From Russia with Love got my vote. Not only does this movie have a well crafted plot, compelling characters, one of the most beautiful of all Bond Girls, gripping action and cool spy stuff but it also does a good job of putting James Bond, the character, through his paces. I really think that it was Sean Connery's best performance in the role.
But hey, you don't expect me to just limit myself to giving my opinion on
one Bond movie do you?
Dr. No: The first and still a classic. This is Bond at his cold, ruthless best, something that we don't really see in most of his films. Great movie if a little dated now.
From Russia with Love: This is what it's all about for me. This one just fires on all cylinders from start to finish. Note: this movie is actually Q's first apperance (though not the first visit to Q Branch, that comes in Goldfinger) and the gadgets he gives Bond are prety cool in a real-world sort of way. The atche case with exploding tear gas canaster is just classic.
Goldfinger: The iconic, the classic, the oft imitated but rarely surpassed. This movie has the coolest car and the coolest exchange of dialogue between Bond and a villan ever.
No wonder that most subsequent Bond movies followed its formula prety closely. This one defines "top tier" Bond.
Thunderball: A good movie but this one doesn't really make it into my "top tier". After watching it six or eight times I came to the conclusion that this movie just doesn't have any "soul" to it, all spectacle and little subtance. But what a spectacle! The climatic underwater fight is very gripping.
You Only Live Twice: Ok, so it had the first truly classic "Villan's Lair" (Dr. No just set up shop in an old factory, Blofeld has a FAKE HOLLOWED OUT ISLAND VOLCANO! Wonder if he isn't overcompenstaing?) which is a plus. And it had hundreds of ninjae flipping out and killing bad guys in an exploding fake hollowed out island volcano at the end of the movie, which is like a million plusses. But on the down side it had Bond going "undercover" as a Japanese man (yeah, shave off his chest hair and eyebrows and dye his skin a sickly shade of brownish-green, that'll fool EVERYBODY
). They say that Connery was getting tiered of the role and it really shows in a movie that is just generally kind of uninspired. Note: the collapsing gyrocopter is called Little Nelly. My dad saw this movie when he was a kid and to this day he still longs to have a Little Nelly of his own.
On Her Majesty's Secret Service I too have a love-hate relationship with this one. On the one hand this is Bond at his most human: strip away all the gadgets and grandiose set pieces and you are left with a complex, violent, emotionally powerful, sometimes despicable, but ultimately captivating character. OTOH Lanzeby just seemed to lack a certain gravity required of role. Still, this movie deserves a little more regonition than it has traditionally recieved I think.
Diamonds Are Forever Ugh, Connery couldn't possibly have needed the paycheck that bad. This whole movie is just simply awful beginning with the incoherent plot (if you have enough diamonds to coat a satelite with just WHY ecaxtly do you need to hold the world for ransom?) and ending with a Connery who was too old to convincingly carry the role. Just plain bad.
Live and Let Die Does anybody else feel that whenever Bond stops to fight the war on drugs it cheapens the character? This movie is prety forgetable with only a few points of interest: cool title song, the voodo death guy was very cool and very intriguing, and Jayne Seymour: grrr (the deck was "slightly stacked" in his favior indeed!
)
The Man With the Golden Gun This one I really don't like. Although the villan is unquestionably cool the plot is unquestionably lame. Bond's contact brings his kung-fu schoolgirl nieces to save Bond from the dojo of death and then as they all flee he gets in the car and speeds off to leave Bond running down the street waving his arms at them? WTF!? The Agent Goodnight character was too stupid to live and worst of all they brought back the worst character from Live and Let Die, Sherrif Hillbilly T Hick, for an encore for absouetly no good reason. The less said here the better.
The Spy Who Loved Me After a couple of poor outing's Rodger Moore finally hits his stride. Here his Bond keeps all the quips and one-liners but re-discovers his suave charm, cool demeanor, and steely resolve as a secret agent. The movie also has all the spectacle we have come to expect from Bond (the climatic battle stands up well even today) and also gave us Jaws, a henchman who ranks right up there with Oddjob in the hall of great, er, henchpeople. Moore's first "top tier" movie.
Moonraker Roger Moore's Thundrball and prety much all the comments I had for that movie apply to this one. All style and little substance. Plus they kinda ruined Jaws there at the end of the movie.
For Your Eyes Only Yes! This one is defenaetly "top tier". Not only does it have hands down the best theme song of all bond theme songs but it is, IMO, Moore's best performance as Bond. A "back to basics" spy story it still has action, character, exotic locales, cool gadgets, great villans, chace scenes and realy heartfelt romance. Bond's revenge, where he pushed the assasian's car off the cliff, was clasic as was his decision to destroy the code machine at the end. Great stuff.
Octopussy Kinda halfway inbetween Spy Who Loved Me and Eyes Only, and that is a good thing. Neat gadgets, interesting locales and a believable if slightly hokey plot all work well but it is Maud Adams as the titluar vilaness/love interest that really puts this one over the top.
Never Say Never Again IIRC this was released the same year as Octopussy resulting in the "Battle of the Bonds" at the box office. It is telling then that NSNA lost that fight to Moore's movie. A mediocre remake of one of Connery's better works it was just plain forgetable. Hey, at least Connery can say that his last outing as Bond was not Diamonds
) BTW: the videogame that makes you "feel your character's pain" with electric shocks, very cool.
A View To a Kill Sigh, Moore just couldn't sustain it. This movie is once again small in scale and corespondingly small in scope. The plot is weak, the girl forgetable, and the character of Bond lacks depth. I also feel that, like Connery's later movies, Moore was too old to convincingly play the super spy. The one upshot is the villan, good stuff there.
The Living Daylights This was a strong performance by Dalton who really managed to capture Bond's darker side. The plot was good, the villan was convincing, the girl was stunning, and the gadgets and chase scene were awsome. Plus it has the second best theme song ever. I put it in the "top tier".
Lisence to Kill Once again I really dig Dalton's "so ruthless he is boderline sociopathic" Bond, but the rest of the movie is something of a let down. I can't really put my finger on what it is exactly but somehow the whole thing fails to gel together. *shrug* Still not as bad as some people seem to think though. I dont' think that it was so bad it "took the franchise 6 years to recover". I just think that the franchise needed to take a few steps back and reevaluate how to procede in a post cold-war world. Which they would do stunningly well in the next entry
Goldeneye And here it is! I know that not everybody likes Pierce Brosnan but he is my second favorite Bond (Connery is
everybody's favorite Bond). This movie redefined Bond and the Bond universe for a new generation and a new century. Gone are the hokey "mad scientists" and devil headed Russians. Instead Bond fights for the Crown against the ruthless forces of a shadowy underworld that is not national inteligence nor organized crime nor uncarring megacorporations but a conglemeration of all three that trancends the sum of its parts. His mysogony is not gone but instead is re-defined as part of his classic "rebel spirit" that makes him unpredicatable and dangerous. There has always been tension between Bond and his boss but casting the amazing Judi Dench in the role was genius. Oh yeah, and the tank chase was great too. A "top tier" movie right out of the gate.
Tomorrow Never Dies Not really great but not bad at all either. It's biggest letdown was the villan wasn't particularly memorable. Still a solid movie based on the stunts, locales and production alone.
The World is Not Enough I know a lot of people who are very down on this one but I consider it "top tier". Brosnan gives an outsdanding performance and Bond's relationship with Electra King speaks volumes about his character. The only downer here (and is is a big one) is Denise Richards performance (or lack therof) as Dr Christmas Jones, it brings the entire movie down. Heck, I think I can even see where they tried to edit as much of here as possible out in post production, she is practically non-existant except when in the background of action scenes that couldn't be removed. Ms Richards' "acting" career only has two things going for it and honestly, Holywood has other options in that department. Luckily, as I said, the romance of this movie is with the Electra King character so I can deal with it.
Die Another Day The decision to begin by having Bond suffer defeat and capture, then torture and imprisonment, and finally betrayal and life as a fuguitive was an excellent choice IMO and once again gave Brosnan a chance to really put the character through his paces. However I agree that the second half of this film fails to deliver on all the promised resolution from the first half and that keeps it from the "top tier" I think. It also doesn't help that I am not the world's biggest Halle Berry fan.
So that's my take on almost a half century of cinematic history. Damn, I really gotta start picking up the DVD collections, my old VHS's are starting to fade. Luckily for all of us, James Bond will always return....
