaking has taken a bafflingly large nosedive since the previous film, Octopussy (1983), which was mostly made by the same people. The joins between the first and second units are all too obvious, especially during the Paris section. It’s sloppily made with little display of technical competence or technique.

Roger Moore was getting too old for the role, Christopher Walken is given little to do and Grace Jones is utterly charmless. Also it takes about 75 minutes until the romantic interest Bond girl turns up, which is far too late for her to make any worthwhile impact – not that the actress was any good or given decent material to work with.

It’s a weak, boring story poorly filmed. The movie just doesn’t work and little clicks into place, including some interesting action scene ideas. All that can be said for film is that a few of the stunts look good. Also the title song’s refrain of, ‘Dance into the fire,’ is annoyingly memorable.

Very bad


Best to worst IMO (films ranked as I watched them so this list has some weight to it)

Live and Let Die (1973)

The Living Daylights (1987)

Diamonds Are Forever (1971)

Licence to Kill (1989)

Goldfinger (1964)

Dr No (1962)

Thunderball (1965)

The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

Moonraker (1979)

The World is Not Enough (1999)

Goldeneye (1995)

Octopussy (1983)

On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)

Casino Royale (2006)

For Your Eyes Only (1981)

Never Say Never Again (1983)

Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

Die Another Day (2002)

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

You Only Live Twice (1967)

Skyfall (2012)

Spectre (2015)

Quantum of Solace (2008)

A View to a Kill (1985)

From Russia with Love (1963)

 

I really enjoy your in depth reviews of Bond movies, but I just can't get over rating From Russia With Love at the bottom of your list. For me basically invalidates all your other reviews (they are all still a good read, regardless).

 

From Russia with Love is such a boring film. Utterly tedious. I'm baffled how anyone likes it. If given the option of watching either From Russia with Love or A View to a Kill again I'd chose A View to a Kill without any hesitation. It's at least crap in an interesting way (such as comically obvious stunt doubles and a blimp appearing from out of nowhere to surprise someone) while Russia is just dull, dull, dull.

 

Very odd dismissal,agree.

 

Yeah, your take on this completely baffles me. From Russia With Love has a bunch of SPECTRE baddies, each played well with a good script to work with, a beautiful and talented leading lady and well-set and paced action scenes. The plot is also excellent. Sean Connery was never better (save perhaps in Goldfinger) and the movie is consistently ranked in the top 3 best James Bond movies. "Tedious" is a word I would never associate with this film.

 

The train scene is regarded the best Bond fight.

 

I absolutely agree with this. And Robert Shaw, old boy, is probably my favorite Bond bad guy.

 

It reminded me of Hitchcock a bit with that shoe /dagger kitchen fight scene with Lotta Lenya.

 

Spectre is worse than A View to a Kill, in my opinion... the latter is what it is (and I'm not making excuses for the largely dull, uninspired Bond film that it is), but the former had an 'auteur' prestigious Oscar-winning director plus an Oscar-winning screenwriter behind it... and it still stank like a whorehouse at high noon!!!

Spectre is to Bond what Day 6 is to 24... you wonder how they got it so right in the preceding film/season and so very wrong in the next, despite the same people being responsible for both.

 

The 1970's were a tough decade for Sean Connery. After Diamonds Are Forever, Connery spent much of the '70's simultaneously groping for respect as an actor and to recapture the mass success he'd enjoyed as James Bond. Connery had some hits - Murder on the Orient Express, The Man Who Would Be King - but his movies were mostly misses, many of them ill-advised stinkers like Meteor and the infamous Zardoz. (Connery -"Floating headsh and a shpeedo - shign me up!")

Connery did have one card left to play - a much rumored return as James Bond. He'd explored the idea as early as 1976, co-writing a script with author Len Deighton and Thunderball rights owner Kevin McClory called "James Bond of the Secret Service" that featured Blofeld, remote controlled sharks, and a threat against the city of New York. Connery knew his box office appeal had take a hit in his post-007 years (that speedo in Zardoz sure as hell didn't help) and while he was still working steadily, a comeback as James Bond would be catnip to ambitious movie studios looking to get a piece of the still-profitable Bond action.

Enter the lawyers. EON - now jointly controlled by Cubby Broccoli and United Artists (who bought out Harry Saltzman) - got wind of McClory and Connery's plans and immediately started throwing around the injunctions, the cease and desists, and the Latin legalese to halt the project. Broccoli was then in pre-production of The Spy Who Loved Me and knowing his own position wasn't entirely solid, asked the screenwriters to change that film's villain from Blofeld into Stromberg (who still ended up pretty much as Blofeld, minus the cat) fearing McClory's not unreasonable claim he'd created those characters with Ian Fleming specifically for Thunderball.

Meanwhile, producer/lawyer Jack Schwartzman - husband of Talia Shire, brother-in-law to Francis Ford Coppola, and father of Jason - figured out the only way McClory and Connery could make their movie free and clear of all this legal wrangling was to flat-out remake Thunderball. By this time it was 1981 and Connery's luck at the box office hadn't improved. Meanwhile, Roger Moore's Bond movies were still packing them in and Moore himself was making a fortune. Little wonder putting on a tuxedo and toupee looked like a good option to Connery, who decided it was time to play that card.

Never Say Never Again was the eventual end result. While it's initially odd to see a Bond movie free of the now-familiar elements - the gun barrel opening, Bond theme, and opening credits - Never Say Never Again is a solid entry in the series. Yes, it suffers from the same problems that plagued Thunderball - the plot moves slowly and the underwater action still isn't very exciting - but the movie also improves on the original with a few surprisingly fresh innovations and some knowing nods to past glories.

...and glory of glories, Sean Connery is back as James Bond. Not back as in Connery's filling out a tux and looking around at the scenery - he's BACK. This is his best performance as Bond since...well, the original Thunderball. And he looks freaking great. Not just great for 53 - Connery's age at the time - but great in the "you and I will NEVER look that good" great. To his and the film's credit, Connery plays his age - his an older and wiser but not necessarily tamer James Bond. This stood in direct contrast to Roger Moore's Bond, who was portrayed as somewhat ageless, despite clear evidence to the contrary on the big screen. Never Say Never Again isn't afraid to run with the concept of an older James Bond, though the idea is explored more for comic relief than mined for dramatic potential.

Connery's also a little lighter in his approach to Bond, which works for me given the film's inescapable "been there, done that" feeling. Connery's not camping it up, but is keenly self aware the only reason this movie exists is to be James Bond just one more time.

Connery is helpfully surrounded by a terrific cast and as they should almost always, the villains nearly steal the show. Klaus Maria Brandauer's Largo erases any comparison to Adolfo Celi's Largo - certainly a plus for a remake. Brandauer's Largo is twisted, obsessive, and delightfully smug - and yet, free of the fossilized stereotypes of Bond villainy. He wears no eye patch, no Chairman Mao leisure suit, or black jumper - no, Largo wears sweaters. He holds benefits for orphaned children and probably tips well, too. What Largo IS however, is bat**** crazy and a bit of a sadist. That he would invent a video game that shocks its players comes as no surprise to the audience, nor his obsessive love for Kim Basinger's Domino. Just check out the spit-drenched kiss he gives Domino before selling her off into slavery in North Africa (...an uncomfortable low point in the movie).

Still, Brandauer saves the crazy for the right moments and wisely underplays the role through most of the movie. One of my favorite moments comes when Bond is caught snooping around Largo's yacht underwater and captured. He'd been invited to lunch a day before and when presented to Largo, the villain simply says "You're a bit early for lunch" knowing full well what he's been up to.

The other, flashier villain is the wildly entertaining Fatima Blush, played by the wildly entertaining Barbara Carrera. Unafraid to go for broke, Carrera dances into scenes, rushes down hallways, and impatiently taps her designer shoes - her Blush is constantly in motion, spreading equal parts lust and violence in her wake. Her scenes with Connery (and repeated attempts to kill Bond) are high points of the film. Hell, the film's main action sequence is her attempting to pursue and capture James Bond after having lured him out into action by killing his assistant. At the climax, when she's dispatched via an exploding pen, the movie misses her gonzo approach and attitude.

(Though I'm always left wondering what secret mission took James Bond to Philadelphia - the ongoing war between Pat's and Geno's?)

Rounding out the cast are Bernie Casey as Felix Leiter, who has good chemistry with Connery and even gets in some of the action in the climax, Edward Fox as M (not the M, but the new uptight M who's less enthusiastic about the 00 section's worth), and a clever cameo from Johnny English himself, Rowan Atkinson as Monty Python's Upper Class Twit, gainfully employed in the British Diplomatic corps.

That the actors bring their A-game is important because Never Say Never Again has a difficult time overcoming the weaknesses of the original material. The needlessly complicated plot still takes forever to get going and once it does there's very little urgency about it. The movie meanders, drifting from one lush location to the next (Michel Legrand's lethargic score is no help - incapable of providing momentum or menace). Also, terrifying as it would be in the real world, the idea of stealing two atomic bombs and holding the Western powers hostage seems almost quaint in a James Bond movie. One of the stolen bombs somehow ends up under the White House - and I would have rather seen 007 try and find that bomb, rather than the one threatening the Middle East. I'm not making a political point here, just that James Bond saving the White House and Washington DC from death and destruction sounds like so much more fun than a shoot-out in a cave.

In hindsight, it's easy nitpicking Never Say Never Again for what it wasn't, rather than simply enjoying it for what it is - one more reason for Sean Connery to play James Bond. That alone is reason enough for me to enjoy and appreciate the movie. As Largo himself says after having chained Bond in a room full of vultures "You were a very good secret agent".

Not even close. He was the best.

 

That was a terrific review.
Aside, what did you think of OHMSS?

 

I posted a review of OHMSS earlier in this thread. Thanks for the compliment - I'm glad you enjoyed it!!

 

The Living Daylights (1987)

James Bond (Timothy Dalton) helps a Russian general to defect to the West.

I was surprised to find this to be the best of the Bond films I've watched so far [watched before Live and Let Die (1973)]. I've always liked it, and I've always rated Dalton as a good Bond, but I didn't expect it to be stronger than Goldeneye etc [I used to rate Goldeneye as probably the best Bond film]. The reason why it's good is because it's got a real proper story. One scene leads to the next in a smooth, logical, coherent manner unlike some of the other films that are just a string of random action scenes strung along a very rickety storyline that has to conveniently contrive connections from one section to the next. With a proper story to pay attention to I was engaged throughout.

There's a bit too many gadgets shoehorned in for no good reason.

The last third is now a bit iffy due to reversals in the geopolitical situation in Afghanistan since the film was made.

John Glen is also a competent director so it was mostly well-made with only a few iffy moments of poor production. It was a good film.

Good


Best to worst IMO (films ranked as I watched them so this list has some weight to it)


Live and Let Die (1973)

The Living Daylights (1987)

Diamonds Are Forever (1971)

Licence to Kill (1989)

Goldfinger (1964)

Dr No (1962)

Thunderball (1965)

The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

Moonraker (1979)

The World is Not Enough (1999)

Goldeneye (1995)

Octopussy (1983)

On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)

Casino Royale (2006)

For Your Eyes Only (1981)

Never Say Never Again (1983)

Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

Die Another Day (2002)

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

You Only Live Twice (1967)

Skyfall (2012)

Spectre (2015)

Quantum of Solace (2008)

A View to a Kill (1985)

From Russia with Love (1963)

 

I love The Living Daylights. I often cite it as my favourite Bond movie outright, which astonishes some people, but I genuinely rate it very highly. As with every Bond film - even among my top five - there are lots of little elements that are problematic, but can - for the most part - be forgiven.
Naysayers will immediately point to things like using the cello case as a sleigh as being a throwback to Roger Moore silliness, but overall, there's a harder edge here, while crucially retaining the Bond tone, something that I think they lost when they pushed the violence too far with Licence to Kill.
The biggest factor that lets it down are some of the really lacklustre studio sets (the Russian airbase jail being one of the worst), and there are some goofs and inconsistencies, particularly in the finale, that are unfortunate. Otherwise, it's a very solid entry, well paced and well executed.
The Living Daylights was clearly an attempt to craft a modern Bond, both in terms of more realistic, grittier action, less emphasis on gadgets and trying to get the sexual politics right in a post-AIDS world. But they don't get this totally right, since while Bond's conquests are minimal, the buxom agent distracting the pipeline operator is cringeworthy and Caroline Bliss' glamorous, bespectacled Miss Moneypenny is another misstep; her Barry Manilow comment is as unwelcome a pop culture reference as Connery's dismissal of The Beatles or indeed the use of California Girls in A View to a Kill.
The plot is relatively straightforward and the fact that it's effectively rooted in a simple scam to profit hugely from strategic opium dealing means it has a "credibility" that some of its predecessors obviously lacked. There's no hidden space city or mass flooding to be ridiculed here.
I remember broadcaster Jeremy Clarkson remarking that the first thing Timothy Dalton does as Bond is headbutt a guy, and that this got his vote. Now, it's not a completely accurate observation, but he's not far off, and the gritty pre-title Gibraltar sequence is impressive.
Likewise, the "authenticity" in the execution of the climactic fight between Bond and Necros on the cargo net is a huge improvement on the similarly high rise Bond/Zorin battle on the Golden Gate Bridge two years earlier.
Dalton's Bond is sometimes dismissed as being humourless, which may have been a result of trying to reinvent the character after Sir Roger's interpretation, but while Licence to Kill is arguably too dark as a Bond film, The Living Daylights is fine. He might deliver the pay-off lines in a more serious tone - "He got the boot." - but they're still all present and correct. One can only wonder what might have happened with a third Dalton film, especially given the longstanding view that both Connery and Moore's third outings were among the very best of the series.
Maryam d'Abo's Kara is clearly an attempt to create a good balance of naive innocent (essential to the plot) and independent modern woman, and I think they succeed pretty well, though I always thought Koskov's remark that "She has so many talents", after he's sent her off to get coffee for Bond was ridiculous. Seriously?
The supporting cast is excellent: Joe Don Baker, Jeroen Krabbé, John Rhys-Davies and Art Malik all add real gravitas. The Aston Martin V8 Vantage is a beautiful car, most of whose "optional extras" are not too over the top.
Some of the more electronic elements of the score are a bit jarring and The Pretenders' Where Has Everybody Gone? is awful. Of the contemporary instrumental pieces, there's nothing as good as Marvin Hamlisch's Bond '77, but thankfully nothing as badly dated as Bill Conti's For Your Eyes Only score.
a-ha managed to take a difficult title and - despite infamously clashing badly with John Barry - come up with a decent theme song that they still play in concert today.
Finally, I can't copy an image in at the moment, but Brian Bysouth's stunning black UK gunbarrel illustration - "The new James Bond... living on the edge" - is unequivocally my favourite Bond poster. Nothing comes close to it.