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My personal most boring Bond is TWINE and most boring stretch is in AVTAK from when Bond arrives in San Francisco until roughly the fire. Coulda used more Walken.
Yes, absolutely. Individual scenes are lacklustre. If I had to choose one I found the least involving, I'd have to say either DAF or SP. But even then, they're not really boring.
More! More POW-AH!
I'm with you on SP. TWINE and AVTAK are dull too.
DAF no way. That film is a blast. Corny and silly camp at worst, bizarre Hammer Horror creepy at best, with some great one liners and sideline characters.
Great locations and one of Barry's best scores too.
I don't find TWINE dull at all, other than the submarine climax which is pretty poorly staged and has a very cartoony death for the villain. The rest, I quite enjoy. It has its flaws but I don't find it boring.
I can't say the same for DAF, I'm afraid. I'll certainly agree with you on the score (one of Barry's best), and a couple of the one liners are very witty for sure. But I don't find the characters all that good, the locations aren't great, Charles Gray's Blofeld is terrible, and the plot itself is pretty bland.
"Bizarre Hammer Horror creepy" is a fairly apt description of it, but it's not really something I particularly want in a Bond film. I'm not sure if I'm in a minority or a majority on DAF these days, people seem to be more complimentary of it lately!
The only thing I really dislike of DAF is the climax, because it literally is half-assed.
Funny thing with DAF, I've read reviews recently where critics are claiming DAF to be one of the most sadistic and violent too.
DAF is not a film I would normally associate with being violent, yet recently in the UK ITV have been showing all the Bond films, and the PTS is heavily censored. Connery strangling the woman with her bra is removed, as is the shots of him throwing the knives at one of Blofeld's men.
The elevator fight is often cut too, so this makes me wonder. Kidd & Wint are a fairly nasty duo, murdering a guy with a scorpion down the neck (originally in his mouth, which is even more nasty) the old lady gets killed in Amsterdam and then old Shady Tree in Las Vegas. After that Plenty tied to the bottom of a pool.
Is DAF actually a violent and sadistic film underneath the camp and silliness? After all, it was released at a heightened time of violent films like Clockwork Orange and Dirty Harry.
Yes, I'm starting to come along with this line of thinking too. DAF used to be hailed as the blueprint of the Moore era, and I suppose the closest to it is LALD, with its voodooism. Other than that, DAF remains very much a film isolated, on its own.
Its not really part of the Connery era, as it comes after Lazenby and the end of the 60's, and not really part of the Moore era either.
Connery himself doesn't really appear to be playing the same character that we saw in the 60's either. He visibly looks quite different, and acts different too. Even the Scottish brogue lazily starts to show through in much of his dialogue.
It could be. Add in things like the bolt to the Blofeld clone's forehead, tossing Plenty casually out a window (although she survives), Kidd set on fire and the slap to Tiffany. Sounds like a scholarly mission for somebody to write.
The thing is Wint and Kidd do most of those murders off-screen and the scorpion one is kind of exaggerated. Tynan's face is as bad as Brosnan pain face. The pair are so campy it takes the edge off.
Now that you mention it, SP is closest to being boring in my book. Of course you can, I was just stating my personal opinion :)
The locations are great you say? Hm, perhaps if you only like the collors brown and grey...? Honestly I think the film is by far the least good looking of all the Bonds. One thing is the generaly bad cinematography. The film actually looks significantly older and more dated than many of the films that came before it, especially compared to OHMSS which looks like it's in a different world entirely. They even made Amsterdam look quite dull and colorless! The other thing is the locations themselves. Deserts, deserts... only deserts... with the occational brown or grey steel or concrete building frown in. Jesus Christ! Las Vegas has to be the least interesting place in the world. A selection of grey and brown hotels in the middle of a desert? Yawn... sigh...
And then there are the so called wity lines. I think I can remember only two or three times I actually laughed. The rest either made me frown or wince. Thunderball gives this a schooling when it comes to clever dialogue! And the script has to be damn hilarious to justify a a story that makes no sense, is a dull, unengaging mess with no build up of tension at all and which seems to be just an excuse for silly ideas and pointless, tasteless gags.
Oof! Tom Makiewitcz and Guy Hamilton... I know you are not solely to blame, but newertheless I will never forgive you for this travesty. A Bond film I truly wish never existed...
I agree with some of the posts above. TWINE is categorically the dullest Bond film. Possibly one of the most boring films full stop.
First time I saw SP I almost fell asleep. However it grew on me a bit since then. I need to give it a rewatch.
I don't think any Bond films are bad, but I would agree that I find it one of the more boring entries too.
I'd say that even though Connery's films were the most iconic, and often some of the very best, there are larger stretches in those films in which not much very exciting happens than in future implementations.
Again - not that it is BAD...but there are some slow parts in all of the early movies.
For the most part I think he comes off more like he did in GF, which I attribute to Guy Hamilton's direction. For example you can see it in the way he interacts with the villains, Goldfinger and Gray's Blofeld, where he acts even more smarmy than he usually does with other villains, as if he personally enjoys bruising their egos.
About the chemistry or lack of it between Bond and Melina, I saw in Wikipedia that co-writer Richard Maibaum said "We tried to return to the earlier films with For Your Eyes Only but we didn't have Sean to make it real. And I was very disappointed with the way the love story was handled. The whole idea was that the great lover James Bond can't get to first base with this woman because she was so obsessed with avenging her parents' death. Nothing was ever done with it. It was as if the director didn't feel there was a love story there at all." After reading Ian Fleming's description of Judy Havelock, I think chemistry probably would've been better with a different Melina, but it's history now. On Maibaum's reference to Sean Connery, a moot point, while even better writing (or storyline) and direction might've helped, in my view RM does a great job with what he was given.
Only Laz, Dalts and Craigbo achieved that.
Thanks for this quote; not sure quite what he means there. The way he phrases it it sounds like a comedy pitch! Is that a very interesting idea?
It's basically what happens in Quantum of Solace really, but they don't make anything of them not getting off with each other in that film either because, well, what can you make out of nothing happening? If your only addition to it is that James is horny then you're rather reducing him, surely?
As others have said, I'm not sure what Sean would have added there either. It might've been nice if we'd had something a little more this tone rather than mugging away in NSNA, but there we go.
Actually, it's interesting how NSNA didn't go down this path, isn't it? FYEO was the most recent Bond film from their point of view but they went back for much more of a TSWLM or DAF vibe. They must've felt FYEO got it wrong I guess.
Agreed. As much as I like serious Bond films, I don't always rate serious Bond films higher than comedic ones.
It's the execution that matters. A well executed camp Bond is better than a mediocre execution serious Bond.
FYEO sits somewhere in the middle...
Most boring?... Spectre....