I think the criticisms of the plots or storytelling in the Brozzer movies could have been levelled at any of their predecessors.
Perhaps. I thought the Moore movies were just downright silly some of the time (I seriously can't watch
Live Or Let Die without cringing... same goes for
Moonraker). The early Connery movies were the best.
License to Kill was just too much of a generic action movie.
But I'd say some of the scripts were actually somewhat sharper than the earlier ones, especially the Bond-M repartee. And Bond pretty much invented the idea of the blockbuster extravaganza, from about Goldfinger onwards.
The Connery Bond movies were event pictures. Yet they were, in my opinion, espionage thrillers above all. Take
From Russia With Love, for instance, a cinematic classic. It had style, substance, and an aura of mystery. There's such a thing as a summer blockbuster with substance, and I think the early Connery movies had those.
Casino Royale finally brought that type of well-developed, classically made event picture back into the fold within the Bond franchise, and for that I am grateful.
As to character development, we had references to Bond being a cold-war relic, with his wish to avenge Alec Trevalyn, then discovering that the man was a traitor...
Which is why I consider
GoldenEye the best of the Brosnan movies.
...we had the death of a recurring character (Robbie Coltrane's character)...
With all due respect, how is the death of one character constitute as 'character development'? What was his arc? What was his thematic purpose? Did his character have a beginning, middle, and end? Not really. He just re-appeared in
The World Is Not Enough as a secondary, sort of non-important character. At least Jeffrey Wright's Felix Leiter had some character development in
Quantum of Solace with his loyalties being tested towards the CIA.
...we had Bond captured and tortured, then suspected of being a traitor (DAD)...
I agree, that was one of the better parts of
Die Another Day, until it devolved into another generic action blockbuster.
...we had acknowledgment of the passing of the original Q...
Again, how is that character development?
...we had Bond suffering an injury and still feeling it all through the movie (TWINE)...
I liked that. I still felt it was underdeveloped. Bond was suppose to feel vulnerable in
The World Is Not Enough by falling for the wrong woman and not realizing it, and that injury was suppose to be an externalization of that... physical manifestation ... but I still felt like more focus could have been given to that character arc. Regardless, I still consider
TWINE to be an uneven film despite that.
...we had the most developed M of all the series.
I would say the Craig films have developed M the most successfully so far.
Not bad for what is essentially a commercial series of movies, that have never been all that hot on continuity or on referencing its previous entries.
I think you might have missed my point. I wasn't referring to continuity. I was referring to character development, like how Bond basically transforms from being a 'blunt instrument' in
Casino Royale to being a much fully-formed character by the end of the film affected by the death of someone he loved. Brosnan's Bond never got that sort of in-depth treatment in any of his movies, but I will concede that his films are a lot better handled than either Moore or Dalton's. There are a lot of subtleties and hidden nuances to be found in Brosnan's films, just never enough in my opinion.
