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It's a very strange feeling to watch this film after watching all the others in chronological order, it still feels modern even in 2015.
Because they are. They hold up astonishingly well, especially GE which is a whopping 20 years old already.
TWINE even is on a new level since Skyfall was basically a remake of TWINE.
TND's story is even more relevant than in 1997.
Only DAD doesn't age that well (yet). 2002-2004 saw the release of many very over-the-top action (comedy) movies that seem dated today.
Of course the naysayers will cry out and blare out their usual Brosnan bashing slogans.
Brosnan looked like a GQ model.
Brosnan couldn't fight.
Brosnan had no edge.
Brosnan was too funny with the quips.
Brosnan wasn't funny enough with the quips.
Brosnan sounded too American.
Brosnan displayed too much pain face.
Brosnan was too skinny.
Brosnan was too fat.
Brosnan did the biting thing too much.
Brosnan was a necro.
Brosnan hated his own performance.
Brosnan couldn't act.
Brosnan acted too much.
Brosnan was too smooth.
Brosnan didn't kill enough bad guys.
Well, okay, never really heard that last one...
:))
#-o
Carry On Fantasising
I could barely pay attention, and indeed I didn't for long stretches of the movie. It's dreadful all over. At least The Man with the Golden Gun had the decency to include an interesting premise and villain, and Die Another Day didn't decide to run itself into the ground immediately. Moore is pretty good as Bond, the title song is acceptable (although the disco remix at the end is not), the opening parachute stunt is impressive, and Corinne Dufour's death is chilling. Those are the movie's only positive qualities. Other than that, it's a trainwreck, and it's a wonder Bond survived the seventies with these five films.
MR does, however, mark the last appearance of Bernard Lee in the role of M, for which he is so beloved. In every film since Dr. No, he's embodied the tough, terse commanding officer who has no qualms about telling Bond off, but deeply respects his abilities as an agent. He's a giant of the series, and for good reason.
1. Goldfinger
2. From Russia With Love
3. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
4. The Spy Who Loved Me
5. Dr. No
6. You Only Live Twice
7. Thunderball
8. Live and Let Die
9. Diamonds are Forever
10. The Man with the Golden Gun
11. Moonraker (two changes in a row!)
This was another necessary Bond movie, since it reined the series in after Moonraker and didn't tank at the box office, setting the necessary precedent for later reinventions, especially after On Her Majesty's Secret Service tanked trying to rein the series in after You Only Live Twice. Unfortunately, it's not as good as the last necessary Bond (The Spy Who Loved Me), but it does perfectly well for itself. FYEO retains the usual Moore jokiness, thanks to its leading man, but, apart from the PTS and the final scenes, it doesn't lose sight of the espionage plot at its heart, with Bond racing to secure the ATAC before Kristatos and the Russians, nor of the subplot with Melina seeking revenge for her parents. More than any Bond movie since From Russia With Love (and more than most since), FYEO feels like something that could happen to an actual agent.
Moore does well again as Bond, emphasizing the character's relative maturity alongside Melina Havelock and Bibi Dahl. Kristatos is fairly generic and nonthreatening as a villain. This might be in part because of the toned down plot, but Dr. No and FRWL were able to have compelling, memorable antagonists despite their simple schemes. Melina is okay as the Bond girl, as her arc is compelling but the acting occasionally is wooden. This may be because her lines were dubbed, I don't know. Columbo is a highlight, in the vein of Kerim Bey and Marc-Ange Draco, as is Locke, for quite other reasons. Eric Kriegler makes up the second of four Red Grant ripoffs to date, and the less said about Bibi the better.
As is something of a theme with FYEO, there aren't any sequences that are on the top tier, although the keelhauling and rockclimbing scenes are very good. The PTS (apart from Bond's visit to Tracy's grave) and the ending bit with Margaret Thatcher are incredibly stupid, but they're brief and entirely incidental to the main plot, so they can be forgiven.
Tune in next week, when I get back to back movies above the line of shame for the first time since You Only Live Twice->OHMSS!
1. Goldfinger
2. From Russia With Love
3. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
4. The Spy Who Loved Me
5. Dr. No
6. For Your Eyes Only
7. You Only Live Twice
8. Thunderball
9. Live and Let Die
10. Diamonds are Forever
11. The Man with the Golden Gun
12. Moonraker (two changes in a row!)
And i stay with my thoughts they are my two favorites of the franchise, but im very sad. My Goldeneye disk is damaged. Sometimes the audio goes off.
I guess i have my excuse to buy the new collection when it comes out hehe.
I've considered myself a Bond fan (probably much more casual than most here) for a while now and recently decided to take the plunge and buy them all on blu ray. I've been watching all of the movies that I haven't seen in years and some that I never completely watched.
Anyways, my interest in Bond has grown while rewatching and I came across this forum. Seems like a good place to discuss all things Bond with some cool people. ☺
Another perfectly serviceable Bond movie, Octopussy gets by on quite a bit of Moorean charm, two cobbled together Fleming stories, and an extensive but well-disguised ripoff of Goldfinger. Moore is dependably funny and charming, although Vijay playing the Bond theme on his flute was a bit ridiculous. The Fleming stories serve their purpose well, but they don't provide a cohesive story the way the two stories in For Your Eyes Only did, so they're forced to crib from Goldfinger.
Both have Bond chasing around a villain in a foreign country who plans to blow up a bomb in a major western location to cause chaos that will benefit them financially and a major eastern power politically. Both also have a female henchmen who has her own crew of female henchmen, whom Bond turns to the side of good (no sexual assault here, though), and a quiet, powerful foreign henchmen. Bond also beats the cheating villain in a game, at which point the henchman crushes something in a display of anger. Finally, Bond is forced to defuse the bomb at the last minute and avert disaster before confronting the villain on a plane.
Again, the movie hides it better than other ripoffs (like You Only Live Twice and The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker and Tomorrow Never Dies) and its charm and sense of fun lets us forgive many sins. Still, though, the movie has its fair share of problems. Kamal Khan, despite Louis Jordan's performance, is a non-entity compared to Orlov, whose plan it is and with whom Bond should have the biggest problem. Orlov, for his part, is killed in anticlimactic fashion after only meeting Bond for a minute or so. Octopussy doesn't have much to do apart from the bit lifted from the short story, not getting anything like Melina's character arc in FYEO. The plot also slows down considerable for a solid half hour while they're in India (complete with an OHMSS derivative escape scene). The climax is ridiculous as well, with Bond and Gobinda brawling atop a plane and Khan dying primarily because he doesn't know how to make an emergency landing.
The movie does have its strong points, though. The opening scene is fantastic, the auction scene and the scene where Bond meets Octopussy for the first time are strong and well-filmed, and the climax manages to be both funny and incredibly tense, as the inherent silliness of Bond in a clown suit manages not to damage the palpable fear of the atomic bomb being seconds from detonating.
1. Goldfinger
2. From Russia With Love
3. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
4. The Spy Who Loved Me
5. Dr. No
6. For Your Eyes Only
7. You Only Live Twice
8. Thunderball
9. Octopussy
10. Live and Let Die
11. Diamonds are Forever
12. The Man with the Golden Gun
13. Moonraker
I really loved that movie and i keep with my opinion on how well it has aged.
The film gets at its highest when Jamed gets to Crab Key and i wonder what made Dr No think he could turn James on his side?
After all he wanted to kill him before he got the island and just because he survived all his attempts to be killed now he was a candidate to be part of Spectre?
That man was really twisted and he is one of crippiest villains in the whole franchise .
We followed that up with the second half of CR. I basically explained to her that it can be viewed as two separate films in one film with the introduction of Vesper as the start part 2. We had watched the first half years ago, so I filled in the blanks for any questions she had about what happened in the first half and how it corresponds in the second. We'll probably do QOS here soon, it may give us something to do as we're probably gonna be hit with this tropical storm here in Florida. I wanna get her up to speed for Spectre, especially if it will connect the events from the previous Craig films. She's watched Skyfall with me a bunch of times so she should know what happens there.
True. QoS is the first and only direct sequel to date in the Bond canon. The darker side, if you will.
But then...it becomes even more blatantly clear how QOS is a failure on every count as a Bond movie.
Better to watch it as a stand-alone and pretend it's just any other action movie, then it is mindless, fast-paced fun where it doesn't matter that is has no story whatsoever, stupid villains and the second most stupid and unbelievably acting M ever in a Bond movie.
As I've gone back to college for Sophomore year, I'm trying to get a routine nailed down for keeping up with my 007 movie viewing- so far, I'm watching one every Sunday afternoon or evening following worship service. Whether that'll stick or not, I have no clue, but I hope it will! Having started this routine-to-be last Sunday, I chose Thunderball to kick things off.
TB has risen in my book over the years; it has a serious sense of adventure that many Bond movies unsuccessfully try their hardest to achieve. Some scenes like the infamous Vulcan hijacking take too long and unintentionally interrupt the flow of events, but for the most part, the plot stays consistently on track. Character-wise, TB lacks in its "small-time" characters. For instance, the casual fan could easily forget about Paula, Pinder, Count Lippe, Angelo, etc. Obviously these characters are only meant to achieve a limited objective on screen, but compared to, say, other small-time characters like those in LALD or OP. Still though, any drawbacks there are covered by Sean Connery's stellar performance as our hero- Largo, Fiona, the usual MI6 crew, and, to a degree, Domino and Felix help out as well (though the latter two come off as somewhat amateurish). TB is one of the better '60s Bond movies. Its ability to combine fantastic adventure with harder-edged spy work is a gifted balance not struck by any other Bond movie of its decade (except for, arguably, GF).
My take on this is quite different. Apart from some GREAT dialogue between Bond & Vesper and an excellent high stakes card game, QOS is a better Bond movie. It's a lightning strike whilst CR is an endless succession of action scenes capped with an overmelodramatic ending in Vesper's death. The look at each other with such feeling... regardless of the fact that you can't really SEE underwater in less than well-lit circumstances with your naked eyes.... puhleeez. I'd sooner buy the insanely low parachute opening in QOS. :))
Nah...Bond and Vesper were wearing special contacts that made them able to see each other. :))
But there will never be any sane explanation on how they survived that free fall in QOS let alone walked around like nothing happened two seconds later. 8-|
;)
IMO, QOS is the most entertaining Bond film of this millennium so far, followed by CR & DAD and then SF.
Here's hoping that SP tops it out!
I can agree with that exact statement: QOS is the most entertaining Bond film of this millennium.
Even though I am critical about it and have it at No 22 (only DAF is lower) in my ranking it still is my No 3 movie of 2008!
It just doesn't work for me as a Bond movie and therefore I can't rate it higher.
SF sure is last in the entertainment department. It's just depressing, no fun at all and has some of the most stupid plot developments ever.