Rank Every Bond Movie

[The Old Mixer]

I think Lapis's point had more to do about how they were with the ladies. She described Dalton as a "cold fish", and I understood where she was coming from. Even Moore, far from the most "macho" Bond when it came to the action/physical stuff, had a certain charm to him that Dalton tries for...but he comes off more like he's acting charming than naturally there.

 

[Starkers]

Trouble is they were still writing for Dalton as if he was Moore in certain respects. Same with the humour. When he was allowed to be more natural I think he came off well. Certainly I think his relationship with Kara is one of the sweetest and most convincing of any Bond film, you really feel he could fall in love with her- I didn't buy that between Craig and Eva Green.

 

[trevanian]

Trouble is they were still writing for Dalton as if he was Moore in certain respects. Same with the humour. When he was allowed to be more natural I think he came off well. Certainly I think his relationship with Kara is one of the sweetest and most convincing of any Bond film, you really feel he could fall in love with her- I didn't buy that between Craig and Eva Green.

That's very true from my pov too. Dalton was better with heartfelt lines like 'no way!' when she wants him to go back for the cello (tho in terms of bond style lines, his reading of 'salt corrosion is pretty good too.) TLD seems the most romantic of all of them, in part due to the score and in part due to Dalton capturing the part of Bond in books that goes, like most hard men, he is easily tipped into sentiment, and as much as he wants to be PO'd at her, he is enchanted by her as well.

I recently managed to watch CR all the way through (in two sittings) w/o fastforwarding and I was astonished at that train car scene with Craig and Green -- there's probably more dialog for Bond in that scene than in other whole movies. It isn't as leaden as the unshortened Picard/Data scene in NEM, but geez, it seems like it is, given this is supposed to be a bond movie. If you need five pages of dialog to get a relationship going, then break it up a little, unless you're Paddy Chayefsky or somebody operating at that level.

Having said all that, I actually have some hopes about QUANTUM. Now that I am as over the sticker shock of Craigs ugly mug as I'm likely to ever be, I'm really thinking Forster & co will deliver a solid flick. Who'd think the same editor/cinematographer/director/vfx supervisor team would carry over from STRANGER THAN FICTION to a Bond flick?

BTW, with the thread title rank every bond movie, maybe we should do a movie with an insult : y'know, rank it out.

example: SPY WHO LOVED ME's scene with Bond admitting he killed Anya's boyfriend: Omigod, look, it is trying to act!

CASINO ROYALE: Can you make the guy playing Bond look a little better, maybe move the camera back? How about moving it back into Cleveland?

 

[The Old Mixer]

Trouble is they were still writing for Dalton as if he was Moore in certain respects. Same with the humour.

Yeah, I read that for TLD, Dalton actually asked to have a lot of his lines cut, as the script had been littered with Moorish quips.

 

[Starkers]

Yeah his ' He got the point/boot' lines in both films don't play well, but I love the horses arse scene between him and Kara.

Another fave moment is the bit in LTK when he tells Sanchez "Things were about to turn nasty." It's the just the way his accent goes all Derbyshire when he says the word nasty.

 

[The Old Mixer]

My favorite Dalton bit is in TLD, after Saunders is killed, when he pops the balloon in his hands. That look on his face--he is Fleming's Bond...well, after you give him a thin, vertical scar down his right cheek and crop off some of that big '80s hair.

 

[Starkers]

My favorite Dalton bit is in TLD, after Saunders is killed, when he pops the balloon in his hands. That look on his face--he is Fleming's Bond...well, after you give him a thin, vertical scar down his right cheek and crop off some of that big '80s hair.

Yeah that bit is very good, shame about the hair (though it's worse in LTK)

I like the bit where he has Pushkin on his knees. 'If I trusted Koskov we wouldn't be talking.'

 

[MyCylon]

I really don't know all of the movies well enough to rank them all. So I'll just list the ones I really like and the ones I really don't like (everything else is either in the middle or I don't remember it well enough).

Really like (in chronological order):

Goldfinger (1964) - An absolute Bond classic. Connery shines, and Gert Fröbe provides a more than worthy adversary.

You Only Live Twice (1967) - I really love the settings and the feel of this one. Also, is there no way not to like the huge crater in the volcano?

Live and Let Die (1973) - This one's kind of weird and certainly not PC (but then, very few Bond movies are ) but it's a good start for Moore, I think, and offers some really good suspense and action.

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) - This is one of the best Moore Bonds, I think. It's got a great villain with some nice toys (gotta love the tanker and the underwater base ), lots of great action as well as tons of fun.

Moonraker (1979) - This is one silly, silly movie. But I just a kick out of it every time. It's just fun all the way, not to be taken seriously at all.

Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) - Easily my favorite Brosnan Bond. I think this one succeeds largely thanks to the fantastic Michelle Yeoh and her chemistry with Bond. Finally, you've got a Bond 'girl' who's capable and really adds to the movie. It can drag a bit in parts and the villain (though I do really like Pryce as an actor) doesn't quite convince me, but it still manages to be engaging, fun and far, far more up-to-date than the two Brosnan Bonds that followed which were stuck somewhere in the middle ages.

Casino Royale (2006) - Very exciting, very well made, with a terrific new Bond. Bond has finally reached this day and age.



Really dislike:

On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) - I don't mind Lazenby as Bond, but I simply feel this is a pretty bad movie. One of the worst things was the constant flow of bad one-liners, I felt, but that's certainly not the only problem.

Diamonds Are Forever (1971) - One of Connery's weakest offerings, I think. The move to the US just doesn't really work here, I think. This film just seems to lack the typical Bond film.

Never Say Never Again (1983) - Connery should have said "Never" to this one, I think. I don't remember anything redeeming about this one.

License to Kill (1989) - I could never, ever get through this one. I'm not sure if I just can't take Dalton as Bond or whether it's just the movie itself. I think it's the latter, really.

The World Is Not Enough (1999) - Boring, plain boring. This movie seems to go nowhere, provides nothing but mindless explosions at every corner (you're always left to wonder where those barrels came from...) and rotten one-liners. Naming a character to suit a stupid one-liner is NOT a good idea.

Die Another Day (2002) - A horrible, horrible mess. Just totally, TOTALLY over the top in a way even Moonraker wasn't. And unlike the latter which didn't take itself seriously, this one just seems so full of itself which makes it even worse. Add in a terrible Halle Berry, an attitude towards women that's worse than even the movies of the 60's and just tons of bad one-liners and you've got what I think is easily the worst Bond movie ever.


Just a quick note concerning actors. I think it's a HUGE shame that Brosnan was so unfortunate with his Bond movies. Other than Tomorrow Never Dies - which I really like - there's only one pretty mediocre offering (Goldeneye), one really bad one (The World Is Not Enough), and what's probably the worst Bond movie ever (Die Another Day).
I think Brosnan was perfect for the Bond he played (Craig's is a very different but also great Bond) but got really unlucky. It's a shame he couldn't get out of that TV show he was in some years ago. He might have ended up with a set of really good films.

 

[CaptJimboJones]

1. Goldfinger. The essential Bond film, this one created the cinematic 007.
2. Casino Royale. The closest we've seen to Ian Fleming's literary Bond actually captured on film.
3. From Russia With Love. An espionage classic with a refreshingly simple plot - no world domination here, just a scheme to steal a Soviet code machine.
4. Dr. No. Bond's introduction to the cinema, and a compelling thriller in which Bond was as much detective as spy.
5. Licence to Kill. Dalton's unique, humorless take on 007 and a gripping "Bond-goes-rogue" plot made this one an under-appreciated classic.
6. Thunderball. The first real "larger than life" Bond, this one introduced a lot of the things that were overused and abused later in the series, but it's a wild, fun romp.
7. For Your Eyes Only. Probably Moore's most solid film, this one has a gripping plot and some great acting from Sir Roger.
8. On Her Majesty's Secret Service. This film was remarkably close to the original novel and featured those thrilling ski chases, but it suffered from Lazenby's performance. Still, the shocking ending is one of the greatest character moments for 007 in the entire series.
9. Goldeneye. Brosnan's first, and best, Bond.
10. The Spy Who Loved Me. The opening ski sequence alone makes this movie a classic. And when I was 8, the submarine car was the coolest thing ever. Still, the hammy comedy is a bit too much, as is the disco soundtrack.
11. The Living Daylights. Dalton's first was a decent attempt, although it was written more for Moore's wisecracking style than Dalton's more serious portrayal.
12. Tomorrow Never Dies. A fun enough action movie, though having a Rupert Murdoch stand-in as the villain was a bit ridiculous.
13. Live and Let Die. Sure, the plot is ridiculous, and they shoehorned those "Smokey-and-the-Bandit" style sequences in, but you just gotta love the theme song and the boat chase through the Mississippi Delta.
14. The Man With The Golden Gun. I loved the idea of the cat-and-mouse game between 007 and Scaramanga. The execution didn't work as well, however.
15. You Only Live Twice. WTF? Bond and ninjas? This one was just bizarre.
16. Octopussy. Great title, but it just didn't do that much for me.
17. The World Is Not Enough. Bond movies shouldn't be boring. This one was.
18. A View To A Kill. The plot was nearly identical to Goldfinger (silicon instead of gold) but the main problem here: Roger Moore's advanced age. He looked almost as old as John McCain.
19. Diamonds are Forever. Sean Connery Returns As Bond! Based on his sleepwalking performance, he should have stayed home.
20. Die Another Day. This movie had an intriguing opening - Bond as a prisoner broken by two years in captivity, and emerging in a post-911 world in which his tactics are out of date. And then it almost immediately devolved into pure camp, with Halle Berry, the invisible car and the "Ice Headquarters." Truly awful.
21. Moonraker. A crass, campy attempt to cash in on the Star Wars craze. Even worse, it took the title of one of my very favorite Fleming novels but jettisoned virtually the entire plot.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Yeah that bit is very good, shame about the hair (though it's worse in LTK)

I like the bit where he has Pushkin on his knees. 'If I trusted Koskov we wouldn't be talking.'

Also a fine Dalton bit! His TLD hair was fine for the '80s...but his LTK hair, ye gods that was awful!

Thunderball. The first real "larger than life" Bond

More like "longer than life" for me, I'm afraid.

Live and Let Die. Sure, the plot is ridiculous, and they shoehorned those "Smokey-and-the-Bandit" style sequences in

It should be noted that the movie predates that series by four years, and some have speculated that the character of Sheriff J.W. Pepper in particular may have inspired it.

A View To A Kill. The plot was nearly identical to Goldfinger (silicon instead of gold)

Strangely enough, it resembled the plot of Victory Games' RPG module of Goldfinger even more (released in 1983, before AVTAK was made). They'd put out modules based on the films, but would change major plot points to throw the players off. In the module, Goldfinger's scheme was to set off dirty nuclear devices in a number of fake gold mines in order to irradiate the major gold-mining fields of the world.

Moonraker. A crass, campy attempt to cash in on the Star Wars craze. Even worse, it took the title of one of my very favorite Fleming novels but jettisoned virtually the entire plot.

To be fair, the reason they'd avoided making a movie from that book for so long was that the basic premise of the story was so out of date--Britain gains the world's first ballistic nuclear missile!

You Only Live Twice (1967) - I really love the settings and the feel of this one. Also, is there no way not to like the huge crater in the volcano?

I think you employed an unintentional double negative there....

Live and Let Die (1973) - This one's kind of weird and certainly not PC

To be fair, it was just mimicking the wave of "blaxploitation" films that were all the rage at the time. The styles may seem horribly dated, but the filmmakers were very conscientious at the time not to cross the line by making the all-black cast of villains look stupid or buffoonish, and none of the black actors who participated in the film seemed to mind the result. Yaphet Kotto was particularly pleased to have gotten to play a worthy Bond villain, and was very enthusiastic to discuss his role as Kananga in the DVD extras.

License to Kill (1989) - I could never, ever get through this one. I'm not sure if I just can't take Dalton as Bond or whether it's just the movie itself. I think it's the latter, really.

Could very well be. Dalton is my favorite Bond based on his performance in TLD...but LTK is one of my least favorite Bond movies.

I think Brosnan was perfect for the Bond he played (Craig's is a very different but also great Bond) but got really unlucky.

Agreed. I was afraid from his role in the enjoyably-lighthearted Remington Steele series that if he ever got the role, he'd be Moore Jr. But he surprised me by bringing a great all-purpose Bond, who could be as gritty as Dalton one moment and as charming as Moore the next.