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Comments
1. Goldfinger is vastly overrated (largely due to nostalgia goggles)
2. Thunderball is woefully boring and borderline unwatchable
3. Lazenby gave one of the best Bond performances
The 3rd opinion seems to be the norm on this forum with many.
1. True to some extend.
2. True
3. Spot-on true.
You're right, but Joyce DeWitt, in my opinion, remains the most beautiful woman who ever walked the earth.
1. Not overrated, just lacking action
2. True, TB rest at the bottom 3 with TMWTGG and DAD
3. Coudn't agree more. WWWAAAYYYY underestimated, underapprecited.
Now that is what I call a controversial opinion.......imho of course
I personnaly coudn't get past the first 35 minutes. Utterly boring, dismal stuff.
To tell you the truth, only a cameo by Alexandra Bastedo had me going past the first 15 minutes, as I was waiting for her to reappear.
Agreed on this. Blofeld is pure Fleming. And if someone else deserves credit for Blofeld it is Arthur Conan Doyle for creating Moriarty. And Stoker for creating Dracula.
Nice comparison between Moriarty and Blofed. The thought had crossed my mind once or twice as well.
Moriarty was the archetype for many nemesis (nemesises?) and also like Blofeld an involuntary one.
I can imagine Purvis, Wade, BB + MGW finding that possibility terrific, if you get what I mean.
Andrew Scott was cast because he was cheaper than Chiwetel Ejiofor. Not exactly a telltale sign of him turning up to be Blofeld.
And on a side note, his Moriarty has almost nothing in common to the literary character. Except the name.
Edit: I should expand my thought so it is clearly understood. When we are talking about performance quality, I relate that heavily to experiencing the same emotion as the character the actor is portraying. Lazenby is rather average, possibly even pedestrian, in this regard. His delivery at the end is a great example. People praise it and rave about it. In my opinion, if it was so great, I should feel at least some sense of disillusion as the character is experiencing with the way the dialogue is scripted. He just lost the love of his life and all I do is feel sad -- not heartbroken. A great performance would do just that for me.
Lazenby doesn't get enough credit, IMO for his action sequences though, especially the fight scenes. Very athletic, and I love the way the scenes are cut and stilted. A lot like the action scenes of today.
In terms of the two love deaths (Tracy and Vesper), Craig definitely blows Lazenby out of the water in terms of performance quality. Everything down to the smallest detail he puts into it from the rate of breath to the lines around his eyes. It's hard not to put yourself through the same feeling. There is an old expression that rings true for that moment: silence can be eloquent. The silence speaks louder than the dialogue in one's heart.
It's an unfair comparison.
Tracy was shot and immediately dead. Lazenby could not do anything than hold her and say those last famous words, with certainty she was gone forever.
Vesper drowned at her own wish. Bond was in despair, he tried to save her and fought to revive her. After that he was totally exhausted.
This scene is so much more complex than the simple shooting of Tracy.
Craig did fine, he seems to have the man in despair spot-on and he can very well play the exhausted man after running, fighting, saving, being tortured etc.
Lazenby gave a marvelous performance in that last scene. He hit it 100% and didn't overact.
One of the best scenes in any Bond movie.
With Vesper's case, although still a tragic scene, it doesn't have the same effect with me. I'm not particularly enthralled with the sinking house setting, and the shots of her locked in the lift is all a bit blah to me. And the attempt to revive her after getting her out just comes across, for want of a better word, a bit cliche. They should have stuck with the novel.
That's not controversial. That's commonsense. Heck, that's sanity!
Just out of curiosity: How do you know that? Is it speculation or do you have a source?
I'm not quite sure his performance can be called marvelous. It's way too composed to convey the feeling that is requested of the dialogue.
That face doesn't say, "my love is lost." If you show that still to people unfamiliar with the franchise and asked them what is going on there, you would get a lot of different answers as to the emotion he is showing. The reason: Because it is not very descript.
And luckily so, an obvious tear-jerker scene (like the one when M dies in SF) would have been unfitting and stupid even.
It was mentioned in various articles quoted in various threads here.
If you want to see what I mean, take a look at the more stoic Mathis death scene in Quantum Of Solace. You can see Craig clench his teeth and it adds a shadow of despair across his face without resorting to crying or like overflows of emotion.