James Bond

[Gieferg]

What about predicting anything MI6 will do with him? If they changed one thing or didnt do one of stupid things they did, he'd be f***d.
He's taking risk so high, no one with his clear mind would take. But I suppose he's an idiot. Just as the writers of this mess. That explains everything.

The point of crashing the train

Empty. In a rush hour.

As for going to Skyfall, they were trying to draw him to a remote location so anymore bystanders wouldn't be hurt

And they could easily take more people and weapons with them. But hey, maybe M's succesor was happy to sent her for certain death to get rid of the problem?

but its pretty fairly regarded as one of the best in the series

As many other movies that I consider to be bad or idiotic are.
That doesn't mean anything to me.

 

[Darth Kermit]

And they could easily take more people and weapons with them. But hey, maybe M's succesor was happy to sent her for certain death to get rid of the problem?

I think there are three counterpoints to this. 1: Bond is cocky and believes in his own ability.
2: Bond is Bond, so he can take on more than you’d expect in any movie, so I don’t see how Skyfall is any different.
3: This is M’s fight, and since Bond is very close to M (and it’s his job), that makes it his fight as well. Bond doesn’t want anyone else to get involved. He even tells Kincade to leave, but Kincade refuses, and since he’s already there, there isn’t much he can do but accept his help.

 

[Gieferg]

I understand how Bond usually works, but the writers should make me believe that what he's doing is logical. They didn't. I just cant overlook flaws of the script here and it makes it impossible for me to enjoy a movie, especially when there is almost nothing to enjoy even if I'd be able to ignore script problems.

Also, notice that I just didn't like Bond at all, up until Casino Royale, which was first movie with him that I really enjoyed (because it was different) and wanted to rewatch regularly. Maybe that has something to do with the fact I just can't enjoy Skyfall. It may be too much like older movies in the series which I dont care about (I have not watch any pre-Craig Bond in its entirety for the last 20 years), and nothing like the ones I really enjoy (CR/QoS).

Hoping that NTTD will be better than both Skyfall and Spectre. Tickets booked for tomorrow.

PS. My favourite non-Craig Bond is... The Rock :>

 

[Darth Kermit]

To each his own.

 

[Gieferg]

Back from the theater.
Yes!
For a first sime since 2008 I can say I've fully enjoyed Bond movie. Not as good as CR, but blows both Mendes' trainwrecks out of the water.

I'd only say there's one too many female character (that Lynch lady), they've should have discard her completely and gave much more screen time to Armas (she was great in that limited screentime she got),

CR - 10/10
QoS/NTTD - 8/10
Skyfall/Spectre - 4/10

 

[Darth Kermit]

This is my ranking. A few went through changes while I went through the series. The only one that hasn't settled yet is NTTD. It could tie with Skyfall in the future, it could move down below Casino Royale. Only time will tell.

1. Skyfall
2. No Time to Die
3. Casino Royale (2006)
4. From Russia with Love
5. Goldfinger
6. The Living Daylights
7. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
8. GoldenEye
9. Licence to Kill
10. The Spy Who Loved Me
11. Spectre
12. For Your Eyes Only
13. You Only Live Twice
14. Dr. No
15. Quantum of Solace
16. Thunderball
17. The Man with the Golden Gun
18. Live and Let Die
19. Tomorrow Never Dies
20. The World Is Not Enough
21. Diamonds Are Forever
22. Moonraker
23. Octopussy
24. A View to a Kill
25. Casino Royale (1967)
26. Die Another Day
27. Never Say Never Again

 

[LastSurvivor]

Interesting list @Darth Kermit. I always find it hard to do a Bond ranking, as mine changes quite a bit.... here's mine right now though...

1. OHMSS
2. From Russia With Love
3. Licence To Kill
4. Casino Royale
5. No Time To Die
6. Goldeneye
7. Dr. No
8. The Spy Who Loved Me
9. The Living Daylights
10. Goldfinger
11. Thunderball
12. The Man With The Golden Gun
13. For Your Eyes Only
14. Quantum of Solace
15. Octopussy
16. Live and Let Die
17. Skyfall
18. You Only Live Twice
19. Moonraker
20. The World is Not Enough
21. A View to A Kill
22. Tomorrow Never Dies
23. Spectre
24. Die Another Day
25. Diamonds are Forever

 

[wilhelm scream]

Here's my rough ranking (ignroing Casino Royale 1967 and Never say Never Again) and some brief explnations.
1: Goldeneye (love pretty much everything about it except for some of the score)
2: The Spy Who Loved Me (same as Goldeneye, but the villain is really weak and Caroline Munro is underused)
3: Casino Royale (It's a bit too long, but it's really fucking good)
4: Skyfall (same as Casino Royale)
5: No Time to Die (Quite long, but a satisfying finale for Craig)
6: From Russia with Love (Really well done, let down via jump cuts)
7: Live and Let Die (really enjoyable)
8: The Man with the Golden Gun (could have been much better)
9: Octopussy (Really enjoyable)
10: Goldfinger (pretty enjoyable)
11: You Only Live Twice (Connery is clearly bored)
12: A View To a Kill (Moore is clearly too old, but it's awesome theme song and fun villain save it for me)
13: Tommmorrow Never Dies (It's enjoyable, even if the romance is weak)
14: The World is not Enough (Denise Richards is severly miscast and the villain has such a cool gimmick that's barley used)
15: The Living Daylights (It's OK)
16: Dr No (The titular villain is barley in it and it's so slow!)
17: Moonraker (really silly, but the Bond girl and villain are pretty good, even if they ruin Jaws)
18: Diamonds Are Forever (A really weak Blofeld, Connery is clearly bored and there are too many silly moments)
19: Spectre (Too long and that stupid brother twist)
20: For Your Eyes Only (don;t like the jazzy soundtrack, they made a huge mistake not using the Blondie theme and the villain is so boring)
21: Licence to Kill (M having no problem with Bond being killed is out-of-character and Talisa Soto's acting is terrible in my opinion)
22: Die Anouther Day (terrible CGI and some really baffaling elements).
23: Thunderball (a pointless 25-minute trip to a spa, too long and terrible editing)
24: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (Too long, Diana Rigg is underused and Geroge is really not terrible in my opinion)
25: Quantum of Solace (terrible camerawork)

 

[Hymie]

Saw No Time to Die last night and had a tremendous time. It wasn't the perfect Bond movie, but it was a hell of an experience. The fact it was a quasi remake of two or three of my favorite stories definitely helped the enjoyment factor. I really appreciated how much they let Craig talk in this one, as he'd been so silent in so many of the films. In this one he's downright chatty at times and the film is much better for it. I wish we could have gotten more films with him, but having three great films and 2 just ok films is a pretty good legacy to leave behind. Interesting to see where they'll go with Bond in the next film, as I expect a more Marvel approach will probably be desired after the tough and gritty era.

My rankings (not including NTTD yet, will see again next week and probably chart it then but most likely Top 10).

1. Casino Royale
2. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
3. GoldenEye
4. From Russia With Love
5. The Spy Who Loved Me
6. Skyfall
7. The Living Daylights
8. Goldfinger
9. Live and Let Die
10. Licence to Kill
11. For Your Eyes Only
12. Dr. No
13. The World is Not Enough
14. Octopussy
15. Tomorrow Never Dies
16. You Only Live Twice
17. Thunderball
18. SPECTRE
19. Quantum of Solace
20. A View to a Kill
21. Moonraker
22. The Man with the Golden Gun
23. Die Another Day
24. Diamonds Are Forever

 

[MovieFreakedMind]

Saw No Time to Die opening day and was impressed, aside from a couple disappointing plot developments. My ranking for now:

1. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
2. Goldeneye
3. Licence to Kill
4. Goldfinger
5. Skyfall
6. Octopussy
7. From Russia with Love
8. The World Is Not Enough
9. The Spy Who Loved Me
10. Moonraker
11. The Living Daylights
12. Live and Let Die
13. Casino Royale
14. No Time to Die
15. For Your Eyes Only
16. You Only Live Twice
17. Dr. No
18. Tomorrow Never Dies
19. Thunderball
20. Diamonds Are Forever
21. The Man with the Golden Gun
22. A View to a Kill
23. Die Another Day
24. Never Say Never Again
25. Casino Royale (60s version)
26. Quantum of Solace

 

[Moe_Syzlak]

It’s so interesting to see such varied rankings. I may take a stab at a top 10 after seems my NTtD, but there’s simply too many movies for me even begin any legitimate overall ranking. I think I could rank the actors though.

1. Connery
2. Craig
3. Brosnan
4. Dalton
5. Lazenby
6. Moore

I don’t think Moore is a bad Bond but I mostly dislike his era of Bond films. But I also find most of the Brosnan movies pretty bad. But at least he wasn’t bad in them.

 

[TM2YC]

Out of all the 25/26 Bond movies, Connery is the only actor who ever phoned it in (on Diamonds are Forever) in my opinion. All the other actors gave their all in every film, even if it was in service of a cr*p script . He should be precluded from the top spot for that reason alone. Although in fairness, I have no doubt that Lazonby would have phoned it in from Alpha Centauri if he'd been given more films.

It's difficult to know how to approach ranking the actors but from a "which actor's era would I happily sit down and rewatch from beginning to end?" it would be:

1. Dalton
2. Moore
3. Connery
4. Lazonby
5. Craig
6. Brosnan

Dalton has a high success rate. I love the camp fun of the Moore era, they might be flawed but I could watch any one and be smiling by the end. Connery's first 5 are classics, I'd suffer the other two for those ones. Lazonby's is average. Craig's era wasn't what I wanted from Bond but they are solid action adventure films. I love Brosnan's first two but I don't think I ever want to sit through his last two ever again.

If it's who "got" the character the best (my idea of him anyway) it would be:

1. Dalton
2. Connery
3. Brosnan
4. Craig
5. Moore
6. Lazonby

If it's overall best serious acting performance:

1. Craig
2. Dalton
3. Brosnan
4. Lazonby
5. Connery
6. Moore

 

[Moe_Syzlak]

Lol. Detailed, for sure. If I may presume to simplify based only on my ranking va yours: I guess it’s really how you perceive (or tolerate) a Bond performance, on a spectrum from total camp totally serious/straight. My sweet spot is is just shirt of totally straight. I have zero tolerance for full on campy Bond. That should be left to Austin Powers.

 

[asterixsmeagol]

Well, I really tripped at the finish line. I had to go out of town and was unable to finish on schedule. I ended up watching the last two movies on a plane, and I'll have to wait to watch No Time to Die sometime this week.

Skyfall (2012)
While I do like this movie more than QOS, it didn't grab me the same way that it did in theaters. But maybe that's because I was watching it on a tablet in far from ideal conditions. The opening credits and theme song are both fantastic, but I found the rest of the movie a little slow this time around until we finally meet Rodriguez midway through. I love the unhinged glee he shows, even as MI6 agents descend in helicopters to apprehend him. One little change I would have preferred would have been if he had said he was M's favorite from '87 to '95 to "fill in the gap" between Dalton and Brosnan instead of '86 to '97.

Spectre (2015)
I had basically the reverse reaction to Spectre. I don't much like the opening credits, I really dislike the theme song, and I found it pretty entertaining up front, but as soon as we meet the bad guy I started getting bored (the first scene with him was fine, I started getting bored when we meet him for real during the Blofeld-brother reveal). Also the C reveal as part of Blofeld's crew was amazingly obvious, but maybe it was supposed to be? I wasn't really impressed with the compound out in the desert; it felt too much like the [Quantum headquarters we just saw recently.This was also the only movie where I really noticed the grading, especially the yellow color in Mexico City. Having just watched the previous three films, I recognized the people in the credits and the little lines about them dropped throughout the movie before their pictures appeared in Blofeld's maze at the end, but my wife hasn't seen any of these movies since they came out, and I'm not sure she even saw QOS at all, so she had no idea who any of those faces were or what they had to do with anything. Dave Bautista was a great henchman, but I would have preferred it if he had remained a silent threat to the end instead of saying "shit" as he got pulled out of the train. To end on a more positive note, I did really like the soundtrack. They did an excellent job calling back some older scenes (and they did this in Skyfall as well).

 

[Moe_Syzlak]

Tried to avoid story spoilers...

No Time to Die (2021)
First off, I'd really recommend re-watching 'Spectre' (even though it's not very good) before watching 'No Time to Die'. You'll get more out of it as it heavily ties into the previous film and recreates past events we only heard about before. I've never been a big fan of the Daniel Craig era's decision to make these films a continuos narrative (rather than stand alone adventures) but if you are into all that, I'm sure you'll feel this has wrapped it up in style, with emotional impact. The action, especially the car chases are directed with real flair and excitement. My highlight was when Bond whipped the covers off his black Aston Martin V8 Vantage (my favourite Bond car, from my favourite Bond film 'The Living Daylights'). The plotting is quite complicated, so I admit I might have missed some bits of exposition but a couple of points didn't seem to add up:

Reveal message

Safin is pictured in the flashback with a weird face (hidden behind a kabuki mask) and appears to be hobbling on prosthetic legs, then magically comes back to life as if he's immortal. Years later when we see him again, none of that seems to still be true?? Safin keeps mentioning his father but that goes nowhere either. A big deal is made of the "Delectados" cigars (a call back to 'Die Another Day') that Bond gets for Felix (there are a few close-ups drawing your attention to their importance) but they don't appear again. I felt sure one of the last scenes would be Bond lighting it up but no. I wondered if they weren't allowed to feature smoking to get a 12A now, just as they seemed unable to show blood, despite many scenes having needed to show a lot of it and looking a little ridiculous as a consequence. Perhaps as the longest Bond film already, they had to cut some stuff and it's absence has left some holes?

Having just re-watched 'Spectre', one of the (few) best things about it was Ralph Fiennes' steely 'M' but he looks a bit bored here. Hans Zimmer's score does the job but nothing more, the most memorable moments in the score are when he does a full reprise of John Barry's music. New cast members Lashana Lynch and Rami Malek are top notch but the best was Ana de Armas. I'd happily watch a spin off movie about her bubbly, kickass CIA agent. This is a satisfying conclusion to a 15-year journey but next time can we just have some some outlandish fun, some mad gadgets, some sexy romance and not get bogged down in contemplating death all the time.

I saw NTTD last night and was going to write a review but this pretty much sums it up. I definitely felt I missed some things. My hearing isn’t great so I didn’t hear all the dialogue clearly. I’m looking forward to watching it at home where I can utilize subtitles. Suffice to say, I really liked this movie. It wasn’t perfect, but it had the right mix of traditional Bond elements combined with the more straight take Craig era Bond. Casino Royale is still my favorite of the Craig era but this one is a close second.

 

[Hymie]

This film really does a good job of bringing the Craig era to an end and giving a satisfying conclusion. There are parts that are very real and authentic, while there's also times where Bond is dropping a one liner right out of the Roger Moore era. It feels like a good merging of the two eras, and even if you don't enjoy the ending, I think it'll be better once people have had a chance to digest it and move onto a new actor in the role.

 

[Wraith]

This film really does a good job of bringing the Craig era to an end and giving a satisfying conclusion. There are parts that are very real and authentic, while there's also times where Bond is dropping a one liner right out of the Roger Moore era. It feels like a good merging of the two eras, and even if you don't enjoy the ending, I think it'll be better once people have had a chance to digest it and move onto a new actor in the role.

I could not agree more having literally just seen it.

NO SPOILERS, but need a tiny vent...

I have to say, 2h 45 min flew by, and yet, though I acknowledge it's a great send off for Craig, I feel weighed down by the oppressiveness of the cultural box ticking going on. The plot is great, the performance and writing top notch...but it is for me ultimately, a good action movie with a BOND 007 branding...

The magic of Bond, spycraft and the excitement is gone for me...and so be it. Don't get me wrong...it is a good movie, but Craig's era should have ended with Skyfall.

I hope that whatever Wilson and Broccoli do next, brings back some magic, swagger and mischief. Fan service scoring and cars DO NOT A BOND MOVIE MAKE IMHO...and yet I would urge everyone to see it.

This will improve as the next era move in, and frankly it is a very decent movie. I won't nitpick the digital shortcomings (there ya go)...and I have already ordered the CD for the fanedit mashup to come...Enjoy and share your spoilerless views...

PHEW!

 

[Gieferg]

but Craig's era should have ended with Skyfall.

Ending series on such a dumb mess of a movie wouldn't be very satisfying. At least for me.
Now I am at least happy that Craig got three good movies out of five (CR, QoS, NTTD) and that his story has a beginning and an end. They can do whatever they want with this series now, Craig is my Bond, the only one I've ever cared about - it may stay that way and I'm not waiting for another one.

 

[asterixsmeagol]

No Time to Die (2021)
I actually saw this last weekend and just never got around to writing my thoughts. Overall, it was fine but I don't know that I can say I actually enjoyed watching it, mainly due to the excessive length. While both prologue scenes were interesting, they both could have used some trimming, especially given the bloated overall run time. And while I really like the theme song, the accompanying visuals were nothing special. The acting was all quite good (especially Léa Seydoux), but they really didn't have that much to work with. For me, the biggest issue wasn't the decision to kill off Bond or the ludicrous nanobot technology, but the bad backstory for Safin. First of all, his age doesn't line up with Madeline Swann's (she's only 4 years younger than him, and he's clearly an adult in the opening scene). Secondly, while I appreciate the part of his motivation to kill all of the leaders of SPECTRE because of their role in the death of his family, his larger plan to kill huge swathes of the global population came out of nowhere. And his kidnapping of Swann (and her daughter) make no sense, especially since he doesn't really seem to mind when Mathilde leaves him and Madeline is rescued. I also don't really know why there was such a rush for the Royal Navy to launch their missiles to destroy the plant, which was not actively preparing to distribute their nanotech. In any case, following the missiles killing Bond, I did really like the final scene in M's office in the aftermath.

 

[TM2YC]

No Time to Die (2021)

Reveal message

the ludicrous nanobot technology,

Reveal message

You mean like "I've invented a nano virus to target specific people but I've reprogrammed it to kill everyone! (Evil laugh)"... er, so just a regular virus then? Seems that was a bit of a waste of the R&D budget Safin.