Favourite Bond films....

[Starkers]

The Borgified Corpse wrote:

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As for the Daniel Craig films:

I like Casino Royale but I think it's way overrated. It's excellent whenever it's doing its own thing but grinds to a halt every time it goes back to the poker table. Still, every director in the business needs to watch the opening chase sequence to see how to do a chase sequence that's exciting AND completely comprehensible. (I'm looking at YOU, Paul Greengrass & Peter Berg!)

But I hate Quantum of Solace. To me, Daniel Craig isn't James Bond. He's a dour, joyless thug and I have no desire to watch him. I'm sure it's not his fault. I think he's being intentionally directed that way. Still... ugh! Plus, Quantum is filled with all of these contemporary references to the shitty current world situation. It can't go more than 5 minutes without reminding us that we're running out of oil or that our governments are in league with unsavory dictators or that global warming will destroy everything! I prefer my Bond movies, even at their grittiest, to be escapism, not An Inconvenient Truth.

Yes but it isn't like Bond hasn't reflected the world situation at the time, just off the top of my head:

the man with the golden gun talks a lot about the energy crisis, relating to the OPEC stuff going on at the time.

A View to a Kill with the whole silicon chip nonsense!

The Living Daylights featuring the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan/the opium trade.

I am pretty much the only person in the world who likes QoS though

By the way I agree about Connery, blasphamy it may be but in many respects he's my least favourite Bond, and his films just aren't as fun to rewatch as Moore's. Just a pacing issue between the two decades, though having said that I'm not fond of Diamonds with is Connery in a proto Moore film.

Another vote here for Tanya Roberts as the worst Bond girl ever. Denise Richards is horrible casting from a time when the producers obviously felt the franchise needed a name American actress (Hatcher, Richards, Berry). That said I often think she's better than she has any right to be as Christmas Jones.

I think Live and Let Die is one of those films that's been reappraised over the years, for a time the blackploitation elements did disturb me a bit, but by all accounts Kotto raves about being in it, and I think it marked something of a watershed, with a black actor playing the big boss villain, not just the comedy henchman.

[Lonemagpie]

The Borgified Corpse wrote:

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To me, Daniel Craig isn't James Bond. He's a dour, joyless thug

You haven't read the books, then....

Anyhow, he's not joyless in CR, and there's story reasons why he's dour and joyless in QoS!

I know he'd been saying after QoS that the next one would be a little lighter, more of a balanced Bond movie, and I hope that MGM's woes won't fuck that up.

[Starkers]

Lonemagpie wrote:

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You haven't read the books, then....

Anyhow, he's not joyless in CR, and there's story reasons why he's dour and joyless in QoS!

I know he'd been saying after QoS that the next one would be a little lighter, more of a balanced Bond movie, and I hope that MGM's woes won't fuck that up.

I hope so too. Having said that I'm not sure how joyous he was in CR. There were all the trappings of Bond, but he seemed to find them pretty hollow. As Vesper says, a nice suit but you wear it with such disdain. You could argue that, until the love scenes with Vesper he gets most pleasure from the bomber blowing himself up on the runway (love the smile Craig has then)

There's on little nuance of Craig's Bond that I love, it's how disposable everything is. He just has this way of throwing things aside once they've served their purpose. Car keys. mobile phones, guns...you could even add in the blase way he dumps the unconcious Camile on a busboy, which is a very funny scene, and even the way he dumps Mathis' body. Hell at the end he just lets Vesper's necklace fall to the floor. Eventually he dumps everyone and everything.

Except M obviously.

[Mr Light]

I'm sure no-one will agree with me, but "Goldeneye", "World Is Not Enough", and "Die Another Day". Great expansive big budget action movies.

[The Laughing Vulcan]

Starkers wrote:

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Yes but it isn't like Bond hasn't reflected the world situation at the time, just off the top of my head:

the man with the golden gun talks a lot about the energy crisis, relating to the OPEC stuff going on at the time.

A View to a Kill with the whole silicon chip nonsense!

The Living Daylights featuring the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan/the opium trade.

I am pretty much the only person in the world who likes QoS though

By the way I agree about Connery, blasphamy it may be but in many respects he's my least favourite Bond, and his films just aren't as fun to rewatch as Moore's. Just a pacing issue between the two decades, though having said that I'm not fond of Diamonds with is Connery in a proto Moore film.

Another vote here for Tanya Roberts as the worst Bond girl ever. Denise Richards is horrible casting from a time when the producers obviously felt the franchise needed a name American actress (Hatcher, Richards, Berry). That said I often think she's better than she has any right to be as Christmas Jones.

I think Live and Let Die is one of those films that's been reappraised over the years, for a time the blackploitation elements did disturb me a bit, but by all accounts Kotto raves about being in it, and I think it marked something of a watershed, with a black actor playing the big boss villain, not just the comedy henchman.

Also the fact that while Mr Big had the blaxploitation lingo down, Kananga was erudite, soft-spoken, well-educated and charismatic. That was even more rare than a black actor playing the big boss villain.

[Starkers]

^ True, plus very much an equal opportuinities villain. "Black or white, rich or poor, I don't discriminate"

[Admiral Shran]

Starkers wrote:

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I am pretty much the only person in the world who likes QoS though

Not quite. I liked it. So, at least there's two of us.

[Starkers]

Hurrah!

[The Borgified Corpse]

Starkers wrote:

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Yes but it isn't like Bond hasn't reflected the world situation at the time, just off the top of my head:

the man with the golden gun talks a lot about the energy crisis, relating to the OPEC stuff going on at the time.

A View to a Kill with the whole silicon chip nonsense!

The Living Daylights featuring the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan/the opium trade.

I am pretty much the only person in the world who likes QoS though

While contemporary world crises may have provided a thin backdrop for earlier 007 movies, they didn't talk about them a lot and they never bogged things down. But it seems like Quantum of Solace just can't ease up enough to make it fun. A lot of that comes from the Bourne influence I think. The Bourne films have this ponderous, liberal-guilt emphasis on constantly pointing out how shitty things are.

Mr Light wrote:

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I'm sure no-one will agree with me, but "Goldeneye", "World Is Not Enough", and "Die Another Day". Great expansive big budget action movies.

While that's not exactly my list, it's a list I can get behind. I can't say enough good things about Goldeneye & The World Is Not Enough. And I even think the 1st half of Die Another Day had the makings of one of the greatest Bond films ever (until it overloaded things with invisible cars, rocket cars, killer space lasers, & that weird cyborg suit that the bad guy was wearing).

[diankra]

OK, my three:
Casino Royale, Living Daylights and For Your Eyes Only.
BTW, it's interesting how many people commenting in this thread are pro-Daylights, even though it's currently coming in 7th-ish. (Siomilarly FYEO, which is a bit further back).

If there were more than three choices, then I'd probably have gone for Goldfinger, OHMSS (I'm in the 'If only Connery had done it' camp, though that's assuming it's good Connery not bored Connery) and Spy Who Loved Loved Me (it's a production line Bond vehicle, but it's a production line vehicle where all the parts fit, the paintwork's perfect, it starts on the first turn of the ignition key, and you don't even need to adjust the seat).
After that, probably From Russia, Goldeneye and World is Not Enough. Plus Moonraker, which is rubbish but so rubbish that it's fun.

The duds? Thunderball - bad editing in the final version. Octopussy and View are both dull. And Quantum of Solace feels as if they shot a better, longer film, and then edited out everything except the action sequences.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Tomorrow Never Dies is definitely my favorite.

[Starkers]

The Borgified Corpse wrote:

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While contemporary world crises may have provided a thin backdrop for earlier 007 movies, they didn't talk about them a lot and they never bogged things down. But it seems like Quantum of Solace just can't ease up enough to make it fun. A lot of that comes from the Bourne influence I think. The Bourne films have this ponderous, liberal-guilt emphasis on constantly pointing out how shitty things are.

While that's not exactly my list, it's a list I can get behind. I can't say enough good things about Goldeneye & The World Is Not Enough. And I even think the 1st half of Die Another Day had the makings of one of the greatest Bond films ever (until it overloaded things with invisible cars, rocket cars, killer space lasers, & that weird cyborg suit that the bad guy was wearing).

But things are shitty

Goldeneye is a very good film, TWINE for some reason I really dislike. I just find it very bland and colourless, with a non too great Bond girl and a lame henchman (Renaud isn't the badguy, Elektra is, she's great but he's rubbish) And don't even get me started at the pre title sequence. Seriously you go to all that trouble planting a bomb to cleverly kill King, then you station a woman on a speedboat bristling with guns outside MI6 HQ. Why exactly? I think that hit me stright away and the film just never recovers.

Die Another Day is a seriously underated film, for me it only loses it on the Antanov at the end. Invisible car I can live with, but Toby Stephens (who is a magnificent villain) in a robot suit is lousy. Plus tired of the American Bond girls, I really wanted Rosamund Pike to kill Halle Berry

diankra wrote:

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OK, my three:
Casino Royale, Living Daylights and For Your Eyes Only.
BTW, it's interesting how many people commenting in this thread are pro-Daylights, even though it's currently coming in 7th-ish. (Siomilarly FYEO, which is a bit further back).

7th is pretty good for a film not usually regarded as a classic. Sometimes I wonder if my view is coloured by the fact it was the first Bond I saw at the cinema but if you break it down it has most everything, the only real flaw for me is that Whittiker is a poor bad guy (oh and Leiter sucks!) but that aside...great Bond, great girl, great characters; Koskov, Necros, Pushkin, lovely score by John Barry and ace stunts.

[The Borgified Corpse]

Starkers wrote:

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But things are shitty

...Yes, I know. But I'm going to a James Bond movie to escape & ignore that.

Starkers wrote:

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Die Another Day is a seriously underated film, for me it only loses it on the Antanov at the end. Invisible car I can live with, but Toby Stephens (who is a magnificent villain) in a robot suit is lousy. Plus tired of the American Bond girls, I really wanted Rosamund Pike to kill Halle Berry

Agreed. Most of these gadgets, including the invisible car, would have been fine in isolation. The problem is there's just too many of everything.

And I'd heard somewhere that Pierce Brosnan was seriously lobbying for the rival agent to be the return of Michelle Yeoh's Chinese spy from Tomorrow Never Dies. Instead, we got Halle Berry's disdainful performance.

[Starkers]

The Borgified Corpse wrote:

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...Yes, I know. But I'm going to a James Bond movie to escape & ignore that.

Agreed. Most of these gadgets, including the invisible car, would have been fine in isolation. The problem is there's just too many of everything.

And I'd heard somewhere that Pierce Brosnan was seriously lobbying for the rival agent to be the return of Michelle Yeoh's Chinese spy from Tomorrow Never Dies. Instead, we got Halle Berry's disdainful performance.

Yeah I wish we'd got Michelle Yeoh again, although Wai Lin isn't that high on my Bond girl list she'd have been preferable to Halle Berry. Jinx wasn't as bad as I feared she'd be, but had far too much emphasis (and is why I'm glad they didn't get Jolie for Casino Royale!)

I think part of the problem with DAD is that they were trying to go over the top, afrer all in context it was supposed to be a bit of a celebratory pic as the 20th Bond film. They did overdo it though, especially on the Cgi some of which wasn't up to spec.

Then again people are so wedded to the idea of CG that they see it when it's not there. Someone remarked to me that he thought the cgi of the Aston rolling in CR was very good.

I had to point out that they'd really rolled the car!!

[BolianAuthor]

My favorites in order are Casino Royale, and Goldeneye.