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LALD: Music and setting (Harlem and Louisiana, for example) are unlike anything else in the franchise...but in a good way.
It’s like a white mans interpretation of Shaft, with a funk driven though admittedly great score, bond as the least discrete spy in the world for a large portion of the first half, and a cheap looking production and cinematography. I don’t think the non letterbox ratio helps. Ditto Golden Gun.
Polemical much? I know, I know. But deep down it's now I feel. Love them all, though.
But Connery’s run didn’t need tropes. They had Connery, and that was enough.
To make my point, look at OHMSS, where they shoehorned in many tropes to remind you it was a Bond film - including past props, clips from previous films, and even the Goldfinger tune!
All of which it didn't really need, cause it was a superb film with a possibly superb Bond that sadly never had his continuity.
I agree. LTK to me feels like a US TV action movie. Somehow feels cheap, with 1980s / 1990s stock drug smuggling plot
It's not only a great film, but it's thanks to the success of GoldenEye that we are now waiting for a 25th Bond film.
Agree with LTK. I particularly enjoy it and it has a fantastic villain, but I do think it lacks that cinematic quality of the Bond films as many of the 80s films do. This said with enormous respect to John Glen, mind you.
Very much agree with this.
No, no, not at all. Just think that a GE type of film is what Bond 26 should be. ;-)
Yes, I get what you mean.
I guess I'd have to go with:
LTK and TMWTGG, both of which annoyed me quite a lot, even upon first viewing in the theater. Disappointing for sure.
I would add OHMSS but the film itself is very Bondian, and Diana is superb.
Only Laz hurts the film. I never bought him as Bond in it, not at all. But I'll leave the film itself as Bondian enough.
_________
I would like to add LTK to my list. Completely forgot to include it.
I share the views re. LTK looking very much like an U.S TV action film. In a strange way I think it kinda works – but of course, it would've been even better if it felt more like a "traditional" Bond film. I do wonder what the opinion of Dalton would have been back then (and now) if LTK was more like a typical Bond film.
Yup, it's what makes his films true classics in the Bond series. In the commentaries for Connery's films the filmmakers talk about how there were no terms like "Bondian" to describe such tropes because it was all new at the time. Nobody was consciously thinking "we have to have Bond wearing a tux in one scene" or "we have to have a him ordering a martini at some point".
Yup, one of my least favorite elements in OHMSS was the heavy handed attempts at trying to sell you the idea that Lazenby is the same exact Bond as Connery, as opposed to Lazenby giving his own take on the character like Roger Moore would. So they give him lines that might have fit Connery's style of performance but feels awkward delivered by Lazenby. Moneypenny calls him "same old James". The film was already a very strong installment that didn't need any of those touches, but it was the first non-Connery film and everyone was too conscious of it.
In contrast, there was a concerted effort in LALD to make it feel different from past films so you're never reminded too much of Connery and inadvertently comparing Moore to him. This was their second shot at doing a Bond without Connery, so they were gonna try to make sure it worked on its own accord and become a hit film. It's in moments like Bond ordering bourbon and water rather than a vodka martini. He never at any point wears a tuxedo. Q never even shows up. His briefing is done at his own flat rather than at MI6.
Unlike OHMSS, it went onto become a bigger hit. It wasn't until TSWLM that the series ever felt comfortable again indulging in the Bondian tropes, and from that point on the series has more or less functioned in that manner.
It doesn't help part of its plot copies The Dark Knight as well as TWINE and has members of MI6 look incompetent at several points in the film.
Anyway, that’s not entirely on topic. One of the, if not the least Bond-esque Bond film to me is probably Licence To Kill, but I don’t care, I love the hell out of it.
If you count the unofficial ones, then both Casino Royales and NSNA definitely. Obviously they don’t feel like real Bond films. Aaaand... I don’t like them. I tend to act like they don’t exist. The EON movies, good or bad glad or sad, are the official ones.
LTK did indeed look and feel like another vice cop drug cartel TV movie and I said so at the time. Really disappointing, though I still loved Dalton as Bond. But it felt more "off" (just not right) than other Bond films so it gets on my list here.
I don't know about that. I think the Villain is pretty weak. It's just some welsh oversensitive bloke with a personal vendetta... though making him betray his country early on makes him instantly unlikeable so that works well.
Bond on the other hand is great, but why the hell is he a drug dealer now and talks in a mexican accent?
That whole movie is seriously confused. I think they took Flemings quote of "heroes and villains get all mixed up" a little bit to literally on this one imho.
1. Villain has a vile plot.
2. Bond get his instructions from M, gadgets from Q and is off on an adventure.
I think we left this formula behind with TND, which is possibly the last 'formula' Bond film.
I really hope not. It is a bottom three Bond film for me.
Everything after Moonraker feels slightly off, somehow, like copies or forgeries of Bond movies, or like fan fiction, or as if the film makers are trying too hard. Sometimes the copies are very good, but they don’t feel like Bond.
Only my feelings though.
Agree that Sánchez is "generic" and perhaps a very realistic villain, but I happen to enjoy him a lot. He's a dangerous guy to cross and he has something few villains had in the following films - you are actually afraid of him!
Sorry @NS_writing i was just joking. What i meant is that Davi's Sanchez is more "Bond like" in that film than Bond. I don't recognize Bond in LTK. That's why it's the least Bondian film for me. But it's really a well made action Thriller. Sanchez is one of the best villains for sure.
It's a subversive reversal that I like as a concept. It would have been even more daring if they made the film from the perspective of Sanchez, and Bond is the villain who's a force of nature. In a sense, Bond is taking on the same role as Silva who has a personal vendetta, destroying Sanchez and his operations from the inside out and it all comes to a climatic ending in what is essentially the middle of nowhere.
The Aston Martin usage is kind of starting to bug me. When or why must Bond always drive the Aston Martin DB5? Fine you introduce the car in CR. Cute we see Bond win it at poker. Then we see it in SF and suddenly it has the gadgets from GF installed? WTH? Then it shows up again in SP and now we see it will be in NTTD. Enough, can Bond drive something else? Or can we just give car chases a rest?
Thankfully they have laid off the tuxedo or Craig's Bond has only worn it where it makes sense.
Okay rant over! LOL!
Bond is almost killed so many times in Moonraker. The g force spin, the fight with the ninja henchman, the cable car fight, the snake fight