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I loved Craig in his first two outings as all involved nailed what Craig's Bond was, I hope Bond 25 marks Craig's no nonsense Bond returning.
This viewing went a little better than usual, but DAF remains one of my least favorite entries unfortunately. I sort of lose interest in the second half, and it feels like it would have been better as a Roger Moore adventure. It's not a total loss though.
Connery, while not giving his best performance, is still fine as Bond and has some good moments. Wint and Kidd are some of the best henchmen in the series. The title song and music are generally pretty good. I also like how a lot was set in Las Vegas. However, there are many problems I have. I don't care much for the Bond girls (Case would be among my least favorites), and Charles Gray's Blofeld is one of my least favorite main Bond villains. He's sometimes fun to watch, but just not right for Blofeld. The PTS is pretty weak IMO. The silly tone felt like it came too soon, both because of how OHMSS ended and because Connery was leading and not Moore. There were a lot of those off-putting silly moments that just didn't fit Connery's style, kind of like how that happens in SP with Craig. Also, I'd say once Bond meets Blofeld in Las Vegas, the film starts to kind of fall apart for me, with just a couple more particularly good scenes after that. One big highlight I should mention though is the lift fight with Peter Franks, which is my favorite scene in the film.
There are moments that are really good in DAF, but collectively it's just not very impressive to me. I don't hate the film, but it has to rank low on my list. Just inferior to most of the other entries I think. It was a close call between it and TMWTGG, but I kept TMWTGG higher for Scaramanga. I will now break for a little while before finishing my marathon with the golden age 60s Bond films.
2018 Bondathon Ranking
1. Casino Royale
2. The Spy Who Loved Me
3. Skyfall
4. GoldenEye
5. Licence to Kill
6. For Your Eyes Only
7. Live and Let Die
8. The Living Daylights
9. Quantum of Solace
10. Octopussy
11. Tomorrow Never Dies
12. A View to a Kill
13. The World Is Not Enough
14. Spectre
15. The Man with the Golden Gun
16. Diamonds Are Forever
17. Moonraker
18. Die Another Day
I have three pet hates when it comes to judging Bond films -
1. Overt Humour
2. Excessive Gadgets
3. Outlandish Plot
Moonraker features all of these in spades. And yet, I’m having to much fun to complain. Each line from Lonsdale is a gem; Adam and Barry are on top of their respective games and Sir Rog lights up the screen. There are some dark moments that kind of balances out the irreverent nature to the picture. Does any else get goosebumps when Drax’s space station is revealed? Bravo Mr. Barry.
Royale’s Ranking, Bondathon October 2017
1. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
2. Casino Royale
3. Dr. No
4. Licence to Kill
5. Quantum of Solace
6. Skyfall
7. Thunderball
8. Goldfinger
9. For Your Eyes Only
10. Tomorrow Never Dies
11. The World Is Not Enough
12. GoldenEye
13. Moonraker
14. A View to a Kill
15. Diamonds Are Forever
16. Live and Let Die
17. Die Another Day
18. The Man With The Golden Gun
On to the final six Bond movies. Starting with From Russia With Love. MR and FRWL do have the Venice connection, but mainly I’m pairing these two up, because I enjoy the volte face of probably the most flip Bond film, to the most engrossing.
From Russia With Love
A complete, unadulterated joy from start to finish.
Royale’s Ranking, Bondathon October 2017
1. From Russia With Love
2. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
3. Casino Royale
4. Dr. No
5. Licence to Kill
6. Quantum of Solace
7. Skyfall
8. Thunderball
9. Goldfinger
10. For Your Eyes Only
11. Tomorrow Never Dies
12. The World Is Not Enough
13. GoldenEye
14. Moonraker
15. A View to a Kill
16. Diamonds Are Forever
17. Live and Let Die
18. Die Another Day
19. The Man With The Golden Gun
Next up, The Living Daylights linked to FRWL thusly, SMERSH; naive Bond Girl that gets in over her head; Walter Gotell’s first and last appearances; John Barry’s first and last scores and Cold War plots.
Really?
Weak villain, weak villain's master plan, terrible shaky cam action...
IMO a second rate Jason Bourne knockoff
"The Bond (Loses His) Identity"
But fortunately he gets it back in Skyfall
I agree, getting the right balance between tension and humour has always been a key to success for the Bond franchise.
Immitators have tended to be either more serious, losing some of the broad appeal, or too silly, losing some of the hard core action / suspence movie audience.
Hitchcock was the original master of blending tension with humour, but it's not an easy trick to pull off, but the Bond franchise has succeeded more often than not... unfortunately DAF was one of the fails.
Personally I don't think any of Craig's movies have reached that point, I saw SP as Craig getting back to pre YALT Connery levels of humour, rather than DAF or bad Roger levels. Whereas his earlier outings were possibly a little short of humour, reflecting the largely humourless style professional assassin movies that have predominated in the 21st century so far.
The continued greater success of the Bond franchise and the Mission Impossible franchise over their po-faced rivals, demonstrates the financial benefits of adopting this approach.
I shall now duck and run for cover as I feel the community shall being pelting with rotten eggs and tomatoes! LOL!
10 wouldn't be enough!
Why is that?
The slapstick humour. It's just painful and not funny.
Honestly I think DAD is better. It's crap but you at least get the sense they're trying. GG is the only Bond film that feels lazy and half arsed imo. It has its bright spots, there's probably more good there than in DAD, but I think the whole thing is definitely less consistent. And then there's this
"Bond has to fight some sumo wrestlers. He tries to beat one by squeezing his arse with an accompanying sound effect but it doesn't work. The henchman is about to kill him with a trident for some reason but then they inexplicably decide to sentence him to death by karate school instead. He's rescued by his contact and his karate school girl nieces who then leave him behind for no apparent reason. But that's okay because remember that long boring boat chase from the last one? Time for a reprisal!"
Just so, so crap. I don't like being that blunt with Bond, I like finding stuff to enjoy, but I think GG is just a genuinely awful poorly put together film. The good stuff it has just makes me hate it more because of what could have been. It's not my least favourite (that's still QoS for me), but I think it's the worst.
It's an odd mix and I don't really think it works. It just seems too unpleasant for me. At the very least it's aged horribly and I remember thinking something wasn't right with the film when I saw it as a teenager.
The Connery films may have had a vicious streak to them but they were usually fairly consistent in tone.
Quite. GG is a mix of campy and callous that doesn't sit well with me.
There's a very angry vibe to the whole film. You get the impression nobody was particularly happy to be on the set.
It was one of the last films I watched when I was going through the series for the first time, so maybe I'm a bit more critical towards it because of that.