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I found the Roger Moore ones to be a bit boring.
I think Casino Royale (the Film) is overrated, I actually prefer the novel.
I liked Quantum of Solace, it's rewatchable.
Monica Bellucci should have been Madeleine Swann.
That's indeed controversial. I wouldn't say that QoS Looks expensive :-)
I think John Gavin would've been a superb James Bond in DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER.
He would've reinvigorated the franchise the way Brosnan did for GOLDENEYE, and the character would actually be alive and well today.
:)
Normally I would be against an American as Bond. But given how lackluster Connery was in DAF, I would be prepared to take that gamble. Hard to imagine that it is the same fella that played Bond in FRWL.
I do like Connery's performance, but I think Gavin might've been able to pull it off as a British Bond, whether or not he attempted an accent. I'd probably be more convinced with Gavin than with James Brolin. In addition he's quite suave in films like IMITATION OF LIFE.
The difference is Brosnan was known, especially to American audiences and there was a ton of publicity around him getting the role and losing it in '86. Roger Moore was also a familiar face. John Gavin would've been, maybe, that guy who was in Psycho. How many people saw Imitation of Life?
The response to DAF proved UA and Eon were right in bringing Connery back. No, the character was different than the one in FRWL, but neither is the film and he played to that. It could also be argued the Bond in YOLT was different than the FRWL one if you think about it. I thought his DAF performance was fine. We got the tough aspects but he also proved still suave and fine with the campier light moments.
My latest rewatch of TSWLM was very disappointing!
It used to be an easy top 7-8 for me, but as I get older I can’t take the goofiness of it all. It really feels like a cartoon that never comes close to being self aware. The dialogue is pure cheese, and there’s long stretches of the film where nothing happens. The soundtrack is anemic with recycled classical cues and the overly trendy (at the time) disco Bond. What saves the film are the great locations and the brilliant final ship battle.
While I still rank it above Moonraker, I’m sitting here thinking MR does sooooo many things better than TSWLM, and it is at least aware of its own tone. Possibly the most overrated Bond for me.
Yes, and as much as beautiful was Barbara Bach, I find her acting a bit wooden.
I also think it does have some major pacing issues. Some scenes do on longer than needed.
I'm with you, but a bit further down the road. Moonraker outdoes TSWLM in pretty much every way, and its hint of self-awareness is a big part of it. I find it weird when people talk about how Jaws with a scary, serious villain in this movie, but was made silly in MR. He was ridiculous and inept in both films: the difference was that the second film knew it.
I also have to mention one of my least favorite scenes again: when Bond, Anya and co are looking at the slideshow, we're watching a room full of people who are literally stupid. I cannot believe that dialogue about "oratory" was ever written. A Christopher Wood-penned Sherlock Holmes story would be absolutely hilarious though!
I must admit to having the opposite opinion. I think Gavin could have destroyed the series. I don't even know what Broccoli and Saltzman saw in him--everything about Gavin was bland and forgettable. And why cast an American? Furthermore, I think it would have created a bad impression with the public to have a "failed" one-off Bond followed by a low-charisma actor who was not unknown but hadn't made much of an impression with the public. And all this at a time when Connery still seemed to own the role.
With Gavin in the lead I think DAF would have underperformed to the point of ending the series or making just enough money for it to trail off into a few increasingly low-budget and drab films. Broccoli and Saltzman ultimately did the right thing by having Connery return for a farewell bow and then casting a well-known actor who was liked by the public.
Another American actor that I think could have sold DAF (and maybe LALD) is Adam West. DAF is basically a campy James Bond movie with a Batman 66 type of style. Adam West could have pulled off both movies. I don’t see him in TMWTGG and beyond.
I agree and never understood what the producers saw in him either and was very surprised when I first read that in Steven Jay Rubin's book. I've read they wanted to appeal more to the American market, but it seems like a high cost to gamble on somebody like him. Another thought was why not go back to some of the candidates for OHMSS? If they supposedly, depending on what story you hear, kept going back to Dalton over the years, had they gotten too old or no longer viable?
West had the charisma and comic timing required, though I wonder what his accent would have been like. But after Batman ended he was stuck in typecasting hell. I also wonder if DAF would have been as campy with Gavin in the role--it seems like a mistake to introduce a new Bond actor (aside from West, who was known as a comedic actor) with a very jokey film. Even Roger's first film dialed down the camp.
Yes, especially when the American market loved a very Scottish actor like Connery. The idea that they'd take to an American actor, no matter how forgettable he was, is strange. Evidently Broccoli failed to drop the idea, since he almost cast James Brolin for OP!
Good question. They wouldn't have been too old at the time of DAF. Perhaps the producers decided they would avoid genuine unknowns like Lazenby and favor actors who were experienced but hadn't struck it big (like Gavin and later Brolin).
I don't get the praise about Eva Green's Vesper Lynd, many people claiming her to be the best Bond Girl of them all, but if I will look at her character alone, she's not worth it, she didn't do anything other than revive Bond by using a defibrillator, she didn't even fight the bad guys instead, she cried in the shower, we didn't even get to see what she can do, her hobbies.
Atleast Tracy can drive a car, ski, ride a horse, hold a gun, and fight a bad guy, what Vesper can do?
She's great but not the best. She's overrated in my opinion, she's still in my top 5, but to put her in #1 is too much. And Eva Green was beautiful with makeup, but without makeup or if you removed it, she's not that beautiful, she looked anorexic, but this are overshadowed by her makeup.
I commented this on Calvin's video but Green has this amazing energy to her that she brings to playing Vesper as someone who is charming yet aloof and the train scene is all about showing she's Bond's intellectual equal or even superior. So I think the love for Vesper is well-earned.
I always got the sense that part of Bond's attraction to her comes from his own youth/naivety. The tragedy of the novel is that before her suicide/paranoia at the end they don't even seem all that happy together, something I wish the film had played on a bit. Later Fleming Bond girls such as Tracy, Tiffany Case, Honey Rider etc. are far more independent and interesting.
During the incredibly overwritten monologue exchange when they meet on the train, Bond should have added one other obvious point to his contrived Holmesian analysis:
"It's clear from your dorky way of introducing yourself--'I'm the money'--that you are intimidated by me, probably as a result of sexual attraction, and are insecure enough that you had to spend some amount of time thinking of a cute way to initiate our conversation."
Seriously, I do not understand how anybody likes that scene. It is absolutely equal to the Bond-Jinx meeting in terms of fakeness, and it's hard to imagine James Bond being interested in a woman as lacking in confidence as (cinematic) Vesper Lynd. Her motivations are also extremely unclear, even once the movie is over, and I've noticed from many conversations about CR that nobody is actually all that clear about what she was doing plot-wise and with whom. A complete mess, really.
I also feel the same.
About that train scene, there's one redditor who said that "It's an Aaron Sorkin level of dialogue".
Yes, I don't see what Bond saw in her, Like @007HallY said, his attraction to her maybe came from his naivety/being young at that time.
Or it could be a pre-arranged password, like is usual in spy fiction (and probably in real life).
Now we're back at arguing about realistic spycraft in Bond films and I'm sorry about that, but I'd say a good codephrase would be something you could say to someone who isn't your contact and they wouldn't find weird or suspicious, but also couldn't just randomly luck into saying the other part of the code. "I'm the money" is a really, really strange opener to a conversation as @ProfJoeButcher made quite clear. The cliche is that a spy phrase is something like "The eagle flies in the morning" or whatever, but that doesn't really make sense as a covert identification method, does it?
As for the scene in general: Yeah, it probably is overwritten. Nobody talks like that. But I like it, because wouldn't you want to be as witty and insightful as the two of them seem to be here? It's like Vesper looking at Bond once and then having a tailored dinner jacket ready for him in their suite. That doesn't make sense either, but it's cool as hell, so why not?
First, I liked SP better than NTTD. Don't get me wrong: I like NTTD, but I just prefer the funny Bond movies rather than the serious ones (and yet, paradoxically, LTK is my fav film period).
The other is an opinion Cal Dyson gives in his latest and kind of controversial (heavily lampshaded by him: hilarity ensues): If we were to take AVTAK out of the equation, Octopussy was the perfect Bond Girl for Moore's Bond to settle with. In a way (don't take my words literally), if we ignore the references to the former on other Moore movies, she was Moore's Tracy or Madeleine: adventurous, a bit of a know-it-all, fun loving, high living, mature and has a dark past. This goes to show how well Maud Adams acts.
Note, again, how nuanced my opinion is: we should take several absolutely canonical things out, so it's just a castle in the sky rather than an informed opinion.
Speaking of which, another OP unpopular opinion… Is it just me or Maud Adams looked a bit too skinny there? On TMWTG, her face was rounder.
This is what I'm talking about, Maud Adams worked for Roger Moore because she's matured looking, she really fits with Moore, age appropriate, for me she's the best Bond girl of the Moore Era (sorry, Anya).
One of the problems of AVTAK was Tanya Roberts, besides from she's whiny, she's also far too young to be the old Roger Moore's leading lady, to be honest, I also feel the same way about NTTD with Craig and Lea, watching their scenes really made me uncomfortable, (the age gap was really obvious).
Of course I also prefer SP to NTTD, and maybe it's just me but I think Craig's portrayal in SP was the closest to Fleming, yes moreso than CR and QoS, I feel like he acted like Bourne in those two movies, but in SP he acted like Fleming's (literary) bond and it's a shame because the movie (SP) wasted it.
On Maud Adams looking a bit skinnier in OP, I didn't noticed that, I think she still looked the same.
Agreed, Adams was a great fit for Moore and that bit of history in TMWTGG makes it feel even more appropriate, although she was a completely different character it just creates a connection.
Despite the fact that he won an Oscar, I don't think Sean Connery was as good an actor as Roger Moore. Their performances as Bond aside (although Connery had a few where he looked noticeably rather bored) Moore could do comedy, which Connery was never quite as adept at, and was able to do some accents which Connery certainly couldn't do. Unlike Connery he always put his all into his performances. Moore could even do more intense moments and had great instincts as a performer in this regard (you can see this with his Bond films, ie. TSWLM where he reveals he killed Anya's lover). I'd rank Moore, Dalton and Craig as the best actors who played Bond in terms of versatility, range and talent. While Connery ranks higher than Lazenby and Brosnan for me in this regard, and clearly had a magnetic screen presence, I don't think he comes close to these actors.
Nor do I think Moore put his all into his performances. In his first couple of Bonds and his last he's relatively stiff, whereas Connery, even when bored by the script, was relaxed in the role. As for accents, they can serve as a flashy demonstration of technique, but they don't gauge acting ability. Lastly, comparing their non-Bond careers is revealing: it's impossible to imagine Moore matching Connery's best performances in The Offence, Robin and Marian, The Who Would Be King, The Hill, etc.