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Comments
A lot of the model work is good though. The antenna blowing up at the end, the train crashing into the tank and Seveneya exploding. As for bad stunt work I must disagree. Natalya surrounded by exploding computers and terminals is brilliantly done. I agree that some of the doubling could have been concealed better in other scenes, but then again you can't then go on to praise AVTAK.
The GE PTS is a contender for worst in the series. Bond appears hanging upside down in a toilet and exits with the greatest action/'stunt' offence to the Bond legacy we've seen prior to DAD's kite-surfing shenanigans.
Have to say the Ferrari/Aston chase is hands down the worst car related sequence in the entire series, not least because of the abysmal Serra score and Brosnan's Terry Thomas-esque cravat - he might as well have gone the whole hog and grown the tooth pick moustache.
Bond reduced to the level of Sunday afternoon satire. Anybody could have done it better.
The film's a calamitous misstep from start to finish. Immeasurably worse than SP and AVTAK on every conceivable level. Like watching the team behind The Bold and the Beautiful takeover the series - except GE is less slick. Only Dalton could have perhaps redeemed it. Slightly.
From the stiff gunbarrel it got off to an underwhelming start. The bungee stunt was one of the best in the series, but the flying into the plane kinda sapped that goodwill. It was just too much.
For all the new era talk, so much is in familiar territory and sort of safe - Xenia is fun, but basically another take on Fiona and Fatima. More destructive space hardware as a threat. The tank sequence is like an outtake from The Blues Brothers and just a bunch of destruction.
The cast was good, but the writing or something was lacking. People love Zukovsky, who doesn't strike me as ever being a threat, more of a bumbler. And a previous Bond villain now a quirky ally. Jimbo, really?
The fight at the end was one of the best in years. But I left GE happy Bond was back, but not a lot more. My feeling toward the film has been consistent to this day.
The worst car sequence is either DAF (poorly edited and little more than police cars banging into each other) or AVTAK (unexcitung with an embarrassingly OTT Frenchman and poorly directed extras).
Give me the Aston/Ferrari chase any day over those two.
No, I'm afraid that award must go to the SP snoozefest that takes place on the empty streets of Rome. At least when Brosnan is exchanging complimentary (and reciprocated) glances at nearby drivers he's doing it to a babe like Famke, and not some thuggish bloke who looks like a wrestler. Brosnan's cravat may have been a deliberate throwback to the legendary Grant in Monaco in To Catch A Thief. I thought it was a nice touch and even if one takes issue with his sartorial choices it's surely a minor offense, at least in comparison to nighttime conversations about 'getting a life' with MP as she visits her fridge.
I believe most would disagree with you, which affords me some hope for the future of humanity.
Ugh. If you're bilingual, don't watched dubbed films! It's literally no different than if they used CGI to change Daniel Craig's face. You're not even really watching the movie....!
I live in German and am familiar with the dubbing done here, and while it's done here better than in many other places, it's all still quite terrible. The voice actors (who have no real involvement with the film) clearly just look at the character and go with the most blandly stereotypical voice they can come up with for it. I was especially appalled at Bane in The Dark Knight Rises. Tom Hardy did something unique with the character, and in the dub, well, it's a "big tough guy" voice....
Basically the same as the Las Vegas strip chase.
At least Bond performs a few maneuvers and last-second turns to take out the cops in pursuit. He literally does nothing but cooly inch through the desert as the cars and ATV-like vehicles fly around and crash on their own.
It's almost funny how shit it is. I actually think it sums up DAF quite well. There's so little attempt to make it even slightly energetic or intriguing and it's so brazenly half baked that you have to revel in the audacity of it all.
I have been reading up on Grace Jones and it seems she was quite the icon in the mid 80s with some real big singles in the charts like Slave To The Rhythm which further helped AVTAK to become very successful on the home media market.
She's also an icon of fashion and art even in that period of time with music promo videos that made "history" on the MTV channels and such.
The woman has fascinated me from the get-go when I first saw AVTAK in Spring 2017.
Now I'm delving deeply into her treasures ha ha....musically ;)
I wonder how any of you Europeans experienced 1985 in regard to AVTAK and Grace Jones. She is very prominent on some poster arts as well for the film.
Not sure how well known she was in the US. In the German language countries she was huge apparently, and in France a real superstar even.
I'm not sure Grace Jones ever charted any of her songs here in the U.S. She was more known as an actress in films like "Conan the Destroyer" and for popping up on scooter commercials on MTV, where she may have had some of her music videos played, but they didn't cross over to the mainstream. It was more of her personality and look than her music.
Duran Duran on the other hand did have a huge impact. I'd heard some of their fans actually went to AVTAK expecting them to be in it or just to hear their music.
He owns EVERY scene he is in.
True.
When Bond escapes the sunken Rolls Royce he is not back in it for about 15mins I think.,it's all focussed on Zorin.
Exactly...atm its all focussed on Bond and the villains are almost a side-show to him and the Scooby Gang.
It's getting boring tbh.
Every Bond film used to be different,thats why they are so watchable still,and always will be,the variety of each mission/film.
But lately its the same 'Bond focus' in every film....boring.
Very good observation. Imagine how much better SP could have been if we had used all that screen time dedicated to the Scooby gang to focus on Blofeld and his plot.
They always say they go into a Bond film trying to make another FRWL so why didn't they see that all that time devoted to the villains and they're scheme is what made FRWL a more intriguing film.
(And you note FRWL's Scooby gang get about 5 mins of screentime in total.)
It was a film I enjoyed a fair bit as a child and I always had a certain level of sentiment towards it due to it being in 1985 - the year I was born.
Now though there’s a “going through the motions” feeling towards it that is hard to escape and becomes even more apparent as time goes by. Truthfully a lot of it just feels a bit dull. At its worst film resorts to tired embarrassing slapstick that, as the likes of Birdleson have said, were dated in 1985.
I like the score, I like Walken hamming it up and I like Moore’s “reluctant hero” vibe in some scenes (rescuing Stacey from City Hall and leading Mayday in the mine at the end). But all in all Moore was certainly at this point a caracature a few steps above his character in Cannonball Run.
I don’t think AVTAK is underrated. Roger himself didn’t seem to like it much either.
People may hate MR but it holds up far better than AVTAK.
Agreed on giving the villains more screen time without Bond (or Team Scooby) in the frame. If they finally get back to it not being all about Bond and his internal demons and journey, perhaps that will happen again soon.
It does amaze me how rewatchable the older films are. I've seen each so many times, but they never get boring and in some ways I enjoy them more now than I did when younger.
EDIT: The last EON film which passes the rewatchability test for me (every viewing remains a treat) is GE.
Interestingly, GE also has a stretch early on when Bond is absent for some time (or at least it feels that way).
I never knew any of that,thanks matey !
Many of the common complaints I see about this movie don't irritate me. I have zero issue with Stacey: she's principled, learned, and can even outwit Bond if need be. Other things like the bumbling cop or stereotypical cop car derby are fine. Mayday and Bond sleeping together might be unnecessary to drive the plot forward, but it isn't 'wrong' in any sense of the word. And the scenes at the chateau are for the most part great - the banter/friendship between Moore and Macnee being one of the highlights. Then there's that wonderful confrontation with Zorin beside the Rolls-Royce. Great stuff.