So there’s this here new James Bond movie coming out this Friday: Quantum Of Solace. I’m reasonably psyched to check it out for several reasons, namely, Daniel Craig continuing his take on Bond after Casino Royale, and the storyline which partly promises “revenge” for the death of Vesper Lynd.

Bond has gone on “revenge” quests before, but never satisfyingly: He hunted down Blofeld at the start of Diamonds Are Forever for the death of his wife Traci Di Vicenzo in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, which took place in like — minutes, and in Licence To Kill he avenged the death of his longtime American CIA friend Felix Leiter which unfortunately resulted in a very average action flick. Anyhow, neither situations were executed well. I believe Quantum Of Solace will do a better job.

Overall, Sean Connery is still my favorite Bond, with From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, and Thunderball being the triumphant trilogy. Roger Moore peaked out with The Spy Who Loved Me and then turned in a few entries where he resembled a walking corpse. Dalton didn’t get enough goes before being sacked, and Brosnan started off strong but got no help from progressively stupider plots and ended up battling a shaved Korean in an ice palace, set to the worst song Madonna ever recorded. But amazingly, Daniel Craig seems to have successfully “rebooted” the series and Bond is on an upswing.

Anyhow, if by the two preceding paragraphs it seems I’ve followed Bond a bit too closely, I shamefully admit I have, as a while I back I watched all of the James Bond movies and reviewed them, plus ranked the movies, listened to the theme songs, read a book, and thought way too much about Bond that someone running a blog as hobby would consider appropriate.

Here are links to all my previous James Bond articles. At the very least, consider it prep for Quantum Of Solace. Enjoy.

• My Ranking: The Best And Worst James Bond Films
• Slammerworm Ranks 23 James Bond Movies From Best To Worst
• The Seven Hottest James Bond Women
• Best And Worst Bond Songs
• Book Review: The Man Who Saved Britain: A Personal Journey Into The Disturbing World Of James Bond

Bond Films In Chronological Order

1. Dr. No = 4 stars
2. From Russia With Love = 5 stars
3. Goldfinger = 5 stars
4. Thunderball = 5 stars
5. You Only Live Twice = 3 stars
6. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service = 4 stars
7. Diamonds Are Forever = 3 stars
8. Live And Let Die = 4 stars
9. The Man With The Golden Gun = 3 stars
10. The Spy Who Loved Me = 5 stars
11. Moonraker = 2 stars
12. For Your Eyes Only = 4 stars
13. Octopussy = 3 stars
14. A View To A Kill = 3 stars
15. The Living Daylights = 5 stars
16. Licence To Kill = 3 stars
17. Goldeneye = 5 stars
18. Tomorrow Never Dies = 2 stars
19. The World Is Not Enough = 4 stars
20. Die Another Day = 2 stars
21. Casino Royale = 5 stars
22. Bonus: Never Say Never Again = 3 stars
23. Bonus: Casino Royale (1967) = 3 stars

Note: Sean Connery played Bond in 1–5, 7, 22, George Lazenby in 6, Roger Moore 8–14, Timothy Dalton 15 and 16, Pierce Brosnan 17–20, and Daniel Craig 21 and the new Quantum Of Solace.

Feel free to compare to my own James Bond Reviews and list of Best and Worst Bond movies. I have to say, Slammerworm’s list is much funnier and better written.

1) Casino Royale (2006). A goodly dose of the right stuff.

After the four increasingly OTT Pierce Brosnan movies, it was again reboot time. Casino Royale brought the franchise movies right back down to brass tacks; no supervillain with a private army esconsed in a fantastic sci-fi lair, no “get out of jail free” gadgets, no tacky special effects, no gorgeous pushover chicks. It cost a full $40m less to make than Die Another Day. This is that rare thing; a big budget, highly commercial movie which is actually good. Very good in fact, and with box office returns totalling $594.1m, officially the highest-grossing James Bond movie ever.

Plot-wise, we’re in prequel land, with Bond as raw, green, newly-minted “OO” agent. Financed by treasury agent Vesper Lynd, he must thwart the efforts of a desperately indebted international financier of terrorist operations to refinance himself via a poker game with enormous stakes. CR06 is a tough, hard, stripped-down movie, ditto Daniel Craig’s Bond. We’re introduced to him with a particularly vicious fight in a public toilet. He makes mistakes, gets hurt, admits he’s scared but he kicks ass. This being a conscious departure from fantasyland Bond, there are virtually no campy “humorous” moments, but then again seeing a guy recreate the famous Ursula Andress “Venus” shot is somehow much more amusing than seeing Halle Berry doing it.

Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) is one of the few Bond Girls who combine intelligence, beauty and acting ability. She’s got the lot. Ultimately it’s a tragic role, which is not-so-subtley telegraphed by the gothy eyeliner she sports when all spruced up for the casino scenes. While Dr No’s straightforward narrative style and gadgetless hero are a definite influence, there are obvious echoes of OHMSS in that Bond falls for Vesper and then loses her as a consequence of his occupation. He’s hardened for the experience, but still vulnerable. Also reminiscent of OHMSS (and perhaps more so, LTK) is the realistic violence.

The only thing which mars the movie is the silly jumping sequence in which Bond and his quarry make a series of ridiculous leaps and drops during a chase straight out of a Tweety and Sylvester cartoon. Also, Craig can fight, quip and such, but he could perhaps work on the charm factor a little more next time. Anyway, so far so yes please. Hope it’s a long, long while before they send Jaws after him.

2) From Russia With Love. Oh, those pesky double-crossing Russians.

Robert Shaw as Red Grant was one of the all-time best Bond villains, too. He’s one genuinely scary dude, and that fight on the train was excellent cinema. Bond hasn’t become Fonzie (i.e. a superhero) yet either, and there’s still a bit of grit to both the character and the movie. Classy stuff, and easily one of the top five Bond films.

3) On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Mrs Peel, James Bond and the best storyline of the lot.

Well yes, we can only wonder how this movie might have turned out had Connery been along for the trip. He wasn’t, though, and so we have the movie we have. For my money, Lazenby was fine, just a little stiff, perhaps, but then Roger Moore took a while (too long!) to settle into the role. Had he not been a stereotypically headstrong Aussie Larrikin, Lazenby could have gone on to combine the credible action of Connery with the suave charm of Moore to become the Bond of the 1970s (of course, there may well have been the same varying quality of script). Anyway, OHMSS is a top three Bond movie, mostly for eschewing the by-then rampant sci-fi/superhero cliches and presenting a streamlined (if a little bit Our Man Flint) narrative with the emphasis on character. There is also a stark, visceral grittiness which has more in common with Dr. No and the down-to-earth 1970s than the intervening phantastic psychedelic 1960s.

Going back to conjecture, it is tempting to see the 1960s Bond movies as a canon unto themselves, with credible “naivety-to-disillusion” bookending episodes. Connery’s subsequent reprisal of the role was a mistake; he was far too old to be a believable Bond. The ensuing Moore movies were an increasingly-cartoonish retreat from “real” violence and suffered badly in comparison with edgier contemporaries like Dirty Harry, Mean Streets, Scarface or even TV shows like The Sweeney. OHMSS was an curious one-off, and an excellent, though premature “farewell” to the 1960s “superhero” Bond, which posited a tantalising set of indications as to how the franchise could have progressed.

4) Die Another Day. Convention-busting Brosnan triumph.

AKA “The One With Madonna.” We Kiwis are understandably a little embarrassed by director and occasional ersatz good-time “gal” Lee Tamahori for a couple of reasons, not least of which was turning in what many allege to be one of the all-time worst Bond movies (but then Martin Campbell did Goldeneye and the 2006 Casino Royale, so hopefully that kind of cancels out the deficit). It was a shock to find that DAD was actually one of the good ones.

Okay, there are things wrong with it; it’s at least 20 minutes too long, the invisible car is indefensible, as is much of the obvious CG work (but then haven’t we seen everyone from Sean Connery onward teetering in front of filmed snow?), and the use of the Clash song was a bit jarring. Everything electronic makes a noise when working, the villain’s electrical “Robocop” suit was a completely unnecessary plot additive, and despite the common knowledge that sound doesn’t travel in space, things still explode noisily up there just like they did back in Moonraker. Yep, Madonna’s in it, but only for a minute or so and she’s actually fine, very Pussy Galore. If you don’t like her though, that’s another deficit. And Halle Berry isn’t very good.

Having said that, pretty much everything else adds up to not only the best Brosnan Bond movie, but one of the franchise’s best, full stop. The plot had some nice post-modern twists; who’d have thought we’d ever see a James Bond who resembled heavy-alcohol-period Jim Morrison (irony; George Lazenby was taken off the OHMSS US publicity tour for looking just like that). John Cleese was far better than in TWINE, there was a good Bond Girl/Bad Girl (Rosamund Pike as Miranda Frost), and an excellent grotesque villain in Zao. The script was slyly witty throughout, but the scene when the other, non-grotesque villain Gustav Graves explains that he based his obnoxious new personality on James Bond was priceless.

Not unlike initially cocky and confident Wile E. Coyote firing up the ACME jet-pack, Brosnan’s tenure began reasonably well with the frenetic Goldeneye. Then a slew of bad writing, substandard direction and poor casting rapidly sent “Brosnan Bond” hurtling furiously out of control. With this controversial final installment, he was written a role which allowed him ample room to do some real acting, which he did. A pleasant surprise and a keeper for sure.

5) Dr No. The primal text, with Connery at his most likeable.

Absolutely agree. This is the purest statement of movie-form Bond, and everything else derives from here. Seems like the Bond movies which “reset” away from encrustations of doodads and gimmickry to a simple, character-driven plot and believable action (eg On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the latest version of Casino Royale etc.) use this as a point zero. They’re also the best movies. Unfortunately, even here there’s just a little bit of that naggingly ubiquitous Bond script racism: check the unfeasibly abandoned dancing by one or two of the native Jamaicans. It’s up there with the “hopping” Chinese soldiers in Goldfinger.

6) For Your Eyes Only. Sir Roger’s one real Bond movie.

Nicely down-to-earth, but a little too much so to buy a conspicuously aged Roger Moore as James Bond. Intended to introduce a “new” incarnation of Bond (hence the jarringly comic despatch of the unnamed “Blofeld” character in the pre-credit sequence), this is the movie which (in a ideal world) should have followed OHMSS, and starring an increasingly-comfortable George Lazenby. Instead it was made twelve years later and features a good performance by Moore, believable characters and, in the wake of the ludicrous Moonraker, a plausible plot and minimal “humour.” The theme is a good one, but while the soundtrack music is fine when intended to convey suspense, it suddenly Jumps The Shark when action scenes are accompanied by distractingly bad disco music. Still, with a gritty “UK TV Hard-Man Cop Show” feel, this was the first “proper” Bond movie after years of self-parody. The only thing wrong with it is the grandfatherly leading man.

7) Goldeneye. Dragster-paced human manga novel.

James Bond’s 1995 Comeback Special. You take an established canon, up the tech, throw in a smidgen of Batman (1989) here, a hint of Dick Tracy there, and here’s another graphic novel made flesh. Opening stunt silly, but eh. Natalya The Bond Girl was pretty good, as was dependable grotesque Robbie Coltrane and Judi Dench’s wily-old-cat M but agreed, the customary Villain’s Psychotic Henchperson (Fiona Volte from Thunderball telepodded with Magenta from Rocky Horror) stole the show. She should have had the Grace Jones slot in A View To A Kill, and for once Roger Moore’s Bond could have been stuck for a quip. Otherwise yep, the computer nerd character was a pain and Brosnan’s incarnation slightly bland compared with all previous Bonds (particularly his immediate predecessor Timothy Dalton), but since Goldeneye was so (knowingly) cartoonish, all in order. One of the better ones. Clever homage to Peter Hunt’s 1960s Bond “speed-editing” in there, too.

8: The Spy Who Loved Me. You Only Live Twice sneaks back into the theatre with added Jaws.

Roger Moore was good in this one. He still can’t carry off a fight scene for toffee, but he seems a lot more likable, and genuinely appears “involved” in the general plot. The main title theme was a good one, too. Not at all to one’s own personal taste in music, but in context as a Bond theme, one of the best. Unfortunately, like Bond in the bad blue-screen shots which assault the pre-credit sequence’s believability, we’re off downhill from there. Jaws wasn’t scary enough. What was wrong with doing a wee in-joke like introducing him bit-by-bit, a la the shark in the Spielberg movie? Way scarier than seeing him all at once.

Barbara Bach sure was one hot tamale to look at, but acting was all too evidently beyond her capability. Then again, maybe she simply thought that essaying “Russian” was equal to “talking zombie with a well dodgy accent.” Evidently the director did. Same old “mad scientist/would-be dictator with a superweapon and a secret base” plot from back in the day, too.

We got a little of that dear ‘ol Bond Film Racism as well, with the painful Lawrence Of Arabia references and white people painted brown dancing in a bizarre “Dervish” manner at an Egyptian nightspot which apparently hosts only Caucasian guests. Listen out for the toe-curlingly approximated “Moslem singing” just before you get there, too.

Oh, and towards the end, note the evil submarine crew in the campy red uniforms. They just can’t get enough of that pink blusher and lipstick. Oh well, it’s Stromberg’s operation and if he wants his sub crew to look like the Pet Shop Boys, then nobody’s going to argue. One reads the books, goes scanning the blogsites and emerges with the widely-held opinion that this was the best Moore Bond movie. Haven’t seen them all, but yes, that is true so far. Moore was good, but little else about it was.

9) Goldfinger. Vodka Martini with a dash of campy pink lemonade, sweetie-darling.

This was the first really big Bond blockbuster, but success was a two-edged sword. It’s a bit like enjoying a really good local band’s early albums, then they get signed, the budget goes up, the edge comes off, and while it’s great that they’re so popular, one wishes they were lean and hungry and passionate again.

Goldfinger has a classically slinky title song and some truly iconic moments, but as a satisfactory movie experience it didn’t gel as well as its two predecessors. This one was more about situations than character interaction, so while there are famous set pieces like the laser episode, there was nothing as tense or compelling as say, Rosa Klebb’s instruction/seduction of Tatiana in FRWL. Moreover, a burgeoning wave of campiness was just breaking shore, evidenced by Oddjob’s silly lethal hat, Pussy Galore’s squadron of Jayne Mansfield-breasted pilots, the Oriental soldiers’ fluorescent white puttees (all the better to accentuate their high-stepping “hopping” gait) and so on.

Connery seems a little distant this time around, too, and while the introduction of the (in)famous Bond Gadgets was admirably low-key (and that cool Aston Martin car was an inspired addition, hidden weapons notwithstanding), it removed the character slightly from a previous crucial vulnerability. While the previous two Bond movies were set in a near-believable world, utilising the immediacy of the “space race” and the overarching Cold War climate, Goldfinger was a small, but in retrospect significant step in the direction of campy fantasy. The collection of “Mafia Dons” all use comic-book speak (we’re a long way from Goodfellas here), everyone’s just a little too eager to fall over when the Flying Circus gasses Fort Knox and so on.

On the plus side, the villain was memorable, the girls were exemplary (agreed; the assassin-sister of the Golden Girl was the Hottie Of The Film and her exit was actually quite shocking), and the action scenes were fine. The director was Guy Hamilton, who later gave us similarly patchy efforts like Diamonds Are Forever and The Man With The Golden Gun in the 1970s. ‘Nuff said.

10: Never Say Never Again (non EON production). Second Coming of Thunderball fails to enrapture.

The remake of Thunderball was an “unofficial” rival Bond movie to Octopussy for 1983. They’re actually good mates in real life, but if Sean Connery and Roger Moore were to duke it out, my money’s on Connery. He looked damned good for a 50-something, and although the Scottish brogue is more to the fore, he’s back to being interested (and thus charming and charismatic) in the project.

Thankfully, main villain Klaus Maria Brandauer as Largo is also excellent (Max Von Sydow makes a fine cameo as Blofeld, but he doesn’t get much screen time); he does seem genuinely mad, driven and disarmingly urbane at the same time. They should have used the guy in the official EON Bond movies. Fatima Blush (Barbara Carrera) was a classic Psycho Bad Girl, though she pales in comparison with Famke Janssen’s bravura turn as Xenia Onatopp in Goldeneye. She’s pretty good, though.

There are a few surprisingly clever moments in the script, but unfortunately, there’s not a lot else on offer here. This is a remake of Thunderball, and while it is arguably a streamlined improvement (there’s a lot less underwater stuff), it’s still boring old Thunderball. Ok, so they couldn’t legally use the original James Bond themes, but did the incidental music have to be so bad? The soundtrack (thank you messrs Cheap and Nasty) utilised horrible cheesy synths to approximate a real orchestra. Rowan “Mr Bean” Atkinson’s cameo is overplayed and cringeworthy, as is Edward Fox as the new head of MI6. Felix Leiter was far too young, and Kim Basinger as Domino? That blonde sleepwalker with the wee piggy eyes? Nuh. Why was Bond dressed in dungarees for one small, near-insignificant scene? He looked like a Village Person.

The video game duel between Bond and Largo is no substitute for a tense casino scene, and that silly “electronic” voice makes one cringe. Watching other people play video games is invariably tedious. Still, it was more convincing than those cartoon-y animated missiles. Writing-wise there were several flat areas, and some ghastly skit-show level dialogue (Fatima: “I made you all wet!” Bond: “Yes, but my Martini’s still dry”), and an overall feeling that money was a little tight. It doesn’t look as glossy as even the lesser EON Bond productions.

Nevertheless, as to which movie wins the Battle Of The Bonds; regardless of Octopussy’s superior box office take, it’s this one. It’s not a keeper but there are worse Bond movies. Oh, and watch for the marvellous little moment at 5:03 during the scene in M’s office when Connery nonchalantly reaches into his trouser pocket to scratch his testicles. He’s the man.

11) The Living Daylights. Bond returns to basics, but at a walking pace.

Seems like the writers and director could have tried just a bit harder to retool the Bond franchise here. Good points: A believable Bond girl. Sure, she’s a looker really, but next to Barbara Bach or Britt Ekland, Maryam D’Abo appeared positively mousy (and doesn’t even get her kit off). She does indeed look like a cello player, and what’s more, she only succumbs fully to James’ charms at the end. A psychotically enthusiastic henchman-assassin? Check, and Necros had a brain, too.

Good debut performance by Timothy Dalton as Bond, although in retrospect the character’s incarnation was written as slightly too emotionally fragile to be such a seasoned agent (particularly in Licence To Kill). The opening pre-title sequence was excellent stuff, and some of the fight scenes were surprisingly violent, particularly Necros’ kitchen cutlery set-to with a guard. Pity the rest of the movie wasn’t as good.

Bad points: Basically down to dodgy writing and lame direction. Though distinctly muted, the shadow of Roger Moore’s “comedy” Bond movies loomed ominously over this one in moments like Bond’s dropping in on the yacht in the pre-title sequence (the woman’s reaction was unrealistic and Dalton himself didn’t seem too confident with the quip), and that cringeworthy disco dolly in the big glass at the end of the title credits. Also the entirety of the car/ski stunt sequence which culminates in Bond and Kara escaping on the cello case was pure Moore and his cast of stuntmen. Necros aside, the villains just weren’t nasty enough this time around, either.

However, the main problem with the movie was the workmanlike, pedestrian direction by John Glen. Too much middle-distance filming-range sapped the action sequences, and while at least the writers tried to update matters to the mid-1980s, Glen was content with the old ways of film-making to the point of stodginess (one imagines — not that it would have happened — what someone like David Lynch or Michael Mann might have made of the story).

So, while The Living Daylights was on the one hand an attempt to move on from slapstick’n’smirk, there was too much foot-dragging and the result didn’t go far enough. Next to A View to A Kill, this one looked almost hardcore, but in the Bondian scheme of things it was one of the more mediocre offerings. Did Dalton deserve another try? Maybe, but only if the writing/production/direction team had been cleared of the dead wood. Then again, unfortunately for Dalton, he was ageing pretty quickly (witness his well-lined, follically-challenged appearance in Licence To Kill just two years on from this), and we may have been back to square one with an unbelievable Bond, only without Moore’s self-deprecating charm.

12) Diamonds are Forever. Bond goes to Vegas, but we’re out of luck.

Anybody notice how “glam rock” this film is? You’ve got athletic female assassins camply named Thumper and Bambi, two ridiculously fey gay assassins (Mr Wint and Mr Kidd), and future Rocky Horror narrator Charles Grey dressing in drag to evade Bond. Also there’s the space connection with the moon buggy (“Ground Control To Major Bond…”). All of which would have been way more fun with a different actor as Bond. Connery was old and pudgy and looked a little like Clark Gable by the time he was recalled to duty. Even with all the fashionably louche early 1970s distractions, the screenplay and direction weren’t up to the standard of the 1960s Bond movies, and this amusingly odd entry is one of the more middling ones.

13) You Only Live Twice. Michael Myers was watching very closely.

Absolutely concur. Some further observations: An utterly sublime theme song; the opening credits actually make a good music video in their own right. The first half-hour or so of the movie was fine, with Connery doing more real acting than his last two Bond appearances put together. There’s some good writing, too (check that gem of a scene with Moneypenny), but then off we go to sillyville with a plot so whacked-out only Austin Powers could do it justice.

So, SPECTRE’s space program is more advanced than anyone else’s and boasts spacecraft which can swallow the command modules of US and USSR space missions alike? That’s not unlike Dick Dastardly from “Whacky Races” being well ahead of the other drivers and stopping to set a trap instead of just going ahead and winning. A bit of wayward eyeliner, a stooping walk, a Vulcan hairstyle and Sean Connery becomes “Japanese.” Oboy. Moreover, he learns how to be a Ninja in a couple of weeks. The villain’s secret lair is a hollowed-out volcano complete with a rocket base and a private army, and is accessed via a colossal metal “crater” lid. Yeah. Guess everybody in the vicinity was looking the other way when all the construction was going on. This was Connery’s Moonraker. Donald Pleasance was a great villain, though.

14) Live And Let Die. Warmed-over gumbo with cheese.

Yep, agreed; this is one of the least “Bondian” movies of the lot. Oddly colourless performance by Sir Roger in his first Bond outing, he seemed like he was still doing an episode of The Saint. Jane Seymour was the true revelation here; an extraordinarily attractive woman who also managed to inject some real personality into what was essentially just another “Bond Girl” role (they generally start off powerful and confident and then go all “help me, James” once they succumb to his libido. To be fair though, in this movie Solitaire arguably succumbed to her own). She was the best thing about it.

The “Blaxploitation” idea was not bad, but it really only worked in the urban Harlem environment, where Bond is an uncomfortable fish out of water. He might as well be in Moscow. Once down in de Bayou however, the gritty urban vibe disappeared to be replaced by a garish cartoon of dumbass Southern lawmen, hokey “voodoo” trappings and a speedboat chase during which one had time to make a coffee, check the email, reminisce with friends of times past, etc. Continuing on from Diamonds Are Forever both the “Americanisation” of the Bond films and the creeping tide of “comedic” content are patently obvious. Silly moments abound; a table sinks below the floor in a nightclub and no-one notices? The villains didn’t so much as point in the other direction and shout “hey, what’s that over there” before it happened. Also, all the people in the “funeral parades” are in on the plot? Oh yeah. Where did Bond get an entire tarot deck of “The Lovers” card? Q? Kananga’s explosive yet bloodless death would have been a lot less cartoonish in real life (but there’s a PG rating to be kept in mind), and so on.

Oh, and a Bond movie plot with actual supernatural elements? We’ve sure moved on from the “dragon” in Dr No. Then again, Baron Samedi did look quite cool riding that train at the end…

15) Tomorrow Never Dies. Licenced to bore.

The villain’s role is that of an evil media magnate, and it would have been wise to have underplayed the role and presented a cold, businesslike protagonist; after all, there was a perfect real-life “evil tyrant” role model in Rupert Murdoch. Instead, Jonathan Pryce hams it up and chews the scenery like he’s the Batman villain of the week (as my Bondsesh mate said; “a bit Willy Wonka, isn’t he?”). Michelle Yeoh is attractive enough and well versed in chop-socky moves, but is fed some terrible lines and can’t even carry those off convincingly. And Teri Hatcher? What were they thinking?

On the plus side, Brosnan (a very good actor) is allowed some room in which to display emotions other than Goldeneye’s one-size-fits-all steely determination. Unfortunately, no-one he interacts with except M, Moneypenny and Q are capable of returning dialogue with equal acting skills, so he ends up wanting for a worthy foil to bounce off. Moreover, there are frustratingly few such “quiet” scenes amid some extremely overblown (but admittedly exciting) stunts; best was the “video game” car chase. Brosnan was better than in Goldeneye, but yeah, the movie wasn’t quite as much fun.

16) The Man With The Golden Gun. James Bond stars in his own Bond parody.

Oh dear. This really is where everything went undeniably pear-shaped for the Bond movie franchise. Ham-fisted direction (that cutesy pennywhistle soundtrack for the bridge jump, for instance), two oddly unappealing Bond Girls, and a badly miscast villain (Christopher Lee just wanders around on “looming menace” autopilot, phoning it in all the way. He plays his makeout clinch/grope-scenes like a bored physician conducting an examination). Moreover, the entire production boasted a cast with a conspicuous lack of chemistry, and the over-familiar “mad scientist with secret hideout and super weapon” plot was strictly 1966 bond parody. Scaramanga’s “psychedelic shooting range” was pure Batman, and Herve Villechaize (behold, a strange, mysterious dwarf! Lazy casting shorthand since whenever for an automatically “exotic, weird, slightly sinister” henchman) with his annoyingly affected “wind-up toy” walk was a whacky swingin’ Sixties trope too far (wasn’t there a guy like that in Patrick McGoohan’s 1967 TV show The Prisoner? [Yes, that would be the midget butler — editor]).

The Eastern locale is squandered by a stupidly racist script (oh yeah, big, white Bond can beat up any and all trained martial arts types), and the Southern baccy-chawin’ Good ‘Ol Boy light relief was similarly overplayed and odious. In short, this was actually a mid-1960s Bond parody movie made half a decade too late. By the release of The Man With The Golden Gun, James Bond had gone from inspiring Derek Flint to becoming him.

17) Licence To Kill. Impassioned Dalton in post-good Miami Vice season opener.

In which the Bond franchise plays Miami Vice and loses almost everything. Timothy Dalton sorely lacked the charm, sophistication and campy comic edge needed for the James Bond character, and saddled with a patchy script and indifferent direction, Licence To Kill emerges as one of the worst movies in the canon. The villains walk away with all the credit. Robert Davi and Benicio Del Toro really are sinister (gangling, psycho Del Toro could easily have been another Red Grant figure), but utterly wasted in a “Bond movie” which sought to emulate a TV show (unfortunately not to the point of utilising Miami Vice’s revolutionary music video-influenced direction).

Even Wayne Newton’s well-realised serio-comic “evangelist” could have used more screen time, if only to inject much-needed comic relief. James Bond may be working as a loose cannon for the sake of his own revenge, and Sanchez may be mixed up in Central American politics, but ultimately it’s a sordid little cops-and-robbers story. James Bond as a vice cop? Frankly, as a premise that’s a little underwhelming. The incompetently staged nightclub fight scene was straight out of the 1967 Casino Royale and, along with the poor story-flow and lack of suspense, represents five-time Bond director John Glen’s franchise nadir. Hard to believe the same guy had once directed a taut thriller like For Your Eyes Only.

The two Bond Girls were unengaging (except when Carey Lowell is all dolled up for the nightclub scenes, when she suddenly becomes a convincing character), and the final “big rigs” truck stunt sequence is fine, but worked better in its original setting of Mad Max 2. Last Bond movie for six years, and not hard to see why. Nice opening theme, though.

18) Thunderball. Long, lingering, lukewarm sog with remote-control Connery.

This was the biggest Bond box-office hit of the 1960s and along with its predecessor Goldfinger largely fuelled the popular culture “spy boom” which captured the imagination and wallets of millions over 1964–67. Odd, considering the movie’s actual quality. Agreed, it has an undeniably classic theme song (though is “…strikes like Thunderball…” supposed to be a new mild oath?), but otherwise, I’m afraid that we’ve seen two different movies. If Thunderball resembles a Hitchcock movie, it’s Rope. After watching thirteen of them, this is the first Bond movie to invite fast-forwarding. After the cautious camp of Goldfinger, Thunderball was perhaps the first instance of a “back to basics” approach. Well, one can go to the Bahamas, but this is a long way from Dr No’s Caribbean.

Ye Gods, there’s a lot of underwater stuff towards the end. On the face of it, a nice idea; good visuals to be had (ask Jacques Cousteau). Big problem was, everything moves so slowly underwater anyway that even Peter Hunt’s whiplash editing can’t save such footage from becoming cinematic tedium. The pacing was frustratingly uneven. On land, the story started well but ran out of puff long about a quarter of the way through, had a cup of tea and a lie down while everyone was busy underwater, and never quite got up to speed again. There were some quite shoddy plot developments (just how preternaturally fit does one have to be in order to benefit from the highest setting on that wildly thrashing “traction table” at the sanitarium?), and a lack of continuity (Bond’s long time CIA friend Felix Leiter was played by a soap opera-level nobody, and plotwise may as well have been a stranger). The villains were lightweight (oboy. Brief, obscured Blofeld, a foreign guy with an eyepatch and some other geeky guy. Wow), the direction was downright dull and though the girls were indeed very nice looking, none had a personality to speak of. To top it all off, Connery walked through it.

True, his presence was fading in Goldfinger, but here James Bond is reduced further down scriptwise into a mere plot-cipher (admittedly equipped with some of the best one-liners so far), and it was difficult to feel anything for the character. Maybe Connery felt the same way. To succeed on their own terms, the Bond movies must hold to (or else play against) an established set of internal criteria, but at some point Bond also has to be about good cinema. Granted, Bond is all “about” pretty girls, guns, gadgets, villains, danger, urgency, sinister hidden networks, and violent solutions to explosive situations, but plot still is important, character development even more so. In the more intriguing franchise entries, Bond’s is a dark world (though not without its lighter, more pleasurable moments), and one in which he could lose heavily (see OHMSS, For Your Eyes Only, Licence To Kill, Casino Royale (2006) etc). Thunderball was a long, long, languid dip in the briny and not a keeper.

19) A View To A Kill. Golem-like Moore, plot beamed in from Mars.

This movie should really have been directed by Chuck Jones, at least then it could have received the “cartoon” treatment it deserved. In fact, this is so wilfully silly that for sheer “throw yer brain out the window and you’ll be entertained” value it is one crucial rung above the more “serious” Moonraker.

20) The World Is Not Enough. Big empty nothing with some great actors rattling around inside.

Sorry mein Webmaster, but once again we gotta agree to disagree. TWINE is one odd, lumpen effort. The one good idea was to utilise acting talent a bit more this time around, so there are a lot more scenes of people speaking to each other. After being too busy in Goldeneye and only catching his breath in Tomorrow Never Dies, here Brosnan gets to interact extensively with decent thesps like Judi Dench and Robbie Coltrane. Problem is, the writing isn’t up to scratch, the interplay fails to spark and thus the encounters don’t amount to much.

Moreover, the movie is saddled with two of the all-time worst Bond Girls; one-dimensional “bad girl” Electra (she does “smug, smirky smartass” and that’s her reaction to everything) and an even more alarming example of miscasting by which eminent nuclear scientist Dr Christmas Jones is apparently played by a chirpy aerobics instructor in her mid-20s. One could find more convincing impersonators of nuclear scientists working behind the bar at the local pub (or maybe even outside in the gutter. She’s that bad).

Then there’s Renard the villain, who cannot feel pain or other sensations and thus is kind of superhuman. Sorry, but even if you can’t feel it happening your body is still prone to abuse, and will bruise, burn, blister and break just like it always did. The character was interesting (sort of a young Blofeld), but actor Robert Carlyle was badly underutilised, sharing a mere few underwritten scenes with Brosnan.

The gargantuan pre-credits sequence got boring quickly, and the jet boat destruction was straight out of one of Sir Roger’s later, more risible efforts (who cleans the incidental Bond Mission mess up? Does your city have to have James Bond insurance? Surely in some parts of the world he’d be considered a supervillain for causing all that damage). What’s more, Brosnan seemed a bit jaded.

Oh, and introducing “R” (John Cleese) was a bad idea. Cleese comes with far too much baggage to be an acceptable substitute for Q. Why do these things all have to be two hours long? This one felt like that and more.

21) Moonraker. Come back Ed Wood, all is forgiven.

As a Bond movie, it lasts for almost all of the pre-credits sequence, right up until Jaws crashes into the circus tent. Then the real circus begins. One example among many of the sheer silliness which ensues is the outer space fight, where the good guys shoot blue laser-beams, whilst the bad guy shoot red. Ideologically colour-coded laser beams, eh? And good on Jaws for finding love under the most trying of circumstances, but how come she’s up on Drax’s space station with all the beautiful people? Nobody else there is short, with glasses and pigtails. One could go on detailing this sort of thing, but at least it’s not boring. Not when one is laughing so much.

22) Octopussy. Plotless tedium enlivened only by silly bits.

Almost immediately, the quality control on Roger Moore’s Bond movies got the speed-wobbles, vacillating wildly between drama and “comedy.” This one cautiously continued the low-key feel of his previous effort For Your Eyes Only, but the forces of farce were massing for an all-out attack of the sillies (see A View To A Kill). They do make a couple of sorties into Octopussy, most notably when Bond swings on a jungle vine and Johnny Weismuller’s long familiar “Tarzan yell” plays on the soundtrack. There is also an impossible “quick-change” moment when Bond exits a gorilla costume in the time it takes for Gobinda to turn around. Yeahyeahyeah, so far so whatever.

However, what really holes this one below the waterline is poor casting (Maud Adams as the titular character was a bore, Magda looked a bit fish-like, Vijay was a lump of wood dressed as a human and watch out for the scenery, lest the guy who played General Orlov start to chew it up) and a well-nigh unfathomable plotline. We’re in India, but there’s something about fake Faberge eggs, nuclear bombs, a travelling circus, and some sort of secret society composed entirely of attractive women in brightly-coloured leotards.

There’s a big all-in mass punch-up near the end, and Bond defuses a nuclear bomb whilst dressed as a clown (now there’s an extremely effective age-disguising use of cosmetics. They should have utilised the technique on Moore for the entirety of A View To A Kill) but by then I’d long given up trying to follow the meandering storyline. Sir Roger wasn’t trying very hard this time and neither was anybody else, so why should we.

23) Casino Royale (1967) (non EON production). A complete dog’s breakfast.

Over 1964–67 quite a lot of spying had gone on in movies, TV, books and comics, and even James Bond himself had passed into self-parody. For CR67, the original Ian Fleming story (the only one not owned by the EON production company) was recast as a high camp, psychedelic farce played strictly for laughs. Or at least its makers intended it to be so, since it is not very funny.

They shot this with six directors, key cast members coming and going (nominal star Peter Sellers bailed in disgust midway, and his exit in the film was “covered” by inserting a few seconds of outtake material), and uninspired script-shredding improv (not that there was much of a script to begin with), and then overall compiler Val Guest made it worse with an inevitably incoherent assemblage (I couldn’t follow the storyline for more than ten minutes without losing track of why the movie’s events were unfolding in the way they did).

It has a little smidgen of period charm (commercially-produced neo-psychedelic pop-art), but not enough to save witnessing it from being a chore rather than a pleasure. This troubled production had an estimated budget of $12m and grossed $41.7m worldwide; respectable business, but small potatoes by Bond movie standards. What a double bill this would make with Modesty Blaise (1966); “Chaotic Bond Parody Night.” Bring your pillow.

A few months ago, I challenged myself to watch all the James Bond films… and so did the author of The Man Who Saved Britain, however he did it as a result of growing up in England. This thoroughly entertaining book is a simultaneous memoir, history tome, and James Bond tribute. It attempts to place the suave spy in British history, claiming that the popularity largely stemmed from how the British empire — spanning multiple nations worldwide and with a technologically superior fighting force — fell apart after World War II, and looking for something to believe in, latched onto the macho myth that is Bond.

As the Cold War descended, waning British power put forth a different sort of hero that displayed individual initiative and traveled the world to exotic places for action and adventure, proving the English were still necessary at least for working behind the scenes — no huge government with massive military force required. So England had a sixties spy craze: The Avengers, Danger Man, and Bond.

The author has an extremely vibrant writing style, weaving childhood anecdotes between the history and pop culture references. He’s also charmingly unafraid to admit problems with his thesis. At one point he claims author Ian Fleming wrote about a nude woman’s “black triangle” that the author held as a fond memory for many years, only to find out while researching this book that he had it wrong all along and Fleming wrote no such thing.

I found Winder’s recounting of British history fascinating. Early this century, the British Empire reigned supreme over many nations resulting in bizarre imported knick-knacks like a stuffed cobra fighting a mongoose, brass talismans, and maroon rugs stuffed into every British home. But during both World Wars, British military might was clearly checked and help from the Allies was essential to avoid becoming a German colony. Simultaneously, there was an elite, moneyed upper class in England that was completely inept in terms of physical force, they would be helpful with nutty campaigns as vigilantes. Being wealthy, they were never in any danger of being deployed to the front lines. It’s from this bizarre situation that James Bond author Ian Fleming came from.

The war was good to Fleming, tapping his imagination, forcing him to work within discipline. Fleming schemed, plotted, and carried out dangerous missions. From the famous Room 39 in the Admiralty building in London’s Whitehall, Fleming tossed out a myriad of off-beat ideas on how to confuse, survey, and enrage the Germans.

In a 1940 trip into a crumbling France, Fleming supervised the escape from Dieppe, juggling the security needs of his country against the crush of refugees seeking escape from the Nazi machine. With Fleming flair, he spent one of his last evening eating and drinking some of the best food in the country, and one of his last days coordinating the evacuation of King Zog of Albania.

The book suggests that after the war, as the British Empire collapsed, Fleming departed to Jamaica and wrote many of the Bond novels, reliving spy adventures that weren’t really possible anymore. It was a fantasy of a British man being able to wander the globe, comfortable in all situations, living a life of material luxury and political utility. But the dark side of empire is under the surface — the sexism, alcoholism, gluttony, moral ambiguity, and the racist view of a world to be exploited.

Yes, the book isn’t afraid to poke holes in Bond when it’s deserved. Winder claims Fleming’s best book is From Russia With Love while others like Moonraker are completely worthless. He’s similarly critical of the movies — a huge fan of the Sean Connery classics but feels that when Roger Moore takes over, the film’s fly off on some tangent completely unrelated to the original books. Moonraker is specifically singled out as a feeble attempt to cash in on Star Wars, and several times he heaps condemnation on the Die Another Day, in particular the debacle of the invisible car.

Anyhow, if you’re interested in James Bond or British history in general, I recommend checking out this book. Just due to the amusing writing style of Winder I finished it pretty quickly.

= 3 stars

Starring Peter Sellars, Ursula Andress, David Niven
Directed by Ken Hughes, John Huston, Joseph McGrath, Robert Parrish, Val Guest

For completeness’ sake, I watched the 1967 spy spoof Casino Royale, which features several James Bond type characters and more than one director. It’s stuffed with familiar actors: Orson Welles, David Niven, Peter Sellars, and Woody Allen. To call this film bizarre is an understatement (it’s a “psychedelic comedy”). I found it particularly surreal to watch after the recent, way serious, Casino Royale starring Daniel Craig as Bond.

So what’s good? The music: Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass offer up the catchy theme song, and most notable is Burt Bacharach’s awesome The Look Of Love sung by Dusty Springfield. Also fascinating are the wild, colorful and acid-laced sixties sets. There are almost too many gorgeous women littering the scenery like candy, making a joke of Bond’s promiscuity. Most enthralling are Ursula Andress (featured in Dr. No) as Vesper Lynd and Barbara Bouchet (featured in a Star Trek episode), as Moneypenny.

Unfortunately, that’s it. Bad points: the plot is confusing — I honestly had no idea what was going on through half of it. It’s the type of film that keeps stuffing things into it to keep it interesting, and in the absence of any logical explanation, all heck breaks loose near the end with parachuting Indians, a ping-pong ball battle, and a flying roulette wheel that explodes. Imagine several Bond films plus Barbarella and a Godzilla movie taking place in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory.

Supposedly, the chaos wasn’t limited to the audience and included the filmmakers themselves. According to Wikipedia, Peter Sellars grew frustrated with the comedic direction and quit, resulting in a lack of a beginning or ending. Therefore, the film’s beginning features David Niven as Bond and the ending Niven facing off with Woody Allen as Jimmy Bond / Dr. Noah (don’t laugh, it’s not that funny).

Anyhow, in conclusion I found Casino Royale mildly amusing, but it’s a borderline rental at best. Let’s put it this way: I’d sooner buy the soundtrack.

Note: The DVD includes an extra: an old television version of Casino Royale. I enjoyed it as an early realization of the James Bond character. It captures the sneaky spy, casino, and creepy villain feel (with Peter Lorre as Le Chifre) — the best part being the tense Baccarat game. But as it was for television, it was really low budget and any sense of style is stifled. Also note the character of Bond is American (the character is renamed Jimmy Bond [hmm, is that what the Woody Allen character was referencing?]). It’s an interesting part of James Bond history, and after watching that take, I appreciate the Daniel Craig Casino Royale all that much more.

IMDB: Casino Royale (1967)
Wikipedia: Casino Royale (1967)
Rotten Tomatoes: Casino Royale 94%

Note: I’m fully expecting people to disagree. This is a personal list and just my opinion. If you want to hash this out for yourself, check out James Bond Multimedia and Wikipedia.

001. Diana Rigg, Traci Di Vicenzo: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

The ultimate bond girl, the only one to wed James Bond. Tough as nails, vulnerable the next, wears many outfits and doesn’t look too ridiculous in any of them. She does ski jumps, wields a broken bottle, drives a car like a maniac, and holds her own against Blofeld, impressing Bond all the way. Lastly, I’m a sucker for the tragic, out-of-nowhere ending. A true Bond woman for the hopelessly romantic.

002. Claudine Auger, Domino: Thunderball

Simply ooh-la-la awesome. Wears several swim suits. The death of her brother causes her to question her loyalties. She has a great part at the end, where she pokes someone with a long, sharp object.

003. Famke Janssen, Xenia Onatopp: GoldenEye

Technically, some may not consider her a Bond girl as she’s the evil nemisis’ henchwoman. But I can’t resist the sadistic, beautiful, and clinically insane. She gets off on violence and kills men by crushing them between her thighs. What would happen if her and Jaws ever got together?

004. Daniela Bianchi, From Russia With Love

Similarities to Eva Marie Saint aside, a cool, early sixties, international wonder. And that black collar — meow!

005. Barbara Bach, Major Anya Amasova: The Spy Who Loved Me

Probably the first time Bond met a woman who could hold her own and had to work with as an equal, as she was a Russian spy. Plus, she didn’t give in to his come-ons until the end of the film.

006. Eva Green, Vesper Lynd: Casino Royale

A complex character for whom Bond falls for but eventually realizes the truth. There’s no question her final scenes are more deservedly, emotionally satisfying than Traci Di Vicenzo’s in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service — especially the moment where she cries in the shower after an exhausting sequence of events.

007. Jane Seymour, Solitaire: Live and Let Die

Cute and pensive. She’s so beautiful I think she might be a Cylon. I feel her confusion when she kept drawing the Lovers card from her tarot deck whenever Bond drew near.

Honorable Mention:

These characters almost made my list:

Lana Wood (Plenty O’Toole) from Diamonds are Forever

Maryam d’Abo (Kara Milvoy) from The Living Daylights

Carole Bouquet (Melina Havelock) from For Your Eyes Only

Ursula Andress (Honey Ryder) from Dr. No

Tania Mallet (Tilly Masterson) from Goldfinger

Shirley Eaton (Jill Masterson) from Goldfinger

Mie Hama (Kissy Suzuki) from You Only Live Twice

Sophie Marceau (Elektra King) from Die Another Day The World Is Not Enough

= 5 stars

Starring Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen
Directed by Martin Campbell

Casino Royale is a complete “reboot” of the Bond franchise, featuring a grittier, more serious take on the beloved super spy, not unlike Batman Begins. The jury is still out whether Daniel Craig as Bond or this film will stand the test of time, but at the very least, it’s easily the best Bond film since GoldenEye.

I feel that the Roger Moore films had too many silly moments. The Bond quips had devolved into flat out bad jokes, and Bond became involved in ridiculous slapstick humor: a car jump to a slide whistle, Jaws falling in love to romantic music, Bond swinging on a vine complete with Tarzan yell, Bond dressed as a clown. Meanwhile, the nefarious plots grew more complex yet ridiculous, with schemes of destroying the world and repopulating it with a new race. Even as late as Die Another Day, the bad guys’ plans were so convoluted it seemed their primary purpose was to confuse the audience. The second trend was Bond drifting away from his roots as spy and assassin. The violence grew so cartoonish that a casualty was more of an inconvenience than something to seriously ponder.

Needless to say, with Casino Royale, these trends have been obliterated. This was attempted before with Licence to Kill, which now in retrospect, didn’t go far enough.

The change is evident from the pre-credit sequence, taking cues for German Expressionism or film noir. The traditional gun barrel opening is introduced so suddenly, I barely recognized it. From that moment, it’s clear this will be a very different take on Bond.‘

The camera angles are deliberately odd and constantly changing — activity is omnipresent. Objects are constantly out of focus, along with a grainy, more realistic look. This style grounds Bond in reality and possibly offers a view into how a spy would see their world while on a mission: constantly on the move, hidden in shadows, and watching out for mortal threats.

Daniel Craig makes for a rugged, aggressive Bond, unlike any previous. The only slight resemblance is the gruff aggressiveness of Sean Connery plus the cruelty of Timothy Dalton. He’s up against La Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), a rich criminal who profits from other companies’ failures, and weeps blood. Bond is sent to beat him in a high stakes game of poker in which the pot rises to over a hundred million dollars.

The other awesome part of Casino Royale is Bond’s new flame, Vesper Lind (Eva Green). We at last see a real plot arc of Bond making a connection with a woman, falling in love, seeing her die, and the emotional fallout. This is an emotional shift that never had a chance to occur in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service when Bond’s new wife, Teresa was murdered by Blofeld. At the beginning of Diamonds Are Forever, Bond avenges her death, quickly hunting down and attacking Blofeld. But afterwards, the only other reference to Traci is at the start of For Your Eyes Only when Bond places flowers on her grave, and then drops Blofeld down a smokestack.

However, I do have two complaints about Casino Royale. Bond displays some inappropriately superhuman feats — namely the early on-foot chase sequence where Bond jumps up a construction scaffold like Super Mario. I think there should be an unwritten rule: James Bond is a secret agent, not a superhero (as in Spider-Man or one of the X-Men).

Second, Casino Royale is extremely violent, as this Bond doesn’t shy from the duties of a cold, aggressive, serious killer. The playboy charm of Sean Connery is sadly absent — no 60s camp or fun here. I suppose today’s serious times dictate a cold, cruel, near terrorist existence. There are two particular scenes that are nearly sadistic — Bond killing a machete wielding thug in a stairwell, and a brutal torture sequence where a knotted rope is swung repeatedly at a naked Bond’s unmentionables.

However, I do grant that this move towards extreme violence fits with the shift towards realism. Killing is messy and not fun and games. Bond is shown cleaning blood from his body and the hotel bathroom sink is tainted red. It’s disgusting but adds a cruel gravity to the situation. So I don’t know, do I want to see people blown up to a laugh track or a gritty, intense killing with tears afterward? Although the latter is difficult to watch and possibly gratuitous, at least it treats the subject with honest attention. Plus, we’ve seen too much cartoony Bond already.

In conclusion, this film doesn’t play it safe. After three formulaic, ironically tame Bonds (as the CGI got more ridiculously epic) with Pierce Brosnan, Casino Royale is an audacious reboot of the franchise. It’s like going from Mac OS 9 to the first version OS X. It might be a little rough around the edges and not all the bugs are worked out, but it’s obviously a necessary move to the future. There’s so much more that’s right about this film than wrong.

Note: I apologize that I’m publishing this review after my list of Best and Worst Bond Films. I fully intended to post it over the weekend but due to the digging I didn’t have time to finish it sooner. But rest assured, this post was largely solidified before I went public with that list.

IMDB: Casino Royale
Wikipedia: Casino Royale
Rotten Tomatoes: Casino Royale 94%

Next “Bonus” Bond Movie: Never Say Never Again
Previous Bond Movie: Die Another Day

In this case, my post The Best And Worst Bond Films was submitted by someone else (richstyles [thanks!]), so I didn’t have much prep time. I noticed the submission while checking out my Feedburner feed — as shows a little graphic noting the number of diggs on a post — when it was around 25 diggs. This is a good number at which to start paying attention.

From my experience, when a story moves past about 50 diggs, its fate is sealed. It moves onto the front page of its subject category and then dudes just start visiting your site and digging like crazy.

Duggmirror is a handy site to visualize this. Here’s a nice graph of the digging activity over time. From here, it’s pretty obvious that the story hit a critical point at about 50 diggs, then the chart just goes up, and levels off around 600.

My other two posts topped out at about 800 diggs. This one seemed to hit its peak at about 600. It wasn’t as popular a post as the ones previous, although it did garner more page views — as my site went down the last two times.

I think many diggers didn’t agree with my choices for best and worst Bond films. Many seemed to mention A View To A Kill as a terrible Bond film that should have been on my worst list. But hey, this is just an opinion on my blog. I feel that I did my homework. I watched the films, wrote reviews, and considered them in comparison to one another. Believe me, The Living Daylights is a superior film after you’ve watched A View To A Kill, Moonraker, and Octopussy in short succession.

That said, I’m totally open and interested in different opinions and points of view. I received some decent discussion about my choices in the comments, and that’s all I can really hope for as a blogger.

Although, naturally, some comments on digg and this blog were pretty crassly humorous. The list was called terrible, bullshit, and my parents labelled sexual deviants. One poster who agreed with me was told to marry someone in Massachusetts and adopt “wrong children” by another digger. Still, regarding my last dugg post about Apple mistakes I was told I had Steve Jobs’ **** in my mouth, so just about anything is a step up.

Insults and nutty comments aside, my biggest worry was whether the site would crap out. Since my last digging in October, I installed WordPress 2.1 and WP-Cache, the latter of which did an awesome job. This blog survived the hordes hoping for Xenia Onatopp photographs. I suggest anybody who is tempting the digg effect to install it (the plug in, not Xenia).

The traffic was pretty intense for a few hours (at least as far as my blog is concerned), and at day’s end the server had handled about 25,000 unique visitors, 33,000 page views, 700,000 hits, and 6.77 GB (this is all in one day… not a monthly total!). That’s essentially 3x the amount of traffic sustained during my last digging. Also, my Feedburner subscribers jumped to 200 — double what it was before.

Truth be told, as with last time, I’m fully expecting all this to die down rapidly as things go back to normal. What I’m hoping for as a result are a few more regular readers and another nice spike on my Alexa chart so I can look back and think… good times.

Note: It’s now a day and a half later — the digg traffic has dropped considerably, but there’s some residual traffic that I didn’t see with my apple posts — from StumbleUpon, and two news sites in Europe.

I thank George Lazenby for WP-Cache and that my agreement with my hosting provider (Site5) includes unlimited bandwidth. Meanwhile, the best is yet to come: I have yet to post The Seven Hottest Bond Women and How To Quit Smoking With Kirk And Spock.

Somehow this makes sitting through the God-awful Moonraker and Die Another Day somewhat worth it.

But if this site goes down in the process (as it did last time), I may change my mind!

Note: These are listed in chronological order, or in “no particular order.”

Secondary note: Please click on the titles to read my previous reviews on each film. Plus, here are the links to all my James Bond movie reviews.

Best 007 James Bond Films:

001. From Russia With Love

Three aspects of Bond: suave seducer, sneaky spy, and killer were established right here.

002. Goldfinger

Take From Russia With Love but add an uber bad guy and several evil henchmen (and one henchwoman).

003. Thunderball

You’ll certainly “get the point” of Bond during this one. There’s the addition of epic battles and an outrageously smoking hot babe to the franchise.

004. The Spy Who Loved Me

Roger Moore’s best outing, with adept, needed variations on the Bond formula.

005. The Living Daylights

Dalton is surprisingly good, playing a more serious Bond after a string of “meh” Roger Moore outings.

006. GoldenEye

Pierce Brosnan comes in and resets the franchise yet again. Plus, it’s hard to “top” Xenia as the sexiest baddie since Pussy Galore.

007. Casino Royale (2006)

The ultimate Bond reboot. A bit too violent for my tastes, but a shock to the system is yet again, exactly what the franchise needed.

Worst 007 Bond Films:

1. Moonraker: Space and spies don’t mix.

2. Tomorrow Never Dies: I started watching this one, and realized I’d seen it before. Totally forgettable.

3. Die Another Day: I wanted to die during this film, as it seemed to last an entire day.

4. Licence To Kill: Much too dark Dalton misfire.

5. Diamonds Are Forever: Sean Connery looks bored during his last EON Bond film.

6. Octopussy: Too many villains and Bond stoops to dressing in a clown suit.

7. The Man With The Golden Gun: Just tragically average, and in addition to the gun there’s a third nipple — gross.

(Never Say Never Again was pretty bad, but it wasn’t an EON production. Still, it ought to be mentioned as yet another bad Bond film.)

Who’s The Best Bond Actor?

So who’s the best Bond? I’m a Sean Connery fan. These next lists are my orderings based on who played Bond:

Sean Connery Bond Films from Best to Worst:

Goldfinger, Thunderball, From Russia With Love, Dr. No, You Only Live Twice, Diamonds Are Forever

Roger Moore Bond Films from Best to Worst:

The Spy Who Loved Me, For Your Eyes Only, Live And Let Die, A View To A Kill, The Man With The Golden Gun, A View To A Kill, Octopussy, Moonraker

Pierce Brosnan Bond Films from Best to Worst:

GoldenEye, The World Is Not Enough, Tomorrow Never Dies, Die Another Day

Timothy Dalton Bond Films from Best to Worst:

The Living Daylights, Licence To Kill

…and poor George Lazenby only made one Bond film, which was pretty decent. Lastly, I think the jury is still out with Daniel Craig, but he’s off to an outstanding start.

Note: Here are the links to all my James Bond movie reviews.

= 5 stars

Starring Timothy Dalton, Maryam d’Abo
Directed by John Glen

Timothy Dalton (James Bond)

Maryam d’Abo (Kara Milvoy)

Rounding the corner, ths is second to last James Bond film I need to watch (the last being the new Casino Royale) on my quest to see all the Bond movies.

I was expecting to dislike this film after seeing License to Kill. But here, after a long string of progressively worse Roger Moore films, it’s surprisingly good — a stunning mesh of the Roger Moore and the Sean Connery films. It seems with every new Bond actor, the producers take a fresh look at the Bond franchise put forth their full efforts.

Dalton makes an awesome Bond, showing a broad range of emotions. The cheesy humor is obliterated, plus he’s is alternately charming and ruthless when called for. Bond is ressurected as the spy and assassin he was originally intended to be. Maryam d’Abo also makes an excellent Bond girl that isn’t overtly sexy or merely window-dressing to be gawked at. Plus, she plays the cello — a plus in my book.

Another odd twist is the final scenes take place in Afghanistan, where the Russians are fighting the freedom fighters. Since this film was made in the late eighties, we’re supposed to hate the Russians and love the Afghan rebels. How times have changed.

The plot involves the uncovering of a Russian plot to kill western spies. Bond is pulled into the plot via the defection of a Russian General. Eventually, the trail leads to a renegade Russian General Pushkin (John Rhys-Davies) and Brad Whittaker, an appropriately daffy American arms dealer who’s like a renegade war mongering general with delusions of grandeur (he has statues of Hitler, Napoleon, and Caesaer in his house entry way). There’s another evil henchman, a blond muscleman named Necros.

The Bond gadgets are a newly outfitted Aston Martin and a cool keychain featuring a skeleton key, tranquilizing gas, and explosive capability. This key is activate by whistling, which becomes an entertaining plot device throughout the film.

So to sum up, I really don’t get what happened between this awesome film and the wincingly average Licence To Kill. After those two movies, due to legal entanglements, the Bond franchise was put on hold for many years until GoldenEye, which starred a new Bond in the form of Pierce Brosnan. Sadly, Dalton only got two chances at Bond. After watching The Living Daylights, I think he deserved another go.

IMDB: The Living Daylights
Wikipedia: The Living Daylights
Rotten Tomatoes: The Living Daylights 78%

Next Bond Movie: Licence To Kill
Previous Bond Movie: A View To A Kill

= 3 stars

Starring Sean Connery, Kim Basinger, Barbara Carrera

This is odd Bond, not unlike On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Many feel it shouldn’t even be included in the canon, as it wasn’t produced by EON Productions. But it has one aspect making it somewhat worth seeing: Sean Connery.

A key crucial flaw of Never Say Never Again is that it’s essentially a remake of Thunderball — one of the best Bond films ever. Why Thunderball? This is where a bit of odd movie history is in order, as the man responsible is Kevin McClory, a writer who collaborated with Ian Fleming on some Bond screenplays in the late fifties. Fleming used one these drafts as the basis for his ninth novel, Thunderball, without giving McClory credit. A lawsuit ensued, and the book went on to be a box office powerhouse in 1966, but with the option for McClory to remake it after ten years. In 1976 McLory began work on his own James Bond movie, but was quickly slapped with a lawsuit by EON who was still making Bond films. The legal battle went on until the 1980s until McClory won the right to remake Thunderball — the only Bond story he had any claim to (if this is interesting to you, please check out this Wikipedia entry regarding this sticky history).

So this film already has one hand tied behind its back as there’s simply no way it could top Thunderball, an awesome sixties spectacle, even with Connery as Bond. The best qualities of the original are hardly surpassed or even emulated. Missing are the climactic undersea battles, the luxurious locations, or the luxurious Domino Derval. A remake of a sub-par Bond like Diamonds Are Forever or The Man With The Golden Gun would have made far more sense — but McClory had nothing to do with those films.

Another problem is Sean Connery’s age. He’s quite unintentionally funny in some of the fight scenes. There’s no conceivable reason why a man so old would be cast as Bond other than because he’d been in the role for so long (Roger Moore looks equally embalmed in A View To A Kill). Thankfully, his age isn’t completely covered up; in fact, it’s rather a joke as M dispatches Bond to a health spa for a diet and exercise.

But that’s not all. Since this isn’t an EON film, many familiar Bond elements are altered (to avoid another lawsuit) or nonexistent. M, Q, Moneypenny, and Blofeld are all played by different actors. The theme song is one of the worst ever, there’s no distinctive Bond guitar music, and the iconic gun-barrel opening sequence is completely absent.

The supporting cast is also inexplicably weak — nemesis Maximilian Largo (Klaus Maria Brandauer), Fatima Blush (Barbara Carrera), and Domino Petachi (Kim Basinger) — none of them lend Connery much help.

The only scene I found vaguely entertaining is one where eighties video games are played in a casino. Bond and Largo play “World Domination,” where the joysticks are loaded with electrodes that deal out electric shocks. There’s some funny narration by a robotic Cylon voice.

Because of its many flaws, I can’t really recommend Never Say Never Again. Only see it if you’re a big Sean Connery fan or have seen all the early Sean Connery Bonds and want more. If it had starred another actor as Bond — it would have been unbearable.

IMDB: Never Say Never Again
Wikipedia: Never Say Never Again
Rotten Tomatoes: Never Say Never Again 61%

Next “Bonus” Bond Movie: Casino Royale (1967)
Previous Bond Movie: Casino Royale

= 4 stars

Starring Pierce Brosnan, Sophie Marceau, Denise Richards
Directed by Michael Apted

Pierce Brosnan (James Bond)

Sophie Marceau (Elektra King)

Denise Richards (Christmas Jones)

After subjecting myself to the debacle that is Die Another Day, I’d likely find any Bond film better, but The World Is Not Enough is undoubtedly a superior film, and a decent entry into the canon. In some ways it’s better than GoldenEye as the plot and directing style is certainly reminiscent of classic, Roger Moore era Bond films. However, a few crucial flaws mar the movie.

For starters (surprise, surprise), Brosnan gets to act. This is the least spectacle and effects-driven Bronsnan Bond film, so he thankfully has room to breathe. There’s also a much more involved plot, dealing with oil rights in the Mideast. “M” (Judi Dench) gets to do more, leading to some table-turning events. “Q” also introduces his replacement, “R” (John Cleese) — a bit of inspired casting.

Especially interesting is the smoldering, complex character Electra King (Sophie Marceau) who may or may not be what she seems to be. Brosnan’s scenes with her are some of the film’s best moments.

Unfortunately, a few things mar The World Is Not Enough and keep it out of 5 star status. One is the awful character Dr. Christmas Jones (Denise Richards), to whom acting means standing still, looking concerned, and speaking with clear diction in monotone. Jones alternately sports a ridiculous Tomb-Raider type outfit and a too-tight purple dress. Some doctor — I liked this character better in Undercover Brother.

Bond also makes an crucial choice to kill a woman (he’s offed surprisingly few: one with a surface-to-air missile (The Spy Who Loved Me), again in Thunderball (though that instance is debatable as while dancing with Fiona Volpe, he turns her into friendly fire, perhaps by accident), and Xenia Onatopp in GoldenEye. Anyhow, a moment as unique as this ought to be a bit more emotionally troubling, especially since they slept together earlier in the film.

Lastly, the villains and their nefarious plot is rather wimpy — no space satellites or world destruction — just the detonation of a single nuclear submarine to provide only one oil pipeline, of course controlled by the villains. Although it’s decidedly less audacious, it doesn’t seem to increase its chance of success as the villains seem determined to make things more complicated out of perverse pleasure, I suppose — or just to enable Bond to look smart trying to figure it all out.

But please don’t take these gripes to heart. Everything else about The World Is Not Enough is above average. Certainly check this one out after GoldenEye for entertaining Brosonan-as-Bond. Just be aware that it has some faults and it’s a bit long. But compared to Die Another Day - it’s night and day — and that’s enough to make a world of difference.

Note: I noticed two Hitchcock references that I think were intentional: when Bond chases Elektra up a staircase, it’s reminiscent of Hitchcock’s Vertigo. The end of the film has a romantic moment with fireworks as in To Catch A Thief.

IMDB: The World Is Not Enough
Wikipedia: The World Is Not Enough
Rotten Tomatoes: The World Is Not Enough 53%

Next Bond Movie: Die Another Day
Previous Bond Movie: Tomorrow Never Dies

= 2 stars

Starring Pierce Brosnan, Halle Berry, Rosamund Pike
Directed by Lee Tamahori

Pierce Brosnan (James Bond)

Halle Berry (Jinx)

Rosamund pike (Miranda Frost)

The fourth (and final) James Bond film to star Pierce Brosnan, sadly, is probably his worst. Die Another Day reminded me of another truly cringe-worthy sequel: Batman And Robin — where Batman went campy and the cartoony characters conversed in cliches based on their names (“have an ‘ice’ day”). Die Another Day is another obscene location for the Cheesecake Factory, serving cheese with cheese on top and cheese on the side, all due to laughably ridiculous situations, comical characters, and so-impressive-they’re-dumb computer special effects, resulting in contender for worst Bond film ever. It’s Moonraker bad.

I don’t even feel like a standard plot summary is necessary. In this film, big guns are supposed to indicate large, awesome firepower, but when a hand-held weapon resembles a large side of beef, it’s just dumb.

Here’s a short list of some dumb and dumberer things in Die Another Day:

Bond surfing. Bond para-sailing to escape a tidal wave produced by a falling glacier. Hover-crafts skating over land mines in the Korean demilitarized zone. A Cuban lab where people’s appearances are altered using genetic therapy. A cameo by Madonna as a fencing student, likely as part of her contract to record the worst Bond song ever. Bond drives an invisible car. An ice palace in Iceland. Sexual innuendo as blunt as a butter knife… and the list goes on.

Things start out okay with Bond captured in North Korea, and I could follow him to Cuba, but things began falling apart when a shaved baddie (looking like Gollum) with medical straps connected to his chest fleet-foots it to a helicopter while Jinx (Halle Berry) pulls a much-too-large gun out of her purse… repeat after me: dumb. It then hits a high point of stupidity when Madonna shows up in the fencing bodice. After that, I found Die Another Day progressively more mesmerizing and hilarious — but for all the wrong reasons.

I can really only recommend this film if you’re channel-flipping through late night cable and have nothing better to watch, or you want a new form of drinking game, or better yet: as an example in a dumb movie marathon, featuring other gems like Battlefield Earth, the aforementioned Batman and Robin, Tango And Cash, or… Moonraker.

IMDB: Die Another Day
Wikipedia: Die Another Day
Rotten Tomatoes: Die Another Day 59%

Next Bond Movie: Casino Royale
Previous Bond Movie: The World Is Not Enough

= 5 stars

Starring Pierce Brosnan, Famke Janssen, Izabella Scorupco
Directed by Martin Campbell

Pierce Brosnan (James Bond)

Famke Janssen (Xenia Onatopp)

Izabella Scorupco (Natalya Simonova)

This one was very entertaining. Pierce Brosnan isn’t my favorite Bond (in Tomorrow Never Dies I found him tedious) but in GoldenEye he displays a charming, youthful energy. If one smashed Sean Connery, Roger Moore, and George Lazenby together, you’d get Brosnan (note my intentional omission of Timothy Dalton).

I believe the six year hiatus (due to legal issues) between the not-very-entertaining Licence To Kill and GoldenEye forced everyone involved to revisit the Bond classics, note what made a good Bond film, add a few careful updates, and execute on it. It’s essentially a remix of standard Bond into a more modern, realistic, and exciting style of film-making.

One aspect I adore about the older Bond films is the classy, luxurious setting (a casino, usually) where violence could erupt on a moment’s notice. Not even twenty minutes into GoldenEye, Bond is matching wits at a casino table against the smoking (literally) Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen). Xenia is one of my favorite Bond women ever — ravishingly beautiful, plus sadistically insane. She’s an evil henchman, on the level of Odd Job or Jaws, but as a feminine nemesis, she’s a welcome twist. Bond’s boss “M” is also similarly updated, as played by gravitas-laden Judi Dench.

After a fairly ridiculous opening sequence with Bond climbing into an airplane and righting it as both are in free fall, we meet the Russian rogue general Ourumov (Gottfried John) an the evil mastermind Alec Trevelyan (Sean Bean) who is a former mission partner of Bond. This film took place after Soviet Union collapsed in the real world, and dramatizes the concerns about what would happen to all the cool, cold military technology if it fell into the wrong hands.

The not terribly nefarious plot involves GoldenEye, a space satellite, which Trevelyan wants to explode over London to cover up his financial thievery. It’s controlled by a giant radar dish in Cuba, providing yet another exotic location for Bond to voyage to. The ending battle in the jungle and within said dish is reminiscent of earlier Bonds with a secret hideout in a worldly location.

Another plus is the film’s nerdy computer engineers, Boris Grishenko (Alan Cumming) with round glasses that make him look like a deranged Russian Harry Potter (he keeps yelling “I am invincible!” and just when this line gets tiresome, he dies), and lady-of-the-perpetually-waving skirt Natalya Simonova (Izabella Scorupco). Boris is featured during an especially tense moment in which he nervously twirls and clicks a pen, not knowing it’s one of Q’s gadgets, designed to explode if the clicker is toggled correctly.

Some minor complaints: the plot is notably less ambitious than the world-dominating ones of earlier films, the ending drags a bit, and finally, Xenia is so awesome she overshadows the evil mastermind(s) and the actual Bond girl, Natalya.

While a few elements aren’t quite right, because of its firm foundation in other Bond films, GoldenEye is such a return to form after several lame Bond movies that I give it five stars, although it’s probably closer to a high four. Xenia made me do it.

IMDB: GoldenEye
Wikipedia: GoldenEye
Rotten Tomatoes: GoldenEye 84%

Next Bond Movie: Tomorrow Never Dies
Previous Bond Movie: Licence To Kill

= 3 stars

Starring Timothy Dalton, Robert Davi, Carey Lowell
Directed by John Glen

Timothy Dalton (James Bond)

Carey Lowell (Pam Bouvier)

Talisa Soto (Lupe Lamora)

Note: There a slight discrepancy of the spelling between of the word License and Licence — I guess from the American and British usage of the word.

This Bond movie is more than a bit off; I don’t know how else to put it. While I appreciate the attempt at a more realistic, serious Bond, there’s a fair amount slightly too unique about it, the result being that I didn’t really “get” it, or enjoy it all that much. Gosh, I’m hard to please, but I suppose it’s understandable after watching about twelve James Bond movies in succession.

First off, Timothy Dalton creates a more serious, actorly Bond, resembling a sinister Sean Connery, one quite opposite the Roger Moore take. Some odd trivia: Dalton was asked to play Bond as early as Her Majesty’s Secret Service in the sixties, and also again for Octopussy. He didn’t take the role until The Living Daylights in 1987. So License To Kill would be the second time Dalton played bond, and unfortunately the last, as Pierce Brosnan took over in Goldeneye. He strove to create a flawed Bond, more similar to the Ian Fleming novels, and largely succeeds — but sadly, the plot isn’t there to support him.

Bond’s good American friend Felix Leiter (David Hedison) (a character from Live and Let Die and even the earlier Sean Connery films), just married, is bitten in half by a shark at the hands of some evil drug smugglers led by Franz Sanchez (Robert Davi) who murder Leiter’s new wife. An angry Bond vows to avenge his old friend, refusing to take a mission to Turkey, which angers M.

Bond submits his resignation from the spy game, hence becoming a lone vigilante hunting down Sanchez. He’s even referred to as a “loose cannon” at one point by some disgruntled British agents. Eventually Bond teams up with Pam Bouvier (Carey Lowell), an American CIA pilot, and Q secretly lends a hand. From here, things play out in typical Bond fashion with infiltration into Sanchez’s luxurious compound, a seduction of his mistress Lupe Lamora (Talisa Soto), and an explosive climax of gasoline trucks and a road chase.

I did take a liking to the rather daffy female agent sidekick Pam Bouvier, who tries stumblingly to emulate Bond, providing some needed comic relief.

The opening scene of Felix’s wedding and Bond’s resignation are reminiscent of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, while the mostly silent, skinny nemesis and an awkward female agent reminded me of The Man With The Golden Gun.

But most of this film is about differences. The motivation of revenge leads to an angrier, more determined Bond. The use of Felix is a noble attempt to provide a continuity to the Bond films where often it’s sorely lacking.

However, other alterations to stock Bond aren’t as welcome. The lack of a world dominating mastermind or a nefarious, somewhat looney plot to repopulate the globe — just drug smuggling and a lot of money flitting about — is sorely missed. Also noticeably absent is humor. While in some Roger Moore films like The Man With The Golden Gun it got over the top, in License to Kill it’s all gruesome kills. I don’t think I can recall a single one-liner, which leaves me at a loss for words.

So while this feels like an improved Bond in some places, the differences outweigh its good points, and unfortunately this film ends up more like an average thriller or action film. It left me feeling shaken, not stirred.

IMDB: License To Kill
Wikipedia: License To Kill

Next Bond Movie: Goldeneye
Previous Bond Movie: The Living Daylights

= 5 stars

Starring Roger Moore, Barbara Bach
Directed by Lewis Gilbert

Roger Moore (James Bond)

Barbara Bach (Major Anya Amasova)

The Spy Who Loved Me is easily the best Roger Moore Bond outing. It evokes From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, and Thunderball — my favorite of the Sean Connery Bond adventures, but adds new elements that keep things varied, entertaining, and in a few spots, surpasses the earlier Bonds.

In this spy adventure, the arch enemy is Karl Stromberg (Curd Jurgens), the world’s richest man, who steals nuclear armed submarines from the British and the Russians. Bond (Roger Moore) voyages to Egypt where he finds Soviet agent Major Anya Amasova (Barbara Bach) and are nearly killed by the seven-foot tall, metal-mouthed evil henchman Jaws (Richard Kiel). They eventually make their way to Sardinia, and Stromberg’s secret underwater base, which looks like a robot out of a Godzilla movie. Anyhow, Stromberg wants to use the nuclear missiles to blow up Moscow and Manhattan, starting World War III, after which the population of his underwater base will take over the world.

As for the typical Bond film elements: Bond has a pretty slick car which transforms into a submarine, complete with its own sea-to-air missile which naturally is used at a key moment.

The opening of The Spy Who Loved Me is one of the most audacious ever. Following a ski chase, Bond flies right over a cliff to certain death, only to open a parachute as he plummets down — remember, this was before CGI.

The excitement continues. Another area where the film outdoes others is its evil henchman: Jaws. Other Bond movies had their scary, evil sidekicks before (Odd Job, Number Two, Nick Nack) but never the likes of Jaws (Richard Kiel). This guy is seven feet tall with a metal mouth, tears apart a car with his bare hands, and chomps both people and Thunderball–esque sharks. He’s so cruelly cool that an easy death would have been disrespectful, and so Jaws would make another appearance in Moonraker (the only Bond henchman to appear in more than one film).

The female Bond lady Anya Amasova is also of a different breed; a bit reminiscent of the Russian element in From Russia With Love (there’s even a scene on a train) except taken further. Amasova is a peer that Bond must cooperate with for his survival, instead of the usual dreamy-eyed women that Bond usually beds and abandons.

Lastly, I must mention the theme song Nobody Does It Better, sung by Carly Simon, which breaks from Bond tradition in that it’s a ballad and isn’t named after the title of the film. All the Bond songs up until this point were active, exciting tunes meant to evoke explosions, espionage, and tense emotions. Instead, The Spy Who Loved Me features a wistful song that highlights the romantic side of Bond.

IMDB: The Spy Who Loved Me
Wikipedia: The Spy Who Loved Me

Next Bond Movie: Moonraker
Previous Bond Movie: The Man With The Golden Gun

= 3 stars

Starring Roger Moore, Christopher Walken, Grace Jones
Directed by John Glen

Roger Moore (James Bond)

Tanya Roberts (Stacey Sutton)

Grace Jones (May Day)

I still found the decidedly eighties entry in the James Bond Franchise, A View To A Kill enjoyable, despite its cheesy, made for television vibe. I also must plead guilty to some personal bias — the setting is Silicon Valley, with some scenes occurring in San Francisco proper (Fisherman’s Wharf, the Civic Center, and a hatchet-battle atop the Golden Gate Bridge). I work right across the street from Pier 39, so seeing some parts of The City I’ve walked through, held my interest during some admittedly lame plot turns. The Duran Duran theme song is also cool.

Another bonus is Christopher Walken as a better-than-usual nemesis, entrepreneur Max Zorin, with an evil doomsday plot to create a gigantic Bay Area earthquake and destroy Silicon Valley’s microchip manufacturing, therefore boosting the worth of technology company, Zorin Industries. James Bond (Roger Moore) is dispatched to stop him.

Despite the neat locales and a decent adversary, many other stock Bond elements aren’t in such great form. Moore is so old (this was his final outing as Bond) that he may have been better off playing M, Q, or even Miss Moneypenny. The Bond girls aren’t so fine either, with the bizarre May Day (Grace Jones) dying in an almost laughable manner, and a rather unimpressive Stacey Sutton (Tanya Roberts) and her rock-salt packed shotgun. Meanwhile, Jenny Flex (Allison Doody) is sadly wasted.

The plot also plays out in a simple, linear fashion, essentially no different from an average action flick. It also contains an unusually high level of gratuitous violence. Two people are killed in the back of a car, a bunch of cop vehicles pile up trying to jump a drawbridge, someone is chopped up by an underwater fan, and Christopher Walken guns down his underlings at the bottom of a mine, chuckling like a mafioso — this film is certainly in the “kill and ask questions later” mode. It’s about as far from the espionage, secretive Sean Connery era James Bond yet (well, except for Moonraker).

So because I was entertained by aspects of A View To A Kill film that had nothing to do with Bond, I have to place this movie in that middle ground (once again) among Roger Moore Bond films — better than Moonraker but not as good as For Your Eyes Only. It’s on the same level as Octopussy.

IMDB: A View To A Kill
Wikipedia: A View To A Kill

Next Bond Movie: The Living Daylights
Previous Bond Movie: Octopussy

= 3 stars

Starring Roger Moore, Maude Adams
Directed by John Glen

Roger Moore (James Bond)

Maud Adams (Octopussy)

Kristina Wayborn (Magda)

Moving through the James Bond films, Octopussy is the second-to-last one starring Roger Moore (the last being A View To A Kill. In this oddly named adventure, he’s older and looks more than a bit tired. Overall, the film is decent with a fair number of definite thrills, but a few minor organizational gripes harm it, and frankly, I found myself pretty bored during the first half. Maybe I’ve just seen too many Bond movies (no surprise).

The film follows a fake Faberge egg (found by a 009). The real egg appears at a London auction, where prince Kamil Khan (Louis Jourdan) has been instructed to buy it at any price. James Bond is sent to figure out the reasons and possibly why 009 was killed.

There’s a sinister Soviet connection here (this film was made while the west and the Soviet Union were still in the Cold War). A Russian General Orlov (Steven Berkoff) (with fantasies of starting a nuclear war) is involved with Khan and Octopussy (Maude Adamse), a wealthy “businesswoman” based in India, in a jewel-smuggling ring.

Anyhow, Bond travels to India to figure this all out. The first half is standard Bond: sneaking around an ornate palace learning of a nefarious, world-ending plot while henchmen and stooges try to kill him (there’s one neat weapon in the form of a huge saw blade on a string, deployed like a yo-yo). Some nice parts: India makes a lush location for a Bond film. The first damsel Bond sets his eyes on (Kristina Wayborn) is quite exquisite. Also, “Q” actually gets to join Bond for the final exciting battle. Usually, he just hangs out back at home base in the gadget lab.

My small complaints: As mentioned by others, there are more than enough baddies, Orlov, Khan, and Octopussy, plus a tall henchman or two. One or possibly two could have been shelved.

Second, I would have flipped the exotic locations of India and Germany. It’s kind of a bummer to begin in sunny India with palaces, rivers, elephants, and crocodiles only to end up in Germany at a cornball circus (with Bond in both a gorilla and clown suit) of all places.

Lastly, as inevitable with later-period Bond, some scenes seem like nods to ones previous: An evil henchman crushing dice in his hands is similar to Odd Job (Goldfinger) crushing a golf ball. Bond swinging on vines to a Tarzan yell (definitely cheesy) is similar to the looping car jump in The Man With The Golden Gun (also starring Maud Adams as Andrea Anders).

Other than that, it’s a decent Bond outing and slightly above average, but that’s not saying much.

Some amusing trivia: At the time of this film’s creation, Timothy Dalton and James Brolin were already in the works as Bond successors, as Roger Moore only had A View To A Kill left in his contract.

IMDB: Octopussy
Wikipedia: Octopussy

Next Bond Movie: A View To A Kill
Previous Bond Movie: For Your Eyes Only

= 4 stars

Starring Roger Moore, Carole Bouquet, Julian Glover
Directed by John Glen

After the over the top, outer space location of Moonraker, the twelfth James Bond adventure is contrastingly low-key and sublime. It seems to be an intended return to the basics, and as a result For Your Eyes Only is reminiscent of the sixties’ Sean Connery films. Most notably, the crazy sets and at times overbearing cartoony humor (which plagues some of the early Roger Moore Bonds) is pretty much eliminated here — save for a few Bond quips and the odd finalies to chase scenes. I enjoyed this film.

For Your Eyes Only opens with an obvious nod and closing door regarding the 60s films. Bond is seen placing flowers on Teresa Bond’s grave — his wife from Her Majesty’s Secret Service — one loose end that definitely deserves some tying. Bond is then trapped in a helicopter by Blofeld, the master villain from several earlier films. Bond eventually turns the tables and drops Blofeld down a smokestack, killing him once and for all. This sequence simultaneously a nod to the Bond films of the past and a ceremonial cutting of two plot threads, presumably so future Bond entries could move forward.

The plot concerns the loss of a military computer on a ship at sea. The KGB wants the device and hires Greek businessman Aristotle Kristatos (Julian Glover) to get it. Bond must stop the gadget from falling into the wrong hands, which takes him to Greece, underwater, and eventually battling baddies in a mountaintop monestary.

Some good points: great action scenes such as a car chase and a stressful situation where Bond and Melina Havelock (the outstandingly even Carole Bouquet) are tied to a boat and dragged across a reef, chased by sharks. The theme song, For Your Eyes Only is one of my favorites. Lastly, the return to a more basic, espionage plot also makes the dangerous situations more thrilling.

The only low points are the cheesy seventies music, lack of any stellar Bond gadgets (Bond’s car blows up in one early scene), and an ice-skating “Bond Girl” Bibi Dahl (Lynn-Holly Johnson) who tries to bed Bond despite her obvious youth, leading Bond to quip, “Now why don’t you put your clothes back on, and I’ll buy you an ice cream.” Funny, but a bit wince-inducing.

Lastly, I was amused to learn about a two-issue, For Your Eyes Only comic book adaptation by Marvel. I guess there were several James Bond comic books. Yet another thing to add to my reading wish list.

IMDB: For Your Eyes Only
Wikipedia: For Your Eyes Only
Rotten Tomatoes: For Your Eyes Only 74%

Next Bond Movie: Octopussy
Previous Bond Movie: Moonraker

= 2 stars

Starring Pierce Brosnan, Jonathan Pryce, Michelle Yeoh
Directed by Roger Spottiswoode

It’s not a good sign when you’re part-way into a movie and realize you’ve seen it before, but forgot. I can’t recall exactly where I first saw Tomorrow Never Dies — probably on cable or an airplane ride. Overall, it’s an entertaining flick, but not anything to write home about — and if my experience is any indication — forgettable.

Pierce Brosnan (James Bond)

Michelle Yeoh (Wai Lin)

Teri Hatcher (Paris Carver)

I find Pierce Brosnan a capable but bland Bond. He’s great looking, but lacks that Sean Connery “heat” (used for female wooing) or Roger Moore’s slightly confused look (added tension as it seems his survival was really in doubt). Brosnan as Bond has all the right moves, but behaves almost too capably for me to worry about his mortality.

That said, many other Bond elements are in decent form. We have an amusing villain, the sinister media mogul Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce), who controls the world through manipulative lies and fabrications. Judi Dench as “M” lends gravitas, and there’s even the same “Q” from the sixties films, who supplies a great bond gadget — a cell phone controlled automobile. There’s a funny scene where baddies try to damage the extremely tough vehicle without success, and a tense car chase ensues with Bond lying down in the back seat to avoid a hailstorm of bullets, yet still navigating the car via his cell phone wielded like a Game Boy.

As for the Bond women: Paris Carver (Teri Hatcher) is mildly entertaining old Bond flame now married to the villain. Better is Wai Lin (Michelle Yeoh), fiesty and contrary enough from the typical Bond woman to hold my attention for a while.

Unfortunately, as things move towards an expected battle with Carver aboard a huge ship near Vietnam, things get surprisingly dull fast. I had to stifle a few yawns as the various arrows clearly pointed to expected conclusions.

To sum up, Tomorrow Never Dies is one of those films that’s perfectly enjoyable if happened upon while flipping channels, but I certainly wouldn’t seek it out. It’s decidedly average, and in comparison with the better Bond films, it suffers terribly.

IMDB: Tomorrow Never Dies

Next Bond Movie: The World Is Not Enough
Previous Bond Movie: Goldeneye

= 2 stars

Starring Roger Moore, Lois Chiles, Michael Lonsdale
Directed by Lewis Gilbert

Roger Moore (James Bond)

Lois Chiles (Dr. Holly Goodhead)

Corinne Clery (Corinne Dufour)

On my quest to watch all the James Bond films, my viewing of Goldfinger marked the last of the Sean Connery bunch, so I’m moving ahead to the Roger Moore vehicles.

Moonraker features James Bond (Roger Moore) investigating Hugo Drax (Michael Lonsdale), an evil genius who wants to destroy the world and rule over a new one of his making. He’s developing a nerve gas through his company Drax Industries. The investigation of “why” takes Bond to Venice and Brazil, and eventually into outer space, where Drax has built a space station, from which he plans to deploy his lethal gas onto Earth, killing everyone, and then colonizing the planet anew with his loyal people.

Moonraker is difficult for me to evaluate objectively — as I remember it fondly from childhood — but it’s probably an understatement to say it hasn’t aged well in my eyes. At times it feels like a campy comedy. It’s a bit jarring to have some fairly spectacular action sequences topped off with a pigeon double-take or Jaws (Richard Kiel) falling for a smiling blond while romantic music plays.

While Jaws meets his true love, Bond’s women are disappointingly tame. We have Holly Goodhead (Lois Chiles) who has a nice smile but no real spark. Corrine DuFour (Corinne Clery) is fair enough but she’s bumped off so early as to be inconsequential.

Moonraker’s biggest flaw is outer space as a setting purely to cash in on the Star Wars craze of the late seventies. Unfortunately, the execution is amiss, as things get cornier and campier as Bond ascends higher through the Earth’s atmosphere and the lasers start firing. The film awkwardly morphs into Logan’s Run or some other dystopian 70s film — amusing, but not Bond.

Another detriment is that Moonraker often seems to be a mish-mash of earlier adventures. Bond trapped in a G-Force machine reminds me of Thunderball, with Bond strapped to an exercise machine. Drax’s audacious plot recalls Goldfinger and You Only Live Twice. The gondola boat chase is similar to one Live and Let Die. The bevy of beauties in a secret hideout recalls On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and the final space battle is a pale copy of Thunderball’s underwater sequences. I suppose with such a rich history of previous films, why not mine it — but you can practically see the James Bond Plot Generator churning out the situations.

Due to this paint-by-numbers and lack of a thrilling plot, the resulting action is pretty much devoid of tension. Bond merely steps outside and people try to kill him for no clear reason.

There are a few pluses, however. Jaws is an entertaining evil henchman. If you like exotic locations, this film has scads. Jungles, rivers, waterfalls, mountains, meadows, cliffs, Mayan temples, secret hideouts, palaces, and the emptiness of space.

So after all this analysis, Moonraker is pure spectacle and wall to wall action. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but you could have replaced the Bond character with Steven Seagal and it wouldn’t have made one bit of difference.

Wikipedia: Moonraker

Next Bond Movie: For Your Eyes Only
Previous Bond Movie: The Spy Who Loved Me

= 5 stars

Starring Sean Connery, Gert Frobe, Shirley Eaton
Directed by Guy Hamilton

Sean Connery (James Bond)

Honor Blackman (Pussy Galore)

Shirley Eaton (Jill Masterson)

You know Goldfinger is awesome even before loading it in the DVD player — it’s a pop culture landmark and a high point for the James Bond franchise. Even the title speaks “Bond” — much more so than a meandering one like The World Is Not Enough. There’s a professional (almost dare I say — golden) sheen to the whole affair, from Sean Connery’s comfort as the British spy to the heavy-set, slightly warped villans. Add as additional layers a brassy score, some cute ladies, and some inventive yet confident direction — and this film oozes class.

The evil mastermind of this entry is Auric Goldfinger (Gert Frobe), a man obsessed with the shiny, valuable metal. He wants to sink the value of the world’s stockpile so his personal amassed wealth will rise. To do this, he comes up with an audacious scheme to render ineffective the American Federal gold store at Fort Knox with a radioactive bomb.

James Bond (Sean Connery) is set on a mission to put a stop to this nonsense, during which he runs into Jill Masterson (Shirley Eaton), a Goldfinger aide who sadly gets the gold shoulder, her sister Tilly Masterson (Tania Mallet) an drop-dead gorgeous lass who is felled much too quickly by Odd Job’s (Harold Sakata) iron-brimmed hat. Lastly, there’s the inimitablely named Pussy Galore (Honor Blackman), Goldfinger’s tough-as-spikes “wenchman” who practices judo but is eventually thrown for a loop by Bond’s aggressive charm.

Yes, Goldfinger sports a standard, predictable Bond plot, but many of the Bond standbys are the best of breed. Bond gadgets: a tricked-out Aston Martin. Baddies: Odd Job, Pussy Galore, and Goldfinger. Theme song: The exemplar Shirley Bassey tune. Evil plot: totally daffy with no chance of success, but it’s great fun watching it play out — especially when Bond is tied to a gold table and fired at with an industrial laser inching towards his family jewels (the inspiration for Goldmember, perhaps).

One unintentionally hilarious scene occurs where Goldfinger presents his wacky scheme to the mafia. Behind a huge control panel on which he spins dials to darken the room, he calls forth a huge wall map and a gigantic architectural model rises out of the room’s floor, along the way emphasizing the Fort Knox gold store as worh 50 million dollars (at that time a princely sum). The humor lies in Goldfinger’s insistence on this crazy display presentation — when a simple slide show would have sufficed. This is of course, in the days before PowerPoint.

I only had two minor disappointments with Goldfinger: the location of Florida is not as exotic as some of the foriegn locales Bond usually travels to, there’s no Blofeld, and as in Diamonds Are Forever, the prettiest Bond lady of the movie is dispatched before her due.

But all in all, Goldfinger is a perfect James Bond film, the best of the breed — I can’t recommend it enough if you enjoy the James Bond series or movies of that ilk.

IMDB: Goldfinger
Wikipedia: Goldfinger
Rotten Tomatoes: Goldfinger 92%

Next Bond Movie: Thunderball
Previous Bond Movie: From Russia With Love

= 4 stars

Starring Sean Connery, Ursula Andress
Directed by Terence Young

My quest to watch all the James Bond films continues, and Dr. No was the first, starring a young Sean Connery who is a bit rough around the edges and looks almost thuggish. But the main elements are in place and it’s a bit stunning to see that much of what people expect from a Bond film today, was present right out of the gate back in 1962.

We start with a hit on a British agent John Strangways in Jamaica. Bond is sent to investigate the relationship between this murder and disruptions to the American space program at nearby Cape Canaveral. Bond realizes that both the both events are linked to a secret hideout built by the mysterious Dr. No. Bond eventually solves the mystery and along the way risks his life and finds some downtime with beautiful women.

Around this plot hang the various Bond elements we all know and love: The gun-barrel opening sequence, the surf-guitar theme, Bond in a casino playing games with Sylvia Trench (Eunice Gayson — who makes a brief appearance in From Russia With Love), an exotic location in the form of Jamaica, a car chase, several brushes with death, a truly hot Bond babe Honey Ryder (Ursula Andress), and the nefarious villain Dr. No with plans for world domination. The only items missing are the Bond gadgets, a pre-title action sequence, and a post-ending action sequence where Bond must dispatch some leftover evil henchmen.

Still, many sequences in Dr. No are so classic that they are directly mimicked in other films: Honey Ryder emerging from the water in a bikini, Bond trapped in a tube, a secret hideout being blown to smithereens, and Bond letting a tow line go so he and his new found love can have some privacy in a row boat.
The only negative aspect of this film is the actor playing Dr. No (Joseph Wiseman) is obviously not Chinese, nor does he really get to use his metal hands. There is also one woman in particular who I think is supposed to be Asian but looks more like a pale girl in a dark-haired wig.

Other than that, Dr. No is a respectable Bond adventure (if a bit slow at times), and as I’ve already noted, a surprising amount of it echoes through the plots of the other films. It seems that with such a firm foundation, the only way to make better sequels were bigger budgets and more explosions — a thankfully easy route to follow. You don’t mess with a winning formula.

IMDB: Dr. No
Wikipedia: Dr. No
Rotten Tomatoes: Dr. No

Next Bond Movie: From Russia With Love

= 5 stars

Starring Sean Connery, Claudine Auger
Directed by Terence Young

Sean Connery (James Bond)

Claudine Auger (Domino Derval)

Luciana Paluzzi (Fiona Volpe)

I think I’ve just seen one of the best, if not the best, Bond film. Suddenly I “get” what Bond is about, and why so much time has been spent (and so many movies made) trying to replicate the suspenseful, exciting experience of Thunderball.

First off, there’s a suave and bold theme song sung by the incomparable Tom Jones. Second, we have a truly suave and bold Sean Connery as James Bond, looking like Marlon Brando mashed with George Clooney. Next, some creepy villains, one with an eye patch (Emile Largo, Blofeld’s Number 2) and others looking like beatniks seen through the filter of a Dick Tracy comic strip. Lastly, Thunderball has some excruciatingly hot women, most notably Claudine Auger as Domino.

The cocktail is shaken (not stirred) and poured over the island setting of the Bahamas, a perfect environment for swimsuits, sharks, underwater harpoon battles, and a shirtless Sean Connery, and you’ve got a deadly sex-appeal sheen that gives the whole violent proceedings a vibrant class.

The plot is, once again, nearly besides the point (I think you get the point), centering around a British airplane called the Vulcan, stolen by SPECTRE and armed with nuclear weapons. Blofeld shows up briefly near the film’s start, his face hidden — all we see is his cat-fondling and sadistic cruelty towards his subservient, numbered stooges.

Bond is sent to investigate. This takes him to the ocean setting to visit Largo (Adolfo Celi), who has several misanthropic henchmen and the female assassin Fiona Volpe (Luciana Paluzzi). Bond is attracted to the pretty sister of a dead pilot, now Largo’s mistress, the ravishing Domino (Claudine Auger). After Bond locates the airplane, hidden underwater, a huge undersea battle takes place, with operatives in wet suits, ships shooting at each other, and some cool explosions.

Thunderball, directed expertly by Terence Young, at times recalls a Hitchcock film. In one scene, Bond rides in a car at the hands of a speeding Fiona, reminding me of the drunk driving scene from Notorious. Also fascinating is a pool scene where Bond talks to Largo. The camera pans slightly to the left, revealing Domino putting on her makeup in the background. She realizes Bond is distracted by her (as we are, by the camera move), and she gets up to leave.

Also interesting to me is the story of the theme song, Thunderball, by Tom Jones. Originally, the song Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was supposed to be the theme (hence the appearance of a Kiss Kiss night club in the film). However, just weeks before the film’s premiere, it was suddenly important that the main song have the title of the film as its name. Therefore, Thunderball was hastily written and recorded with Tom Jones as the singer.

IMDB: Thunderball

Next Bond Movie: You Only Live Twice
Previous Bond Movie: Goldfinger

The Best Bond Songs

1. James Bond Theme, John Barry Orchestra: Dr. No

I must give a nod to the original James Bond theme, as it’s so iconic. It merged a Ventures-style surf guitar with a symphony and made it synonymous with spies and suspense.

2. Goldfinger, Shirley Bassey: Goldfinger

Brassy, and I love the way the rising chromatic Bond theme is worked into the song via the horns. This is pretty much the quintessential Bond theme, and the template for many future Bond songs, with its awesome vocal delivery.

3. Live and Let Die, Paul McCartney and Wings: Live and Let Die

This song captures the shifting moods and contrasts of a Bond film: romance and high style with the potential of violence exploding onto the scene at any minute. There’s also a slight reggae nod to the exotic locations of the movie. A new style for a new actor as Bond (Roger Moore).

4. Nobody Does It Better, Carly Simon: The Spy Who Loved Me

This is a tribute to Bond’s romantic side, with a sensual vocal by Carly Simon, double-tracked in all the right places. It’s also nice to hear the movie title worked into the lyrics rather than being the title of the song. There are some cheesy drums and an odd country vibe, but overall this is a memorable ode to a memorable lover.

5. For Your Eyes Only, Sheena Easton: For Your Eyes Only

There are a few goofy synthesizers but overall, both the strong melody and vocals work for me.

Honorable Mention:

Thunderball, Tom Jones: Thunderball
A View to a Kill, Duran Duran: A View to a Kill
From Russia With Love, Matt Monro: From Russia With Love

Note: I wish I could include Dusty Springfield’s The Look Of Love but it was recorded for Casino Royale which was a James Bond satire.

The Worst Bond Songs

And here are my nominations for the five worst:

1. Die Another Day, Madonna: Die Another Day

This piece of tripe is Madonna crammed through a synthesizer on an answering machine. Makes me want to die, or put off listening to this song for another day. Antares Auto-Tune, Sigmund Freud, and abrupt stops makes me think of a monkey jumping on a computer playing Justify My Love. Probably the worst Bond theme of all time.

2. The World Is Not Enough, Garbage: The World Is Not Enough

Garbage tries to imitate Portishead and fails miserably. A good example of too much quantization and lack of vocal range.

3. Tomorrow Never Dies, Sheryl Crow: Tomorrow Never Dies

Sheryl Crow doesn’t strike me as tension-building or dangerous. The verses are in 3/4 which doesn’t sound quite right, plus she doesn’t seem up to the belting parts, sounding more like Nina Persson or Susanna Hoffs, which is fine for pop, but not Bond. Compare this song with any of the 60s Shirley Bassey Bond themes to hear what’s wrong.

Note: A much better theme song would have been Surrender by K.D. Lang, on the same soundtrack album.

4. The Living Daylights, A-Ha: The Living Daylights

A-Ha never struck me as tension-building and dangerous, either. I don’t know, this feels like an inferior copy of Duran Duran’s A View to a Kill.

5. The Man With The Golden Gun, Lulu: The Man With The Golden Gun

Great singer — just the wrong song and the wrong instrumentation. Unfortunately, I feel like this song’s lyrics take the movie too literally. I also don’t appreciate the cheesy seventies guitar, or the odd middle section.

Dishonorable Mention:

Never Say Never Again, Lani Hall: Never Say Never Again
All Time High, Rita Coolidge: Octopussy
License to Kill, Gladys Knight: License to Kill

Note: Thanks to Greg and his awesome music collection! He already had a playlist with all the James Bond songs waiting to be reviewed.

(For a listen to these songs along with the titles they came with, check out City Of Films and their YouTube compilaton.)

= 3 stars

Starring Sean Connery, Jill St. John, Lana Wood
Directed by Guy Hamilton

Diamonds Are Forever, a 1971 James Bond (Sean Connery) film, is a fair return to the Bond franchise after the odd duck of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. However, there are some plot problems and Connery doesn’t seem into it. This was his last go-round as Bond (for some time).

The plot details are essentially props upon which to hang the expected Bond accouterments: Bond is on a mission, he meets some hot babes, he uses some cool gadgets, there are some over-the-top action sequences, there is a confrontation with a evil mastermind with a nutty plot to dominate the world (in this case, a laser satellite covered with diamonds), the evil mastermind is dispatched, and as Bond departs with his new woman of the hour, he fights off some of the evil henchman’s residual stooges.

Now the problems. During the opening sequence Bond exacts revenge on Blofeld for the death of his wife (in the previous film). Within the span of a few minutes, he tracks him down and kills him.

This plot element could have easily been stretched out through the entire film. The death of his wife should be a much more emotional and heartbreaking thing, but Bond hardly dwells on it. The continuity between films is pretty badly presented.

Next gripe: exotic, foreign locations have been traded in for America, specifically Las Vegas. No offense to Nevada, but seeing Bond in a gangly moon rover navigating the desert doesn’t compare well to Japan or a train crossing Russia. Likewise, the film’s climax takes place on an offshore oil rig. I could hardly hold back my excitement.

Still, the Whyte house (supposedly based on Howard Hughe’s recluse billionaire ways) is architecturally stunning. One car chase in Las Vegas is entertaining, and the climactic helicopter battle reminds me of an early Apocalypse Now or Empire Strikes Back (note the way Bond hangs off the bottom of the oil rig like Luke from Cloud City).

Lastly, the women. Tiffany Case (Jill St. John) I found unspeakably dull. Maybe it was the hair color and wardrobe changes. Two assassins, Thumper and Bambi do little other than use Bond as a kick boxing bag until they are ceremoniously abandoned without much thought.

Plenty O’Toole (Lana Wood) on the other hand, is a new kind of “whoah” in her dangly purple casino dress, observations on Bond’s gambling style and so ridiculous they’re funny. Unfortunately, they’re all a not so subtle lead up to get her to take off her clothes and be tossed out a window into a pool. Misogyny at its finest.

Just remember the seventies were still to come, and with them, better Bond flicks than Diamonds Are Forever.

IMDB: Diamonds Are Forever
Wikipedia: Diamonds Are Forever
Rotten Tomatoes: Diamonds Are Forever 65%

Next Bond Movie: Live And Let Die
Previous Bond Movie: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

= 3 stars

Starring Roger Moore, Christopher Lee
Directed by Guy Hamilton

Roger Moore (James Bond)

Britt Ekland (Mary Goodnight)

Maud Adams (Andrea Anders)

The Man With The Golden Gun, starring Roger Moore as Bond, starts off lame (possibly the worst Bond theme I’ve ever heard), but gets better as it goes along.

We meet Scaramanga (Christopher Lee), an assassin with three nipples (I’m not kidding) that charges a million dollars per hit. His weapon of choice is a small golden gun, pieced together from common objects (cigarette lighter and case, cuff link, and pen) that he can carry on his person without detection. He has a personal goal to use it on Bond. Freud would have had a field day.

It’s fun to see Count Dooku / Saruman playing a more low-key villain. His diminutive assistant Nick Nack is Herve Villechaize, better known as Tatoo from Fantasy Island.

At times, the film reminded me of You Only Live Twice, as much of the action takes place in exotic locations like Hong Kong and Thailand. Bond encounters martial artists and watches a kick-boxing match (paralleling the ninjas and sumo wrestlers). His escapades include a boat-chase and a run-in with the red-faced southern sheriff from Live and Let Die, leading up to a tense final encounter at Scaramanga’s island hideout.

Meanwhile, the Bond babes didn’t leave much of an impression on me, namely Andrea Anders (Maud Adams) who is a bit too wooden, and Mary Goodnight (Britt Ekland) who is a bit too stupid. They make nice eye-candy but nothing else.

To sum up, The Man With The Golden Gun is an average affair. It’s Moore’s second go at playing Bond, and it seems he was still finding his footing. The best Moore-as-Bond was still to come.

IMDB: The Man With The Golden Gun
Wikipedia: The Man With The Golden Gun
Rotten Tomatoes: The Man With The Golden Gun 67%

Next Bond Movie: The Spy Who Loved Me
Previous Bond Movie: Live And Let Die

= 4 stars

Starring Roger Moore, Jane Seymour
Directed by Guy Hamilton

Roger Moore (James Bond)

Jane Seymour (Solitare)

Live and Let Die from 1973 starred Roger Moore as James Bond, for the first time. I remember watching it as a kid. Although it’s an action-packed adventure, it has elements from other films of the time that prove entertaining, but aren’t really about James Bond, spies, or espionage. There is also a noticeable comedy vibe — almost as if it’s lampooning earlier Bond movies.

The plot centers around drug importing and is heavily “blaxploitation” inspired, with trips to New Orleans, Harlem, and voodoo rituals. It’s fine for Bond to get into exotic locations and countries, but this time in particular seems more calculated to mimic other action films of the time.

The good points are a young, truly beyond hot Jane Seymour as Solitaire, an icy tarot card reader who keeps turning up the Lovers card whenever James Bond approaches. There are also some inspired action scenes (the New Orleans funeral procession is classic, and the boat chase with a red-faced Southern sheriff delivers). Lastly, we get a great theme song by Paul McCartney (featuring varied musical sections, mimicking the varied locations in the film). One scene features a night club singer doing a bluesy, funkified version of Live and Let Die that is a real hoot.

To sum up, this feels like a decent entry into the Bond franchise, but I’ll have to watch some more Moore-as-Bond to really be certain.

IMDB: Live and Let Die
Wikipedia: Live and Let Die
Rotten Tomatoes: Live And Let Die 62%

Next Bond Movie: The Man With The Golden Gun
Previous Bond Movie: Diamonds Are Forever

= 4 stars

Starring George Lazenby, Diana Rigg
Directed by Peter R. Hunt

George Lazenby (James Bond)

Diana Rigg (Traci Di Vicenzo)

This James Bond film from 1969 is an odd duck. It has many things going for it, but other things are just wrong, and if the mistakes hadn’t happened, this would have been an awesome Bond film, possibly the best ever.

First the bad:

1. Telly Savalas as Blofeld. Voice too low, too physically husky, it’s more like he’s running a mafia than a world domination plot.

2. The hokey idea of hypnotising beautiful women from around the world and turning them into sleeper agents is just plain nutty, and never comes to fruition.

3. Geroge Lazenby is a wimpy, one-dimensional Bond. He’s got the action chops and semi-Cary Grant looks, but doesn’t have the acting chops or wry sex-appeal of Sean Connery. I’m not surprised Lazenby only played Bond once.

Now the good:

1. The action is stellar. Right from the opening sequence, the pace of the cuts is giddy and almost hyperactive.

2. Diana Rigg (from The Avengers) as Teresa Di Vicenzo is the best Bond woman I’ve seen yet. Smart, sexy, and can hold her own in a car chase or wielding a broken bottle. Her character moves from icy dissatisfaction to someone we genuinely care about. She has the dubious distinction as the only woman to marry James Bond.

3. Bold changes to the Bond formula: No theme song sung by a pop chanteuse. 007 quits the service. Bond gets married. Lastly, the ending is right out of left field and was a total shocker to me.

I can only wonder what On Her Majesty’s Secret Service would have been with Sean Connery as Bond. He would have taken some of the key scenes — where 007 does something more than just kill and seduce — to another level. Playing off of Diana Rigg would easily have made cinematic history.

And if Lazenby really wanted a part, he could have played Blofeld.

IMDB: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
Wikipedia: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
Rotten Tomatoes: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service 86%

Next Bond Movie: Diamonds Are Forever
Previous Bond Movie: You Only Live Twice

= 3 stars

Starring Sean Connery, Mie Hama, Tetsuro Tamba
Directed by Lewis Gilbert

Sean Connery (James Bond)

Mie Hama (Kissy Suzuki)

Akiko Wakabayashi (Aki)

Karin Dor (Helga Brandt)

You Only Live Twice, a 1967 James Bond (Sean Connery) movie, although an action-packed entry into the Bond franchise, at times crosses over into the realm of cinematic cheese. It’s mostly about excitement, as if the makers worry people may be tiring of the 007 formula. Therefore, everything zips along and as a result, certain scenes feel tragically rushed.

The first whiff of a spicier formula is the film’s exotic location, Japan. Starting in Hong Kong, James Bond is murdered as a cover for a secret mission. There is funeral at sea, after which Bond’s not-dead corpse is recovered. Bond is dispatched to Tokyo, his mission to locate a captured American space capsule.

Bond is not alone; he teams up with Tiger Tanaka (Tetsuro Tamba), a Japanese agent with a ninja squad at his disposal. Bond is equipped with yet another cool gadget, a personal helicopter loaded with rockets, aerial mines, and heat seeking missiles — basically enough explosives to create an over-the-top action sequence. Too bad he looks like a complete dork flying the thing.

We eventually realize the space hijacking was masterminded by SPECTRE and its cat-fondling leader, Blofeld. There is a sinister reference to 100 million dollars in gold bullion, and a cruel dumping of a chanteuse into a piranha tank (yes, Bond slept with her). The expected finale involves Bond, a girl in a bikini, ninjas, a volcano, gunfire… you get the idea.

The plot is almost besides the point. We know Bond will always be attacked, and he will always escape. He will eventually uncover the nefarious plot and reasons, and outsmart the evil masterminds. The fun of a Bond film is in how he escapes, what exotic sights he sees, and who he bangs (kills / sleeps with) along the way.

The film loses a few points for an unfortunate, politically incorrect sequence where Bond is disguised as a Japanese citizen with eye makeup and tan skin coloring. I guess around the year of this film’s creation, Mickey Rooney did far worse in Breakfast at Tiffany’s; so I’ll chalk it up to a sign of the times. But overall, there is a general respect for the foreign culture, which is an unusual thing for an action movie.

Next Bond Movie: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
Previous Bond Movie: Thunderball