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@DarthDimi If that's a euphemism, I emphatically decline. If it's genuine, don't worry, I'm not an overopinionated teenage keyboard troll any more, so you do you!
The one where everyone drank too much and regretted everything they'd done the next day?
I'm kidding. DAD isn't my favourite Bond film by any means but it has its moments for me. I enjoyed it when I first watched it and I can enjoy it now despite its flaws. I don't even think it's the worst of the Brosnan era.
I came out the cinema buzzing the first time I saw it. I can see the problems with the film now, but it was a great ride on the big screen.
One thing that DAD has going for it, is it wasn't trying to be anything it wasn't. It was the kitchen sink Bond movie. They threw everything up there, in one great glorious mess, really.
I'd take Die Another Day over a couple of Craig Bonds any day.
Sort of. To be fair it begins with a quite cool premise that almost seems like something from the Craig era. Bond getting imprisoned in a torture camp, betrayed, having to go on his own etc. There's even some weighty stuff between Colonel Moon and his father in that film. It's not just a by the numbers Bond flick on paper.
It almost feels as if they began by wanting to make a much darker film but slowly defaulted to trying to make it 'lighter' and eventually got a sort of DAF spin off. I have no idea if that's what happened in practice, but I agree, it feels like a bit of a mess. But then again a mess of a Bond film is still interesting (and entertaining).
I think Brosnan's generally good in it (he certainly doesn't come across as a man who's spent a year in a torture prison, but he's quite confident in the role). Personally I'm not sure if I'd watch it over any of the Craig films myself, but I'm sure there are many who would.
Not the Craigs in my case, but certainly the likes of NSNA, TWINE and perhaps even TMWTGG and AVTAK.
DAD is consistent in its over-the-top, spytechno rubbish. It maintains a nice videogame vibe which makes it a messenger from the past, a Bond film that you may have to explain to future generations of fans before they jump in. They will need to understand 2002 before they can understand DAD. Despite all that, it's a Bond film flirting with parody, but a Bond film nevertheless. Some of its scenes I have a great fondness for, like the meeting with Q/R in the abandoned tube station. And the Cuba scenes aren't half bad. I even chuckle at the Fidel Castrato joke.
Yea!
Tonally, DAD is almost as much as mess as NTTD is. But at least DAD is likable, despite all its faults.
I still feel if NTTD had all the character names changed, it would just have been a middling non-Bond movie that would be forgotten a couple of years after release.
DAD just feels like it was so mismanaged, pulled in so many directions, with so many faults, that it will always be just a plain, old fashioned Bad Movie, Bond film or not.
Although to be fair to DAD, this discussion is about the ending, and it might be the one thing it did better than NTTD, and I actually prefer it.
Admittedly, that's like saying I would rather be in a car crash than a plane crash, but little victories...
Eh, the DAD ending IS a plane crash, quite literally, no? Twice. First the big CGI Antonov that ust keeps on going for the script even though it's been ripped apart already, and then the helicopter which' blades refuse to start rotating when it's dropped from a great hight. And then the cringe- keep it in. tbh, blowing Bond up doesn't seem like a bad idea after that. DAD has some things going for it, but the end is not one of them.
DAD is the best quotable film in the franchise though.
On topic, LALD has one of my favourite endings, with the train fight and Samedi returning for a laugh and a tip of the hat.
Oh yeah, I’d not thought about that. Bond is so worried about getting the engine started but he doesn’t need to: you can glide a helicopter in.
Yeah, Brosnan shines brighter when he makes Moore-style movies than when he tries to be more serious.
I have watched the Brosnan's recently, but my DAD viewing was the Icarus cut, so I had culled some of this from memory :D
They are still the bottom two films overall in the series for me though, so splitting hairs in my case over which was better!
Yo momma!
;)
Brosnan is very good and holds it all together. He doesn't revel in the puns too much. I find it more entertaining than TWINE. The gadget redesigns like the breather and laser watch are very cool.
Not about best endings, but I love the endings that show footage throughout the credits, like FRWL's Venice, TSWLM's naval destroyer, MR's shuttle in orbit etc. It adds extra value to the film, like an encore or victory lap.
I want that to return.
Well, sort of. I think his performance in GE is actually pretty great, and that’s effectively a ‘serious’ Bond movie. I think it’s just about what his comfort zone was as an actor and what they got him to do. I think in GE, TND and a lot of DAD there’s an understated ‘less is more’ quality to him even during certain scenes (ie. the hotel scene with Paris or the beach scene in GE. He’s not actually doing much as an actor in those scenes and it works). In TWINE for some reason his performance is dialled up and can be hammy (he looks as if he’s trying to burst into tears when watching Elektra’s video which even in context is silly, then there’s his OTT soap opera-style reaction to Renard’s ‘if you can’t feel alive’ line… and of course his ‘shouldaaar’). It happens in DAD too but much less (‘someone betrayed me and I’m going afftaar them’)
I think once he gets to Cuba he actually looks pretty confident and he hits his stride. Again, I suppose a nitpicky criticism is he really doesn’t seem like a Bond who’s been tortured for a year and is hell bent on figuring out what’s happened! It feels like he’s giving a performance that should be in another film, but that’s not his fault really considering the direction the film takes.
Last time I watched DAD, I........ eh...oh sorry, it's one Bond movie I never watch!! 🤪
Well, I don't like GE that much. I don't think Dalton could save the movie either. It's a boring and bland movie IMO.
TND is the type of movie that suits Brosnan best, IMO.
DAD is quite silly but it has the fun factor. It's not ashamed of itself like other Bond movies.
TWINE needed a better director, someone with more punch.
There i said it. The ending drops it to the lower teens.
To each their own. GE is one of my favourite Bond films. I’m a big fan of TND too.
DAD isn’t ashamed of itself, I agree. Confused as to what kind of Bond film it actually is, yes. But not ashamed.
I personally think there’s a great Bond film in TWINE, and I agree a different director would have helped a lot. Same for some of the casting (I like Robert Carlyle but he’s all wrong for the part of Renard).
Great point. I’d also argue that Denise Richards was another miscast, which is a shame considering the hassle she received from critics/audiences.
I disagree on Denise. Most of the critics say she's too pretty to be a scientist, which is obviously utter nonsense. The problem lies within the script. With a few tweaks she'd come over as beeing far more intelligent. Take the ride on the inspection vehicle with the bomb. Bond says' look at this', she reacts 'someone tampered with the bomb'. No shit sherlock! If Bond had said 'look at this, someone tampered with the bomb', all she'd have to say is something on the lines of s***t, and it would seem she'd be quite smart.
I don’t quite get the issue there. She looks smarter understanding it herself than if she had had to have been explicitly told by Bond, surely.
It’s a bit of a miscast, but not necessarily a major one. Jones has the benefit of being placed against Elektra in this film, the latter being a sort of rogue version of Tracy/someone Bond genuinely falls for. Jones on the other hand is her opposite - where Elektra is seductive and mysterious, Jones is more brash and to the point, and while she’s not a love of Bond’s life character she’s capable. So with that in mind she works as a character for me. Again, I think it’s Carlyle’s miscasting that sometimes ruins that film. Just completely the wrong character for him to play. I have an easier time believing Richards is a nuclear physicist than Carlyle is some charismatic anarchist terrorist like Renard.
The biggest issue I had with Denise Richards/Christmas Jones was just that the character fell a bit flat. If she was written out completely, the film wouldn't really miss her, and could have provided a bit more depth to Elektra being killed by Bond. Instead, he still got The Girl, because that was part of the formula. In fact, given the script she had to work with, I always kinda figured this was the case and she was hastily written in as an afterthought.