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Fear, justified or not, is a central theme in SF.
For me that would have been a definite selfie if ever their was one!!
I never fathomed that one. I can't tell whether Bond is walking into an elaborate trap, or if Silva just improvises and takes advantage of the situation.
I found the PTS pretty poor. However the section from Shanghai to Silva's Island is the best half hour of the movie. Builds quite nicely. After that it falls apart.
Severine used to trust Silva, as he got her out of a bad lifestyle, but now that trust has turned to fear, evident by how he has her followed around by an armed guard. So yes, I think she sees just how expertly Bond has killed trained men, and finds an opportunity where two people who want him dead can profit. Severine, like Vesper, knows she's likely headed to certain death by making the deal and crossing Silva. And of course, she's made the centerpiece of a very dark game of William Tell. But in death, she does find the ultimate peace.
Had Severine played a bigger part in the film it might maintain my interest more. She is vaguely sympathetic, while the others, including Bond, are frankly a bore.
I always feel like SF is a first draft of something that could have been really good. The script and story needed another few months of work. Sharpening, refining. For me it's Mendes' lack of interest in plot and detail that lets it all down.
They should have cut most of the London stuff and beefed up Silva's motivations. It's so paper thin and Silva ultimately is a bit lame.
I think Silva can be overrated by folks, very true, and of course I agree entirely that Berenice deserved more scenes. She is amazing in the movie, first with the very haunting look we get at her as Bond sees her across the buildings in Shanghai, and then the casino scene that she steals and runs away with. They also did a great job of characterizing her like a dragon, with the long, talon-like nails and the smoke she puffs at Bond from her nose and mouth. On top of that she's a knock-out that just exudes sex. Great stuff.
My biggest problems with some of SF and SP, though I love them both, is what they waste. Berenice and Monica were both marketed as big deal Bond girls leading up to the respective releases of both films, and in both cases they are there for 3 to 5 minutes and never seen again. I am less disappointed by how Berenice was handled, because how they use Severine at least makes a statement about Silva's power and the ultimate destiny she has to be oppressed by him, but in Monica's case, it's just unacceptable. We get such great scenes with her and Dan's Bond, then it's off with her. She again serves in a roundabout way to show the fear that SPECTRE and Blofeld represent, but I wish more was done with her beyond that. Monica had been on Bond girl wish lists for decades, and when she finally gets her shot she's barely in it for 3 minutes. Just a shame, really. She should've been cast long ago, as Elektra in TWINE.
Moreover, Mendes lumps all the scenes in quick succession in both films, and that sort of makes them seem like even more of a throwaway. If he'd spread Severine's and Lucia's scenes out a little more over the film, perhaps we would have all been happier, since both are more interesting than the main girls in either film, at least imho.
I feel that's something the pre-Mendes Craig films did better: the utilization and screentime of the Bond girls.
Including Fields?
I would rather have the actresses used as plot devices with a function connected to the story than just being there to look nice, however, which the series has long been guilty of.
As upset as I am that Severine and Lucia were underserved, the impact they make in just a few minutes exceeds that of many other Bond girls who were hired to be there just because they'd one a beauty competition. Not that that's an instant sign the women won't be good, as the likes of Daniel Bianchi and Claudine Auger were from the same pageant scene and still delivered. I just think that for a period of time, in between OHMSS and TLD especially, there was less of a need to present characters for their own sake, and instead use them as window dressing. Bond girls were the big victims of this change.
Sans Fields. Vesper and Camille are incredible and well fleshed out (the former due to the source material and casting, no doubt), and even the likes of Solange in CR gets more to work with than Estrella and Lucia, though perhaps not as much as Severine.
And Gemma is of course a very beautiful woman in a way that doesn't instantly scream sensuality. She's almost got that school girl sweetness about her, and even with her sacrificial lamb status she does have an identity all her own, and leaves an impact. One of my favorite bits of acting from Dan in the franchise comes from his Bond's reaction to finding her dead. He's stammering in his speech, attempting to take in what has just happened under his watch. The impact of Fields and what ripples of consequence even her death causes between the rest of the characters also gives her added importance.
The pacing of both of Mendes films is pretty awful. SF even more so than SP I'd say.
It's ridiculous to say the man doesn't know at he's doing but sometimes it's like ... He doesn't know what he's doing.
I seem to remember reading he shot loads of footage for SF that was never used. Given how long the finished film is it seems bizarre that he still managed to leave so much on the cutting room floor.
SF for me just has that feel of not having been properly story boarded and thought through.
I can't imagine Terrence Young or Gilbert making a film in that way. So wasteful and imprecise.
It really shows in the slack storytelling and weak plotting we get with the Mendes films IMO
Its not a 'hurried' film,whereas SP seems very random in its thinking sometimes.
I find SF a very well rounded and structured film.
Whether I'm still here banging on about like he does in threads slagging it off or praising it I don't know.
I used to have sympathy for SF, but others get it far, far worse. QoS ranked as the worst Bond film ever, with SP not far behind? Rubbish.
That is harsh! :))
You controversial devil, you! I know you're not a very big Moore fan, but no love for TSWLM? Or, do you just prefer SP to it?
Is it? Nobody else realizes it? The math works out, especially since CR beats at least 97% of the rest, Skyfall does similar numbers and QoS is a sleeper hit. SP, contrary to popular belief, is filled with gems.
I honestly don't think that's controversial at all. The only Moore films that would even be welcomed to challenge Craig's would be TSWLM, if only for the location shooting and its blatant 60s feeling, FYEO if only for its attempt at not being a parody and on a good day, maybe OP as I appreciate the angle of the Russian and western detente. Everything else would be laughed out of the running.
Brosnan's are self explanatory. Moore's films got a mix of the great 60s team working on them, which makes some of them savable, but Brosnan's era lacks those elements, especially in the visual department and certainly in the scripting.
Even if someone was of the view that CR and SF were Craig's only worthy films, he has two films that stand up to the vintage classics, whereas Moore has none of those outside of maybe TSWLM (though people exaggerate that film's impact) and Brosnan maybe has GE, which is helped by the fact that it came off a hiatus. I love Dalton's two, but I don't get the same feeling with them that I do Craig's, and that feeling matches the one I have while watching Connery.
I think the early 60s films, OHMSS and Craig's are true art pieces that do the Bond brand a helluva lot of good. CR alone is insane and just masterful, QoS is a very introspective and brave movie that shows us a character's stages of grief through every step, SF is a celebration film in an almost medieval way and SP tackles interesting character interactions between both blood and bond families. Those movies aren't your run of the mill Bond films and they don't use Bond to explore run of the mill themes, they freshly do something new with a character and breathe life into him after EON quite frankly phoned it in for far too long. The Moore and Brosnan eras are rampant signs of this complacency. The motto clearly was, "Let's do the least amount of work we can, and they'll eat it up. Just throw in a sexy girl, a car shooting a rocket and some flashy things."
And that worked here and there, sure, but what results does that approach get us up to? Poor old Roger goes out on his 7th film at an age where he was qualified for senior benefits at the local cafe and I'm quite shocked that Brosnan's last movie didn't have Bond actually jumping a shark judging from how far the series had strayed from the promise of GE at that stage.
What do we have in the Craig era? Strong acting? Check. Class direction? Check. Strong character writing? Check. Vibrant and unforgettable cinematography? Checkity-check. Bond taken seriously? You better believe it. Crazy stunts that the Bond actor does most of? Unbelievable, but true. Bond girls that have an actual function in the plot beyond peeking their asses? Amazing, but true. An effort made to make Bond's development feel genuine and connected from film to film? Gloriously so.
The Craig era doesn't do everything perfectly, as Sean's movies didn't, but the track record so far is by far and away the closest we've gotten to seeing the feeling and motto of the 60s movies replicated and I have to respect that. Bond feels like he matters again, and that he's more than just some guy in a suit that quips and shoots things. He has multitudes, the movies respect that he deserves better and they work to make Bond a mythic, realm protecting hero of Britain. Like no other Bond films before, Craig's Bond truly stands for England, a hero of his adoptive home.
Your assessment of the Moore and Brosnan eras is a bit extreme, especially the thought that they went into eleven of those films with the intention of doing the least amount of work as possible, in hopes that fans would "eat it up." Doesn't seem fair. Sure, in hindsight, the ideas and execution in a lot of those may not have been the best route to take (looking at you, DAD), but I'll gleefully fire up all of those before the thought of rewatching these recent two even crosses my mind.
I'm of the mind that the Bond franchise died with OHMSS, and before then had shown signs of collapsing on itself as early as YOLT. OHMSS was the last truly artful and respectful Bond film that lived up to the groundbreaking films that began the 60s with DN and FRWL, two films which still sack nearly all the others.
Unfortunately the better films lost out over time and the likes of GF (or parts of it) and aspects of the Moore era carved an impression of what a Bond film is supposed to be amongst fans and the public that hangs like a stench to this day. People want box-ticking and for movies to have all the same things somewhat twisted around to make it feel different, but that's exactly why I don't get engaged by those films. The one-liners, the tonally confused messes of the approaches, the lack of any innovation or clever thinking sink movies like the Moore and Brosnan films for me. Worse than that, the remnants of those sad and sorry elements nearly killed Dalton's films too as all that baggage and the sacred "Bond formula" got forced on TLD and LTK, the only two fresh attempts made on the character since 1969. People clearly can enjoy those that I see as lesser entries, but they do about as much for me as a defibrillator does for a corpse.
The Bond films didn't begin like that, and I've been sad to see that so many only view the films as sophomoric action fare with nothing else to say. Films like DN, FRWL, TB and OHMSS had messages, and were produced with some of the greatest teams in cinema history. They told earnest, yet fun, escapist yet grounded and impactful stories that changed the game forever. Bond felt real. But what do people remember? He has a car that goes underwater and sometimes he wears tuxedos. Christ.
The Craig films have been a return to the days of DN, FRWL, TB and OHMSS in approach, produced like films that aren't embarrassed at being what they deserve to be: taken seriously. They're produced with an actual effort and overall game plan put forth, and they have an actual purpose beyond being something you sit in front of for two hours to watch flashy things attack your eyes.
Part of the reason why I will lament the end of Craig's time, beyond him being staggeringly brilliant, is because Bond could slip back into what the public ignorantly believe him to be, which is a caricature. I'll enjoy this respite from mediocrity as long as I am able, and I hope it goes on for at least one more movie, if not two.
You shouldn't be immediately setting yourself up for inbound mediocrity when Craig leaves; isn't that the equivalent of surmising that the Craig era would be garbage back in 2005 because he was blonde and couldn't drive a stick shift? Hell, a young version of me thought I'd never get into the series as heavily when Brosnan announced he was hanging up his hat, then boom, I was blown away with CR and QoS. Never say never, but then again, if you're crediting half of the series as being forgettably mediocre, then it might be a bit tougher for you to manage that.
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=jamesbond.htm
Inflation adjusting for global numbers is far less trustworthy, because of various currency conversions and what not. Some have attempted to do it, but I would take the numbers with a grain of salt. Still, it paints a more forgiving picture of the other actors' tenures.
http://www.007james.com/articles/box_office.php
If you're referring to critical acclaim, then there are Brosnan, Moore and Dalton entries that hold their ground relative to the Craig entries among the general public and I agree with that assessment as well. CR is no doubt a benchmark Bond film but the others have their share of issues.