James Bond films Collection revisited - help needed

Silver Streak was 1976. Wasn't he called Reace in that? So maybe that character inspired Jaws. Also Clifton James (Pepper) was in the film playing a sheriff....named Chauncey

 

And to think Moore was the ORIGINAL choice to be Bond. He was contractually obligated already.

 

I'm still not sure if he was directed to play it that way or whether it was his natural inclination. Whatever the case, Pierce Brosnan was a colder and more believable Bond. Also, I prefer Judi Dench as M to the previous actors. Ralph Fiennes has a lot of potential too.

 

Random thoughts on the Bond films...

The Moore films (especially Live and Let Die and The Man with the Golden Gun) certainly had most of the cringe-worthy moments.

I would agree that Moonraker is probably the nadir of the sillyness -namely for the stupid, blatant Star Wars cash-in influenced laser fight- and it's easily among my least favorite of the Bond films.

Despite all this, it's actually the Timothy Dalton films I have the hardest time with maintaining interest in. I think he looked the part well enough and can appreciate his own spin on the Bond character, but man he could have dialed that stuffy Shakespearean acting down some.

I agree with the sentiment that Brosnan was a great Bond, and perhaps my favorite after Connery. I felt like he could have done another film or two. I do like Daniel Craig's harder edged, more realistic character as well.

 

I think he has done an excellent job also, but the trout pout is a bit off putting. However, any women seeing him come out of the water in bathers seem to react about the same as men seeing Ursula Andress do the same in Dr No.

 

I decided to look at the 23 Bond films ranked by more than a half dozen websites such as Rolling Stone; EW; Eonline; Rotten Tomatoes, etc and average them to see how the Bond films rank overall. The reason is, the rankings are all over the place. Opinions vary and so the Bond films vary in position just as much depending on who's ranking them. There are just as diverse opinions here and so that way the rankings aren't skewed for or against your favorite (hopefully). Certain Bond ranking websites were overlooked since they were done before the last Bond movie or even last three Bond films.

The results? Some may still find a movie ranked too low, or too high, but it was a fun exercise. Who won? Goldfinger (no surprise). Who lost? A View to a Kill.

With that out of the way...the rankings of the 23 Bond films (sans Never Say Never Again and 1967 Casino Royale) from best to worst:

Goldfinger
Casino Royale
Skyfall
From Russia with Love
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Dr. No
The Spy Who Loved Me
GoldenEye
Thunderball
For Your Eyes Only
You Only Live Twice
The Living Daylights
Licence to Kill
Live and Let Die
Tomorrow Never Dies
Octopussy
The World Is Not Enough
Diamonds Are Forever
Quantum of Solace
The Man with the Golden Gun
Die Another Day
Moonraker
A View to a Kill

 

All horrible films. I swear to god, most of the people with me at Moonraker when it opened reacted like this:

I was gonna argue with you about Die Another Day, because I like Pierce Brosnan so much, but then I remembered that was the one with the styrofoam ice cave sequence. That's not a good film at all, despite the fact that it made a ton o' dough. The VFX were over the top, too -- too much CG, not enough reality for me.

I would disagree with you about The World Is Not Enough, and I think that's got some good moments. If Daniel Craig had a shred of a sense of humor, his version of Bond would be pretty good, but he comes across to me as a mean, angry guy who just wants to kill people and get revenge. I think you need a Bond who looks good in a tux, can be very charming to the ladies, drop bon mots and one-liners with casual humor, be extremely well-educated and well-informed (even on things like rare wine vintages and the rules of golf), but also be very tough and dangerous when he needs to be. Sean Connery could do all these things equally well, and I think Pierce Brosnan could, too. Too often, Roger Moore seemed to be like he wandered into the movies from a sitcom, and Timothy Dalton was even more grim and humorless than Craig. I didn't hate George Lazenby, but he was just kinda dull; maybe he could've improved if he'd been able to do one more.

It's a tough tightrope to walk, and I don't envy any actor who has to fall into the footsteps of these screen legends.

 

I love most of the Bond films but the ones I try to avoid watching again are Quantum Of Solace (the worst), Tomorrow Never Dies (the weakest villain in the whole series played by Jonathan Pryce) and Skyfall (holy crap, is this really a Bond film?). Although Moonraker was urgh, atleast it was campy fun bad.

 

I think Roger Moore in For Your Eyes Only and The Spy Who Loved was able to achieve that. With Daniel Craig, I dunno, he's not a bad actor but the whole Bond vibe or feel is not there ever since he came aboard. Maybe it's just the filmakers fault.

 

Naaaa, I think it went past that line and went straight to hell. There's bad, then there's campy fun bad, then you suddenly hit Horribly Awful Beyond Belief Bad.

I just happened to watch Quantum of Solace on Blu-ray recently, and that wasn't too good -- though some of the locations were good, and I liked the rooftop jumping/chasing sequence. Skyfall might have the worst song in a recent Bond film.

When you get down to it, all the Bond films are very much "of a time," whenever they were made, and they reflect the timing, humor, and attitudes of a specific era. You can see the split between the 1960s, the 1970s, the 1980s, the 1990s, and then the recent ones. They each have a very different feel to me.

I gotta say, Judy Densch was really great as the recent M. Very classy, interesting actress -- she dominated every scene she was in. Hated to see her go.

I'm still pissed-off that they got rid of John Cleese as Q (or "R" or whatever they called him). Man, that guy was and is great.

 

Agreed re: John Cleese. When he first appeared, I thought he would be terrible, but he was made for that part.

 

Frist I would like to say that Best Buy had a display up with the Bond Films on Blu-ray for $5 each the other night. I own all of the films on both standard DVD and Blu-ray, and I can sit down and watch them like I watch a TV series. I can find something in any of them that I like. In Diamonds Are Forever I like seeing the Mach 1 because I used to own one. It's nice to see part of the film dedicated to the car. In the man with the Golden Gun, same thing, the car chase and the stunt were done with a real car, no computer generated graphics. Live and Let Die is worth it for the scene with the burning skull in the opening. In the new Daniel Craig movies, he is certainly the most physical Bond. Of all the films I think I dislike the Pierce Brosnan films the most. JMHO

 

I'll take the worst Bond over pretty much any of the crappy films Hollywood is making today

 

Agree with you on that and what's up with his teeth? He was basically a sheep in wolf's clothing with false fangs and all.

 

Respect your opinions above. Just to mention again...these are not my rankings. They are averages of rankings including Skyfall posted on websites from other reviewers (most mentioned in my post).

With that said, my problem with the Pierce Brosnan films is they are great in concept but not as great in execution. They introduce a great idea and then drop it during the film.

Let's look at two: Die Another Day. Here is Bond tortured in the opening credits in North Korea. Instead of carrying that through the film, that concept is soon dropped and we have a global domination story involving solar energy and an orbiting satellite.

The World Is Not Enough introduces a great villain Renard (Robert Carlyle) yet his character isn't explored more fully. It should have spent more time with him and less time with Denise Richards as a nuclear physicist who seems to read her lines when she acts. And she is given a name (Christmas Jones) it seems for the sole purpose of using it later as a joke.

James Bond: I thought Christmas only came once a year

Sophie Marceau was a great Bond girl by herself.

 

Pierce Brosnan was a good Bond stuck in some bad Bond films...

Oddly enough, I found the first half of Die Another Day quite promising, but boy, it hit an iceberg halfway through and sunk completely...

Shalom, y'all!

L. Bangs

 

Good to see OHMSS get a decent rating.

I would rate Quantum as the worst Bond movie. The whole movie felt so rushed.

 

Many of the websites I used had it last or near the bottom (example):

http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/...vies-20121109/quantum-of-solace-2008-19691231

Colin (forum member) here rightly points out an example of the rushed nature of the movie. You name a Bond female Strawberry Fields and there are IIRC two occasions in the movie where Bond asks for her first name and she refuses to give it (just "Miss Fields"). You have to get that from the closing credits.....

Why bother giving her a typical Bond female name in the first place if you don't intend to use it?

 

I agree what many have said about Quantum. I don't think it works as a stand-alone movie. That said, if you watch it right after watching Casino Royale, I think it works as a continuation of that story (Bond dealing with the aftermath or just losing his love, consumed with the urge for revenge, and the closure at the end when he finds her lover)

 

Denise Richards pretty much ruins that film all by herself. Wretched casting and no chemistry with Brosnan at all.

 

Not oddly. I think the first 30 minutes are terrific. Story wise, the movie sinks once Bond arrives to the ice palace. But, I really can't hate Die Another Day. I have a soft spot for the Aston Martin vs Jaguar car chase and saw the movie...ahem two more times at the theater just to enjoy that scene on the big screen.

 

I could round up 20 idiotic critics who'd scream that Moonraker and Diamonds Are Forever are brilliant films because they're so funny. It's just an opinion.

I'll say this for Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli: as producers, they've kept the franchise going very well. It's interesting to reflect that they've made far more money with the Bond films of the last 15 years than the ones from the previous 35 years. And they have kept the concept fresh and generally done a good job of setting the films in fantastic locations and coming up with ways of making the character of Bond still relevant.

BTW: the Bond producers are suing Universal over a forthcoming movie called Section 6, about the creation of the British secret service during WWI. Some insiders claim that the script is basically a thinly-disguised version of James Bond, only done in 1917. Same gimmicks, same stylish wardrobe, same witty dialogue, same violent stunts, same dangerous villains, etc. Broccoli & Wilson are pushing this pretty hard, so you wonder if there's merit to it...

http://variety.com/2014/film/news/james-bond-lawsuit-universal-section-6-1201251982/

 

There's a lot of truth to that. I used to say that "The Bond Films are kind of 'The Beatles of Movies,' in that I'd rather listen to a mediocre Beatles song than a great song by almost anybody else."

 

Oh boy, a scene in the Spy Who Loved Me where one of the henchmen, was killed by Bond who throws him off the building after telling Bond where he could find someone by the name of Fekkesh, is not only memorable but it shows what a bad-ass Roger Moore could be when he wants to be. At that moment he was more meaner than Connery or any other actors who have played Bond, IMHO.

 

I don't know. There's that scene in Dr. No...



Shalom, y'all!

L. Bangs