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Why Are So Many Bond Films Anticlimactic?
Everyone is pointing fingers at SP for having a poor finale, but if you look back, haven't so many of the movies have ended really anticlimactically?
FYEO is well-liked by hardcore fans, but the fight at the monastery is really very uninspired.
I love TLD, but even I have to admit that no one is calling the fight with Whitaker 'the best action scene ever'.
Other examples I bring up might be more controversial. FRWL. The climax is really the fight with Grant, and everything after that is just there for action's sake, though I still liked it. Rosa Klebb's death is an incredible letdown however. I actually felt cheated when I saw it.
TB and OHMSS - final fights are really, really, really poorly edited. As in worse than the bulk of QOS.
TSWLM ends on a low-key note. Hamlisch seems to have not been told about the crucial last ten minutes or so of the film. Result is a mostly silent final confrontation where Bond kills off Stromberg by - gasp - shooting him four times, then has another clunky fight with Jaws. The collapse of Atlantis is supposed to be climactic but there's no tension at all since he's already killed the villain and ended his plan.
TWINE's submarine ending was interesting, but the fight with Renard is a distinct disappointment considering how much build-up there is around him.
All but one of Daniel Craig's films end anticlimactically. CR has the sinking Venice building which is a far cry from the two other big action sequences (Madagascar Chase and Miami Chase). QOS's final sequence is over too quickly. SF's is the only one that isn't anticlimactic, but it niggles at the back of the mind as a Home Alone sequence. Then SP.
I have a feeling that this is really because EON doesn't know how to structure films correctly. They have their best action sequences in the PTS, and set unrealistically high expectations for the rest of the film. They simply spend all their money in the first half and leave none for the second. Like how the helicopter fight opened SP and the boat 'chase' ended it.
Does anyone else agree or am I just being crazy?
FYEO is well-liked by hardcore fans, but the fight at the monastery is really very uninspired.
I love TLD, but even I have to admit that no one is calling the fight with Whitaker 'the best action scene ever'.
Other examples I bring up might be more controversial. FRWL. The climax is really the fight with Grant, and everything after that is just there for action's sake, though I still liked it. Rosa Klebb's death is an incredible letdown however. I actually felt cheated when I saw it.
TB and OHMSS - final fights are really, really, really poorly edited. As in worse than the bulk of QOS.
TSWLM ends on a low-key note. Hamlisch seems to have not been told about the crucial last ten minutes or so of the film. Result is a mostly silent final confrontation where Bond kills off Stromberg by - gasp - shooting him four times, then has another clunky fight with Jaws. The collapse of Atlantis is supposed to be climactic but there's no tension at all since he's already killed the villain and ended his plan.
TWINE's submarine ending was interesting, but the fight with Renard is a distinct disappointment considering how much build-up there is around him.
All but one of Daniel Craig's films end anticlimactically. CR has the sinking Venice building which is a far cry from the two other big action sequences (Madagascar Chase and Miami Chase). QOS's final sequence is over too quickly. SF's is the only one that isn't anticlimactic, but it niggles at the back of the mind as a Home Alone sequence. Then SP.
I have a feeling that this is really because EON doesn't know how to structure films correctly. They have their best action sequences in the PTS, and set unrealistically high expectations for the rest of the film. They simply spend all their money in the first half and leave none for the second. Like how the helicopter fight opened SP and the boat 'chase' ended it.
Does anyone else agree or am I just being crazy?
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Comments
An anticlimax.
:D
Heck, the Bond franchise has lasted longer than 40 years. What do you expect? The franchise can't take too much excitement, y'know. Leave that to the younger franchises like Jason Bourne and The Fast and The Furious.
Most anticlimaxes don't really bother me either, they only slightly annoy. There are only a few that I thought were really bad.
Anyone else think that the most interesting climax was in TMWTGG, with the bout between Bond and Scaramanga? Managed to be the most engaging and suspenseful part of the movie without having stuff blow up. And when stuff did blow up later it got boring.
@dalton
Odd that you thought GE's was an anticlimax! I actually thought it was exactly the way to end a Bond film. You had the really brutal close-quarters fight, and then having them on the ladder so high above the ground, and having Bond hang on so desperately... I thought it was incredibly tense! So I was satisfied. And in terms of a long-awaited confrontation I think TWINE is much much worse in that regard. Or maybe I'm just weird?
PS: I really liked TSWLM's finale as well. As far as I'm concerned, finales started to take a turn for the worse after the great Ken Adam left Bond, with a few exceptions.
You may be right on this.
I think I get what you're saying... Like the ending of LTK? The really cheery talk with Felix over the phone doesn't really bring the film around full-circle regarding Della's death, I suppose? Or in DAF and SF where Bond doesn't really achieve his mission (reacquire the diamonds, get back the list of agents)?
Here are my honorable mentions:
Golden Eye, A View to a Kill, Casino Royal, License to Kill, The man with the golden gun, You only live twice, On her Majesty's secret service (Tracy's death)
Dishonorable mentins:
Diamonds are forever, Live and let die, Goldfinger (plane sequence), Spectre (far too many sequences, no real fight between Bond and Blofeld or any henchman), For your eyes only (the climbing sequence is great, but afterwards it's boring), QOS (Greene is no match for Bond, very boring fight, dishonorable end for a villain).
I agree with none of this. And incidentally, a Bond film need not end with a spectacular action set piece unless you're one of those viewers who sees Bond films as action films more than espionage films. I belong to the latter category.
In cant happen often but having someone Bond loves (and the audience cares for) dying in his arms will always push the right buttons. It needs something more than massive explosions IMHO. Also you have the scene after the "explosion (physical or emotional ) I'm biased and sorry to be a bore but SF does this well with the roof scene and then the very last scene says to the audience "c'mon, lets go, we are ready to do it all again, bring it on", I think the idea of just bedding another Bond girl has gone IMHO. I would be interested in seeing a list of "last dialogue " from each Bond movie as they are key in ending on the right note and leaving the audience in the frame of mind that the write wanted them to be in.
Fair enough and I see your point of view, and in fact very few of the examples I mentioned really do actually bother me (only TLD, TSWLM, TWINE and FRWL really grate).
But in my opinion the Bond films really are action films, or at least they are now. We have been seeing less and less espionage in the series. Perhaps it is a simple-minded view but truth be told action is a very large part of the series.
And you are right, the film doesn't have to necessarily end with a spectacular action set piece. I just think that if there is going to be one, then it ought to be placed at the end, in order to close the film on a high, not the beginning, which raises expectations unrealistically for the remainder of the film, as they did with SP.
@PDJamesBond
Yes TWINE really is anticlimactic. I don't necessarily mind it at first (I think the tilt of the submarine is intuitive and gives the finale a good battleground of sorts). But then there is too much underwater stuff and the final fight between Renard doesn't cut it considering how much build-up there is around him. I expected that bullet to come into play some how regarding his death but it didn't.
I think the rod with the plutonium inside is what kills Renard. He gets impaled through the chest by it.
I think the submarine ending is quiet good. What is bad about it? It is a good fight between them. Actually Renard is even the stronger one. Bond kills him in a rather unexpected way which is cool. I also kind of liked the dialogue between the two and the moment when Renard realises that Elektra is dead.
I also don't understand why peope think TLD has an anticlimax. I always liked the dialogue and how that sequence developes. Bond actually has control over Withacker who has to find a way to make use of his technical devices. Finally Bond wins due to his gadgets. I like that sequence because it is also quiet suspensefull and not overload with action. It is more like a duel as we have it in TMWTGG.
TWINE climaxes with Elektra's death and then we've still got 25 minutes of uninspired action to wade through is its problem. I actually think the real climax of that film is really good. And I'm one of the h8ers.
I'd probably prefer cr without the sinking house. The real ending is bonds betrayal irrespective of where and when.
Too many films, spectre included lose confidence and resort to throwing lots of explosions on the screen.
To be fair, the SP finale is primarily devoid of explosions. There's the one controlled demolition. When I think of the finale I think of M and C's face off, Bond in pursuit of Blofeld and their subsequent face off, rescuing Madeleine and the Thames chase. It's not in the same territory of QoS and SF which is lots of shit blowing up. That's why I enjoyed the Moroccan base going up in the way it did, subverting the usual.
Most Bond movies satisfy me at the end almost completely. Even TMWTGG! Goodnight Goodnight, goodnight my dear, have no fear, James Bond is here.... :)) awesome stuff!!! \m/
\m/
In terms of pay-off, TWINE is the classic failure. You expect the set-up of the whole bullet and the inability to feel pain to have some kind of good pay-off. But there is none. FYEO might also fail in that regard because Melina's whole goal for the film is to avenge the death of her parents and she doesn't even get to kill the guy who arranged it - but this is only a minor annoyance in my mind.
In terms of the tension dilemma, TB is a good example. Before the badly edited fight on the Disco Volante even begins, the fuse of the bomb is thrown overboard, meaning the villain's plot cannot succeed. There is no real tension in the resulting fight - if Bond dies, he still succeeds because the villain fails. Same goes for TLD.
But where most anticlimactic Bond films have their problem, it is because the protagonist does not face an appropriate challenge to end the film. Ideally, it should be their biggest challenge. Pray tell, how was the MI6 building shtick in SP or the boat chase an appropriate challenge to end the film in any way? He didn't even fight anyone!
If the film has an appropriate challenge, but the film does not end after it quickly, then the movie can also feel anticlimactic. TSWLM, after the big bombastic Liparus fight, goes on too long, since the infiltration of Atlantis and final clunky fight with Jaws is underwhelming. FRWL's true climax is the fight with Red Grant. There is nothing necessarily wrong I thought with the chases that followed, but Rosa Klebb's death is a definite anticlimax as a villain's death, though I admit it was appropriate to have her killed by Romanova.
Anyway that was just my justification for why I thought some of the films in the series were anticlimactic. But it rarely lessens my enjoyment!
Funnily enough one of my lesser favorite Bonds actually has got what I’d consider a proper climax – GE. The others that are close would be DN, YOLT, TSWLM, OP
As pointed out above GE is one of the best films of the past 20 years to pull off the classic DN style ending.
Agreed entirely. TWINE and TLD's finales are among my favorites. Then again, that sort of depends upon how one defines "finale."
That's where Spectre really dropped the ball. They had the perfect setup to go this route and do something a bit different with the franchise, keeping the identity of Blofeld/SPECTRE #1 a secret to be revealed in the final act only to blow it in the first 30-45 minutes of a 2.5 hour film.
They also tried this to a degree with The World is Not Enough, with Renard presented as the main villain from the beginning only for it to turn out to be Elektra. Problem with that was you could see her turn to the dark side coming from several miles away.
Good point.
LTK is one of the few Bonds that nails the climax, saving it's best action scene for the denouement and great personal showdown between Bond and the villain.
I beg to differ on the music though.
Given Renard's scrawniness, I felt he punched well above his weight in the concluding fight with Bond. I also believe "Welcome to my nuclear family" was a smart and amusing one-liner.