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Stacey reconnecting with her long lost father
I'd add the steeplechase sequence to that. It's done very well, generally played straight and it was good to see Bond getting bashed a bit. It also ends with that great face off with Zorin ("You amuse me Mr Bond"...."its not mutual!")
Sorry, this scene is one of the all-time lows. The focus is comedy, not thrills. I can't decide which is worse, kicking hats off guys in convertibles or knocking the top off the cab of a pickup truck to reveal a sleeping couple. It really kills any feel that Bond is in any real danger, but with Sutton around that's a sure thing.
Add in Sutton acting completely incompetent, Moore overdoing the "ooooh"s, the keystone cops of the SF department and the last comic touch of the overbearing police boss's car getting smashed after chewing out his subordinates and I was left begging for J.W. Pepper to come back.
Notice that most of AVTAK is like that with pointless comedy intruding on action scenes for no other reason than that was what they did during that era. The film's is tone all over the place, especially when just a while later you have the stark shock of Zorin and Scarpine gunning down innocent miners and numerous people drowning and being electrocuted.
It's not an approach, I was only pointing out that it's a dark moment for any film, yet one made infinitely darker simply because the rest of the film is so insanely lighthearted and goofy.
I love how Bond is so serious there. And Zorin isn't at all fazed by his comment about MI6 retaliating. And then the best Bond can muster is "don't count on that." Zorin really gets under Bond's skin.
Think that fly agrees with you! Or has it just popped in for a nose.
Or maybe it's Gareth007 in another guise?
I think it was Gareth.
Add in Sutton acting completely incompetent, Moore overdoing the "ooooh"s, the keystone cops of the SF department and the last comic touch of the overbearing police boss's car getting smashed after chewing out his subordinates and I was left begging for J.W. Pepper to come back.
Notice that most of AVTAK is like that with pointless comedy intruding on action scenes for no other reason than that was what they did during that era. The film's is tone all over the place, especially when just a while later you have the stark shock of Zorin and Scarpine gunning down innocent miners and numerous people drowning and being electrocuted.
[/quote]
I didn't say that the chase was thrilling. I said it was imaginative for a chase scene to have a fire truck in it. I grant you some of the comedic bits are a little too much. But this was Moore's Bond. Look at the ski chase in FYEO and you see the bobsledders tapping each other while Bond urges them to go faster. In OP you see Bond doing a Tarzan yell while being hunted in the jungle.
The comedy is needed to highlight and in some cases let the audience have a release from the darkness or darker tone of the movie. The fire truck chase comes just after Zorin brutally murders Howe and then starts a huge fire putting Bond and Stacey at risk. That scene is played with tension and drama. Bond falling a few rungs on the ladder etc. Then we have the fire truck sequence which is played a little lighter.
If I was ranking Moore's Bond movies I am putting AVTAK middle of the pack with TSWLM , MR and LALD lower and TMWTGG, FYEO, OP higher.
The jokey tone couldn’t be more different from the relative self-seriousness of helmer John Glen’s first 007 directing effort, “For Your Eyes Only,” and frankly, one should yearn for more of that class. Certainly the real-life Roger Moore had it, which was part of the reason he made such a nice fit for the character a dozen years earlier.
By this point, Broccoli has thoroughly observed the Hitchcock-like strategy of making his movies seem bigger by setting the action against the largest possible backdrops, and so we get the aging Bond scaling the Eiffel Tower and hanging from the cables of the Golden Gate Bridge. The film needs moments like these to offset the less iconic moments — doing detective work in horse stables or racing through traffic on a fire engine.
And perhaps it also needs the over-the-top, yet menancing performances by Jones and Walken (who goes berserker at one point machine-gunning a platoon of his own henchmen). It must be enormously challenging to keep these installments fresh, which is why I’m sure no one was happier than Moore for the gauntlet to pass to Timothy Dalton and a far superior, Fleming inspired entry.
Thanks for the laugh :))
As for AVTAK, i pretty much hate all of it except for the Eiffel Tower sequence, including the restaurant scene (i'd like to say the following chase as well, but the Stuntman messed it up), the french Chateau, Zorin as a character, that Dolph Lundgren cameo, and Bond making a Quiché.
It’s still better than DAD and looks serious next to MR.
Well i can't agree with that. DAD is miles above both for me, and MR is still more entertaining overall.
https://c8.alamy.com/comp/HEHEHE/toby-stephens-james-bond-die-another-day-2002-HEHEHE.jpg.....
Really? DAD? Kite surfing tidal wave, invisible car, Jinx, Robocop suit......!!!
DAD was the film that killed Pierce Brosnan. The film so unashamedly inept that it took four years, a major recasting and a complete change of tone to save James Bond. There's an ice palace. There's a giant space laser. There's an invisible car. And John Cleese. And Halle Berry. And a Korean baddie with a face transplant who hooks his face up to a glowing dream machine at night. Oh God, and Madonna. Die Another Day is awful. Entire books could be written about all the mistakes and missteps and bad decisions that went into making it.
Also it has the coolest lead actor of his generation:
In all seriousness though, all 3 of these movies are flawed. It comes down to personal preference which you'd pick. At least DAD has arguably one of the best Bond performances from Brosnan, can't say the same about AVTAK or MR
Brosnans best Bond performance is GE by far. I’ve listed what’s not to like about DAD above.
I actually agree with the first point, but with the second i guess we agree to disagree. :)
DAD made the most money up to that point,and was a 40th Anniversary film so they went all out to make it extraordinary,perhaps too much.
But IIRC it was DAD that killed Brosnan,it was some demands he made afterwards.
DAD is a fun romp,no more than Bond being in space in a space shuttle firing lasers .
But, barry, MR is more fun..and more importantly it's got Roger Moore!!
MR is daft but it's far better made than DAD.
It's also better made than AVTAK.
DAD is by far the worst Bond film. There really is no excuse for such a poor excuse of a film from such talented people with so much money to spend. An incoherent story, a script that seems to be comprised of nothing but bad sex puns that are too low brow for an Austin Powers movie and instead of the famous Bond stunts we get CGI that looked to have been done by the local High School AV club. Just check out Halle Berry's s CGI dive of a cliff, the most unintentionally funny cheap looking effects Ive seen in a long time. The Director is poor and so is Halle Berry.....the worst Bond girl.
The Pola Ivanova sequence should have been cut when they couldn’t get Barbara Bach back to play Triple X.
Speaking of Pola, I do believe they were attempting to compensate for Moore’s age by upping the number of people he has sex with in the film.
You have:
1. The “pilot” of HMS Love Boat in the PTS
2. May Day
3. Pola Ivanova
4. Stacy Sutton
Most Bond films only have two or three. View’s four remains a franchise record, I believe.
There are some high points, of course. The steeplechase fight between Bond and Zorin’s goons reminds me of the dog chase in the woods from Moonraker (which I believe Glen was in charge of as second unit director). Both are very curiously shot segments, almost more appropriate for a horror film.
The mine sequence is likewise good, and of course the Golden Gate fight is spectacular. The score is great - I usually rank it and TLD as Barry’s best.
But overall, it’s not a *bad* film, but it’s not one I’d ever use to introduce Bond to people. In that respect it’s like Octopussy : For Bond Fans Only.
IMO AVTAK is better than :
DAF
TMWTGG
MR
TND
TWINE
DAD
QoS
You mean Walken. Christopher Walker is this man.
i've always had a soft spot in my heart for this movie, so maybe i cut it a little more slack than i should, but its usually one of my "go to" Bond movies, when i am just wanting something fun on, or something on in the background while i am working on the computer...