No Time To Die (Bond 25)

[Shit Good Nose]

I like the way Dalton delivers the Bond one-liners. All the other actors relish it, camp it up a little or a lot, but Dalton delivers them through gritted teeth.

I'm no Bond fan at all - never have been (I like Live and Let Die, Goldfinger and the Craig Casino Royale and that's about it) - but I did complete a chronological rewatch of all the Connery-to-Brosnan films recently as I'd not seen most of them for a VERY long time, and noticed that ITV4 were showing them all.  One of the main things that struck me was that Dalton was obviously VERY uncomfortable with the shitty one-liners, and I don't think that was an intended part of the character.

More generally, I did find that a lot of the Connery Bonds blended into one - describe almost any scene from a Connery Bond that isn't Goldfinger and I'd probably struggle to place which one it's in.  But describe a scene from a Moore Bond and I'd know exactly which one it was in.  Which is a long way of saying that, for me personally, the Moore Bonds are more memorable.  I also found fan favourite From Russia With Love REALLY hard going.  Brosnan Bonds can fuck right off - downright embarrassing.

[Thomas]

Nothing draws me to the Conneries any more. I'm sure it was very exciting in the '60s to see a man visit sunny locations, eat posh food, and smack women with silly names, but it's lost its sheen. The treatment of the early Bond girls is downright embarrassing to watch now. That's not solely a 'woke' statement (though it is all greasily misogynistic) - it's just terribly lame and boorish.[nb]For comparison, The Spy Who Came In from the Cold is a Connery-contemporaneous spy thriller that delves into fictionalised espionage brilliantly, with depth and thought.[/nb] But then the original character is canonically a rapist.

Even 2012's Skyfall discards of its glamorous sex trade victim within about five minutes of introducing and undressing her. Her body still droops in the background as the triumphant main theme strikes up. Makes me cringe if I'm watching it with someone who hasn't seen it before. Vesper and Camille successfully had some plot and motivation of their own. It's a shame Monica Bellucci was cast for ten minutes purely so that Bond could make headlines by sleeping with a woman of his own age. Really hope he doesn't cop off with Ana de Armas in the new one.

My feelings lighten as they consciously lean into the silliness with Moore, and by the time we get to Dalton I enjoy what they're doing with the character and the late-Cold War setting. I'd happily rewatch the last few Brosnans for ironic enjoyment.

[lipsink]

Yeah, I saw it aged 8 in the cinema and wasn't prepared for how violent and sadistic a lot of it was.

I still don't think Dalton was as great as most people say. He's great at the intensity but I honestly don't think his Bond would even be interesting in shagging. Lines like at the start of Living Daylights where he says: "Better make that 2" just seem awkward coming from him. Craig at least as the intensity but also the libido.

[Neomod]

For comparison, The Spy Who Came In from the Cold is a Connery-contemporaneous spy thriller that delves into fictionalised espionage brilliantly, with depth and thought.

As does 1965's The Ipcress File

[greenman]

I tend to think the reverse with Dalton, he actually seemed very comfortable with the character in Living Daylights and managed to pull off the one liners whilst still keeping some sense of danger. Its Licence to Kill which I think has dated pretty badly, like a low rent Michael Mann ripoff without the visuals to make it interesting.

Watched Spectre again for the first time in awhile and I'm still a little mystified as to how it doesn't manage to end of as a much better film, Waltz is a little over the top at points and some of the attempt at Moore humour don't really work but the majority of it is very well done in the service of a very confused script. The section from Mr White until the arrive at Blofelds desert hideout is some of the best modern Bond IMHO.

[samadriel]

I think Spectre is better than its reputation suggests, it's just the end with all the ticking clock stuff that's crap.

edit:  Oh, and the retconning everything to be Blofeldt's fault.  That sucks, but it doesn't ruin the whole movie.

[machotrouts]

edit:  Oh, and the retconning everything to be Blofeldt's fault.  That sucks, but it doesn't ruin the whole movie.

That's right. It ruins four whole movies

[Chollis]

Brosnan Bonds can fuck right off - downright embarrassing.

Not even GoldenEye? COME ON

[shagatha crustie]

As someone who watched Bond films A LOT as a kid - something that, in the unlikely event I have a kid, i will be forbidding them to do - I actually think Goldeneye holds up best of all of them. Doesnt feel overlong, rarely silly, and i love the bleak 90s-tech Soviet aesthetic. All the other Brosnans are crap without exception.

Dalton just wasn't sexy. He never looked like Bond to me. More like a sort of grumpy dad figure.

[greenman]

I think Spectre is better than its reputation suggests, it's just the end with all the ticking clock stuff that's crap.

edit:  Oh, and the retconning everything to be Blofeldt's fault.  That sucks, but it doesn't ruin the whole movie.

I would say moreso than that it doesn't really sell the drama about Blofeld and Bond being adoptive brothers, it does a much better job with Mr White and Swann despite the two never meeting. Arguably just biting off more than it could chew I spose with trying to graft Blodfeld onto an existing plot as he became an option, would probably have been better off leaving him a bit more in the shadows for a sequel.

[idunnosomename]

When will he ever find the time to die?

[Shit Good Nose]

Not even GoldenEye? COME ON

Not for me.  Granted it's the best of the Brosnans, which isn't saying much, and the opening sequence is right up there, but after that I completely lose interest.  But, like I said, I'm not a fan in general anyway.

[greenman]

It felt like Goldeneye was playing on Brosnan being such an obvious merger of the previous Bonds in pointing out his outdated nature when the sequels just went with that straight as the main appeal.

[Captain Z]

Is Goldeneye the one where he freefalls off a cliff and CATCHES UP WITH A PLANE, gets inside and pilots it to safety, in a time that would make the cliff face about 10km high?

I also got annoyed in SPECTRE when he takes out Blofeld's entire desert base with a couple of bullets towards the end. Makes me think of the Family Guy Death Star bit.

[Shit Good Nose]

Is Goldeneye the one where he freefalls off a cliff and CATCHES UP WITH A PLANE, gets inside and pilots it to safety, in a time that would make the cliff face about 10km high?

I also got annoyed in SPECTRE when he takes out Blofeld's entire desert base with a couple of bullets towards the end. Makes me think of the Family Guy Death Star bit.

They did have to do some fakery in the James Bond documentary films.

[El Unicornio, mang]

Bond films by imdb rating

https://www.imdb.com/list/ls078535153/

I agree with first and last, although I'm not overly keen on Skyfall or Goldfinger.

[bgmnts]

Spectre high up the list oof.


Goldeneye is my favourite Bond film anyway so I can't really comment on this. Famke Janssen will always have a special place in my heart.

[El Unicornio, mang]

BECAUSE IT'S GREAT

[Shit Good Nose]

All of the "generally considered as shit" Bonds' stock has increased massively in recent years, presumably because in even the objectively worst ones there's still all the real location shooting and amazing stunts - take Octopussy, for example, which is going to be absolutely no one's favourite, but fuck me that sequence with the little jet plane is fucking mental.  Absolutely jaw dropping. 

[Captain Z]

I just can't suspend my disbelief when it comes to the Brosnan Bonds, they overdosed on CGI and pushed everything way too far. Most of the other big Bond action sequences are at least grounded within the realms of physics, I suppose because many of them had to be performed for real.

[bgmnts]

Bosnian Bonds

Yakov Bondic.

[Uncle TechTip]

I just watched a scene on Living Daylights where a man was smuggled out in a capsule running along a pipeline, which managed to complete a full 90 degree turn at high speed.

[idunnosomename]

I'll have said that the tilted-forward helicopter hovering in place in Tommorrow Never Dies makes me very cross.

If you have vehicles behaving in ways they simply don't behave, you might as well just have everyone flying about like it's Dragonball Z. It's also just incredibly distracting for anyone who has the slightest idea how a helicopter works

[Captain Z]

Not to mention the helicopter that starts and begins flying just inches from the ground after falling out the back of a plane.

[Alberon]

Been watching the Connery bonds in sequence, also because itv has been repeating them.

You Only Live Twice seems to be slightly a different beast to the other Connery films, more cinematic in some ways. Of course, it was escapist nonsense even back in the 60s but that film is nearly impossible to watch without thinking of Dr Evil and the myriad of other parodies.

I'm halfway through On Her Majesty's Secret Service and the perv has just wandered out of a lawyer's office (after craning a photocopier in through the window to copy some documents) admiring a centrefold from a Playboy.

[Thomas]

I also got annoyed in SPECTRE when he takes out Blofeld's entire desert base with a couple of bullets towards the end. Makes me think of the Family Guy Death Star bit.

After the relative brutal realism of Casino Royale and Quantum, it's a shame that Bond recovers from a drillbit to his skull in a matter of seconds and easily pops off a few generic baddies in a dull A-to-B escape sequence. The final act of Spectre does feel like a thin rushjob. Casino Royale went a bit experimental with its camerawork when Bond suffered his poisoning, they could've at least aped that.

[Butchers Blind]

The best bit in Casino Royale is when Bond gets his balls smashed. Funny.

[Kelvin]

When a Bond film features a car chase where Bond gets stuck behind a slow driver, you know you're in trouble.

[greenman]

That happens at the start of For Your Eyes Only as well doesn't it? Bond gets stuck behind some stereotypical Frenchmen.

[Dr Rock]

I think they've been retconned as Bond's naughty cousins.