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Which films do you feel get a bad rap and you have to advocate for them?

Aziz_FekkeshAziz_Fekkesh Royale-les-Eaux
in Bond Movies Posts: 403
With a series with as many varying entries as Bond, which ones do you feel you see getting unfairly maligned too much? Personally I always feel as if I have to defend OP, TND, And QoS (with SP apparently also getting its fair share of hate, but with that one I feel it is too long and tries too much).

I find OP, TND, and QoS all genuinely entertaining. I watched QoS last night (inspiring me to make this thread) and thought parts of it were actually laugh out loud hilarious (mostly Bond's quips, really dry but Craig kills them). OP and TND I just think are classic throwback films to kick back and relax to on a Saturday afternoon.

Comments

  • DrunkIrishPoetDrunkIrishPoet The Amber Coast
    Posts: 156
    You Only Live Twice is often regarded as silly, cartoonish, childish and boring... with a paunchy and disinterested Sean Connery to boot. But I truly believe it to be the epitome of the James Bond Movie: the music! The sets! The action! The payoff on the high-tech space-race shenanigans first hinted at in Dr. No! This is where the series had been heading to all along, and this is where it hits it peak. This is the James Bond Movie to which all other James Bond movies must be compared (and found lacking - until we get to TSWLM).
  • OHMSS69OHMSS69
    edited November 2016 Posts: 2,341
    I always liked A View to a Kill but the hate this film gets! My goodness. It is so rarely discussed (in a positive light) among Bond fans even though it marked Roger Moore's final film and brought an end to a certain style of films that had begun more than a decade earlier.

    A 57 year old Moore sniffing behind a 27 years his junior Tanya Roberts must have irked many a fan and critic. I once read a nasty review that stated and I quote, "they spent more time filling in the wrinkles in Roger Moore's face than filling in the plot holes."

    AVTAK may be a flawed film but it has some good points to recommend it: Christopher Walken is great and a real scene stealer and Grace Jones was quite good. One critic even remarked that they should have killed Stacy and let Bond ride off with May Day. I liked the rest of Zorin's henchmen and women (Alison Doody is a bright star despite the limited screen time. The chase through the streets of San Francisco is full of the typical comedic elements we have grown accustomed to with Moore's Bond but I found the chase quite thrilling. And the climax atop the Golden Gate Bridge is priceless and too often overlooked as one of the great fights/climaxes.

    And lets not forget Barry's great score and that "kick in the balls" theme song and Binder's opening credits are up to his usual high standards.
  • MurdockMurdock The minus world
    Posts: 16,351
    The World is Not Enough. it just gets dismissed as melodramatic and soap operatic when that's hardly the case. This is a very good Bond outing that gives us a good mystery to solve as well as a nice twist. It gives us some great action sequences with a great David Arnold score to boot. Brosnan gives a great performance as his Bond is bit of a bastard that mirrors Connery's early years. Christmas Jones is flawed yes but thankfully she's not Jinx or Goodnight level bad. She just kind of appears and stays in the background when she's not given anything to say. As for when Bond confronts Elektra, is it really as Melodramatic and soap operatic as the constant trust issues between Bond and M in CR, QOS and SF? I don't think so. TWINE is a solid underrated Bond film.
  • 0BradyM0Bondfanatic70BradyM0Bondfanatic7 Quantum Floral Arrangements: "We Have Petals Everywhere"
    Posts: 28,694
    Thunderball, Licence to Kill, Quantum of Solace, Spectre.
  • Aziz_FekkeshAziz_Fekkesh Royale-les-Eaux
    Posts: 403
    @Murdock I've never had a problem with Jones either. I think people just really hate Denise Richards.

    @Brady Really interesting how people seem to knock TB and LTK, both of them make my top ten.
  • 0BradyM0Bondfanatic70BradyM0Bondfanatic7 Quantum Floral Arrangements: "We Have Petals Everywhere"
    Posts: 28,694
    @Aziz_Fekkesh, I rewatched Thunderball twice this week for our community Bondathon and have enjoyed it more than ever. It's one of the most dire plots in Bond, involving nukes of all things, and is jam-packed with some of the all-time greatest Bond moments, especially anything with Bond and Fiona facing off. I know the pacing annoys some, but I enjoy how the mystery behind Largo's plot is built, and the finale and the amazing technical artistry the team showcased by capturing it has me in awe every time; I can't get enough of the underwater sections. I refer to it as a mix of the best of Dr. No and From Russia with Love, amped up in ambition without going over the top. It's clear Terence Young used all he learned on his first two films in his last.

    In the case of Licence to Kill, it's such a different yet amazing Bond film. So dark and untamed, with a Bond on edge and off the rails. The tragedy of Felix's severed marriage mirroring Bond's own past tragedy with Tracy and how they are bonded by mutual loss is powerful, and Sanchez is set up as a great villain in a story that is about as adult and gritty as a Bond has got in some areas. It's also got some of my favorite Q moments, a great Bond girl in the form of Pam, and an all-star performance from Dalton that nail's Bond's fiery rage as he finds himself without even M and MI6 to rely on.

    My love of Quantum of Solace and Spectre are well documented, and they represent two of my most analyzed and "talked about" Bonds as I try to argue for their merits quite frequently, and I even set up an appreciation thread for the former:

    http://www.mi6community.com/index.php?p=/discussion/1117/quantum-of-solace-appreciation-thread-we-found-a-better-place-to-meet
  • bigladiesmanbigladiesman
    edited November 2016 Posts: 1,009
    First of all, I have to say I like all Bonds, official and unofficial, obviously acknowledging some of them are guilty pleasures. However, there are three particular cases where I seriously don't know
    what's wrong with these three movies:

    - License To Kill is my absolute fav film of all time, so I don't care what people say at all.

    - As much as people love to hate on Diamonds Are Forever being ridiculously silly, I think that was the point of the filmmakers: to do a funny romp in stark contrast to the tragic ending of OHMMS. It's Bond drowning his sorrows in funky casinos and lame (but hilarious, especially the rat sketch, IMHO) jokes. It's outrageously campy and, in a way, I think the public and the critics were looking for that after - unfairly: it's also a fav of mine - panning OHMSS for its alledged seriouness. To sum it up: I'm saying that should DAF have failed, the Bond franchise may (or may not, who knows: it's a just personal opinion after all) have ended by 1975, or even fallen into Kevin McClory's hands. Silliness saved 007. Fandom should take things into perspective in that case.

    - Spectre: it's formulaic. Well, that's the point, again. I think Mendes wanted to do an old, classic Bond from the 70s/80s: taking clichés from action films of his era and put 007 into them. It's going back to the times where Bond followed the current trends and was just fun, fun and more fun, adding a lot of references to pander the fandom and integrating the mixture into Craig's era continuity. Of course, it ended up being unoriginal, but, man, this movie is a ton of fun.
  • JohnHammond73JohnHammond73 Lancashire, UK
    Posts: 4,151
    Not on here, but On Her Majestys Secret Service gets a lot of stick when I talk about Bond with friends. These are non-Bond fans who feel that, just because Lazenby did the one movie. In fact, they generally don't even know the name of the 007 actor. So, I puff my chest out and defend it to the hilt as it's always a top 3 Bond movie for me.
  • w2bondw2bond is indeed a very rare breed
    Posts: 2,252
    Murdock wrote: »
    The World is Not Enough. it just gets dismissed as melodramatic and soap operatic when that's hardly the case. This is a very good Bond outing that gives us a good mystery to solve as well as a nice twist. It gives us some great action sequences with a great David Arnold score to boot. Brosnan gives a great performance as his Bond is bit of a bastard that mirrors Connery's early years. Christmas Jones is flawed yes but thankfully she's not Jinx or Goodnight level bad. She just kind of appears and stays in the background when she's not given anything to say. As for when Bond confronts Elektra, is it really as Melodramatic and soap operatic as the constant trust issues between Bond and M in CR, QOS and SF? I don't think so. TWINE is a solid underrated Bond film.

    Sorry I have to say it gets worse for me on each viewing, only aspect that doesn't get worse is the Thames chase, "007 your time is up" and Zukovsky
  • royale65royale65 Caustic misanthrope reporting for duty.
    Posts: 4,423
    Murdock wrote: »
    The World is Not Enough. it just gets dismissed as melodramatic and soap operatic when that's hardly the case. This is a very good Bond outing that gives us a good mystery to solve as well as a nice twist. It gives us some great action sequences with a great David Arnold score to boot. Brosnan gives a great performance as his Bond is bit of a bastard that mirrors Connery's early years. Christmas Jones is flawed yes but thankfully she's not Jinx or Goodnight level bad. She just kind of appears and stays in the background when she's not given anything to say. As for when Bond confronts Elektra, is it really as Melodramatic and soap operatic as the constant trust issues between Bond and M in CR, QOS and SF? I don't think so. TWINE is a solid underrated Bond film.

    Preach it Brother!

  • BondJasonBond006BondJasonBond006 on fb and ajb
    Posts: 9,020
    Die Another Day.
    People can't see past 15 seconds of bad CGI and a bland finale.
    The first 70 minutes of DAD are infinitely better than bloody Skyfall.
  • 0BradyM0Bondfanatic70BradyM0Bondfanatic7 Quantum Floral Arrangements: "We Have Petals Everywhere"
    Posts: 28,694
    BondJasonBond006 wrote: »
    Die Another Day.
    People can't see past 15 seconds of bad CGI and a bland finale.
    The first 70 minutes of DAD are infinitely better than bloody Skyfall.

    It's horrid dialogue more than anything else more me, @BondJasonBond006, the absolute worst in the series with no competition. It's like the writing room handed the job off to five-year-olds so they could go to Cabo and sip some mojitos.

    The whole reason why I hate formula is because every second of that movie is a stupid, badly delivered one-liner. It just never, never ends.
  • BondJasonBond006BondJasonBond006 on fb and ajb
    Posts: 9,020
    0BradyM0Bondfanatic7 wrote: »
    BondJasonBond006 wrote: »
    Die Another Day.
    People can't see past 15 seconds of bad CGI and a bland finale.
    The first 70 minutes of DAD are infinitely better than bloody Skyfall.

    It's horrid dialogue more than anything else more me, @BondJasonBond006, the absolute worst in the series with no competition. It's like the writing room handed the job off to five-year-olds so they could go to Cabo and sip some mojitos.

    The whole reason why I hate formula is because every second of that movie is a stupid, badly delivered one-liner. It just never, never ends.

    Sounds like the script for character Silva :P
  • 0BradyM0Bondfanatic70BradyM0Bondfanatic7 Quantum Floral Arrangements: "We Have Petals Everywhere"
    Posts: 28,694
    @BondJasonBond066, didn't see that coming. Oh course, you have erred.
  • Aziz_FekkeshAziz_Fekkesh Royale-les-Eaux
    Posts: 403
    @Brady Agree entirely with your assessment of LTK and TB. I love dark Bond in the former and epic, classy, Terrence Young Bond of the latter.
  • Last_Rat_StandingLast_Rat_Standing Long Neck Ice Cold Beer Never Broke My Heart
    Posts: 4,592
    Moonraker.

    A fun Bond romp that does go far in many spots, but I feel is always entertaining. The pace is phenomenal and the locations are beautiful. Yes it does go extremely over the top with the laser battles, but to sit back and watch the special effects is something to marvel over.
  • BondJasonBond006BondJasonBond006 on fb and ajb
    Posts: 9,020
    Thunderball could be the greatest Bond film by far.
    From Nassau to the beginning of the underwater battle near the end, it actually is the best hour of Bond in the series.
    But the first 45 minutes, sadly, put it almost to the bottom of the Connery-era. I actually think YOLT is better overall.
  • MurdockMurdock The minus world
    Posts: 16,351
    Moonraker gets better with every viewing with me. It's so incredibly fun and charming. I love it.
  • BondJasonBond006BondJasonBond006 on fb and ajb
    Posts: 9,020
    Moonraker is great, so great.
    Is it silly? Maybe. OTT? Possibly. Moore at his best? Definitely.
  • Last_Rat_StandingLast_Rat_Standing Long Neck Ice Cold Beer Never Broke My Heart
    Posts: 4,592
    The only problem is that there is no Walther sighting the whole movie. I mean the only time he fires a gun is the tree scene.
  • 0BradyM0Bondfanatic70BradyM0Bondfanatic7 Quantum Floral Arrangements: "We Have Petals Everywhere"
    Posts: 28,694
    Few Bond villains have better dialogues with Bond than Drax.
  • Mendes4LyfeMendes4Lyfe The long road ahead
    Posts: 8,402
    Sorry to spoil the party, but MR is the only Bond film that I have a hard time watching from start to finish.

    I think TND is undervalued by many.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    FYEo and SP get a lot of criticism here, and I don t get it.
  • ToTheRightToTheRight
    Posts: 16,170
    GF, DAF, OP, NSNA, AVTAK and LTK for me. I'll throw TB in there as many find it boring. I don't.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    Yes, GF is another mystery, but that is just a very vocal miniscule minority.
  • ToTheRightToTheRight
    edited November 2016 Posts: 16,170
    Thunderfinger wrote: »
    Yes, GF is another mystery, but that is just a very vocal miniscule minority.

    I suppose because it does have little in the way of action, explosions, and exotic locations some are bored with it. I'm entertained every time I put it on and it's pretty much my number one Bond.
  • 0BradyM0Bondfanatic70BradyM0Bondfanatic7 Quantum Floral Arrangements: "We Have Petals Everywhere"
    edited November 2016 Posts: 28,694
    ToTheRight wrote: »
    Thunderfinger wrote: »
    Yes, GF is another mystery, but that is just a very vocal miniscule minority.

    I suppose because it does have little in the way of action, explosions, and exotic locations some are bored with it. I'm entertained every time I put it on and it's pretty much my number one Bond.

    I have issues with it because Bond doesn't exactly inspire confidence throughout. When he's actually doing anything, that is.

    Dr. No and From Russia with Love don't have crazy action, explosions or most of the bells and whistles of what you'd call an action film either, but they are still classics in every way, and near perfect movies.
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