James Bond 24: Spectre

[eldaec]

This bears repeating.

Lazenby was not a bad Bond and OHMSS was a critical and financial success. It is certainly a far better film than the soulless and plotless wonders that followed Golden Eye. The problems the film has are same problems that the late Connery films, they can't quite decide if they are doing a proper thriller (From Russia with Love/Casino) or making a gloriously trashy comic book adaptation  (all Roger Moore or Pierce Brosnan films) and get caught in between.

Brosnan was the least good Bond, but there are no Bond films made bad by the lead actor.

 

[Mattemeo]

Don't get me wrong; OHMSS is a great Bond film. I just don't rate Lazenby as Bond, at all. OHMSS with Connery, or Craig, or Dalton? Absolute gold. Golden Eye is also the only worthwhile Brosnan Bond.

[HaemishM]

Brosnan was fine as Bond, it's just that every single one of the scripts SUCKED ASS. Even the best of them, the one with Michelle Yeoh was so goddamn forgettably bad that I've forgotten them. I only remember the worst parts, like motorcycle diving off a cliff to catch a plane, ice fortress and Halle Berry and Denise Richards being cast as a nuclear scientist named CHRISTMAS JONES.

[shiznitz]

Pierce was gypped. He got has been old bats for his Bond girls. Goldeneye rocked, though. It gave us Famke!

[Sir T]

I was watching one of the early Bonds (Thunderball) with my mom last month, and she, a woman in her 70s, looked at me and said "this film is kind of awful" and I said "yup." People have a bit of rozy tinted glasses when it comes to the Connery bonds but frankly only a couple of them stand out as any good.

People try to find reasons for the fact that Lazenby only got one Bond, but in fact the film company was really happy with him and wanted him to do more, he just flat out said no. Which was a pretty stupid reason for it but people do stupid things all the time.

[NowhereMan]

I never really felt Lazenby had great charisma or I guess charm. Which is something I think Dalton and Craig also lack. That doesn't mean I think they necessarily make bad Bonds but I think Connery gets massive points because he played a character who best trod the line between 'ruthless assassin' and 'playboy dilletante'. Basically I could believe Connery doing a crazy action man style entry into the bad guy's secret lair and I could believe when he nonchalantly shucks off the drysuit to reveal his DJ, adjust his cufflinks and saunters in. With Moore I buy the second part but the action man stuff never really worked for him, even though I think the Roger Moore movies are their own unique brand of for the most part.

Of course I may be in a wierd situation of thinking that not being my image of Bond doesn't make someone a bad Bond per se. I think Craig is great and I actually liked Brosnan's work (not the movies for the most part).

[Shannow]

Shit, I've met people who actually like 'License to Kill', I guess it takes all sorts. I enjoyed Living Daylights but I'm instantly suspicious of anyone who likes 'License to Kill'.

[Mattemeo]

License to Kill is an odd beast but I enjoy it a lot. It's the sort of Bond movie that should have come several movies later than it did so we could get more of a focus on Dalton's take on Bond and his motivations in LtK. But alas.
It's also definitely the blueprint for the Craig era in terms of its realistic depiction of violence. You could practically overlay 60s Batman POWS! BIFFS! WANGS! on the last of the Brosnan or Moore Bonds.
Either way, I like it, fuck you, pay me.

Also top 3 Bond theme material. Gladys Knight knocks it out the park.

[Trippy]

Shit, I've met people who actually like 'License to Kill', I guess it takes all sorts. I enjoyed Living Daylights but I'm instantly suspicious of anyone who likes 'License to Kill'.

I liked License Kill cause I thought the Bond portrayed in there was closer to the Bond in Fleming's books.

[HaemishM]

The Dalton Bond was much closer to the Fleming books than most of what had come before it. It's very similar to the take the Daniel Craig movies have on Bond, only it came right after the ridiculousness of the last Moore pictures as well as right after the "end" of the Cold War. Bond was without a contemporary villainous state to fight against and facing an audience that expected stupid shit like A View to a Kill.

[Shannow]

Mattemeo and Trippy I've got my eye on you! Sorry but the movie was so fucking crap, production value so bad I just cannot do it and I'm a huge fucking Bond apologist. (I even like large chunks of Quantum of Solace)  Ok but not Die Another Day...that was really bad.

[Tannhauser]

The Dalton Bond was much closer to the Fleming books than most of what had come before it. It's very similar to the take the Daniel Craig movies have on Bond, only it came right after the ridiculousness of the last Moore pictures as well as right after the "end" of the Cold War. Bond was without a contemporary villainous state to fight against and facing an audience that expected stupid shit like A View to a Kill.

View to a Kill was 'stupid shit'?  How dare you sir!  Bond runs around the Eiffel Tower, Duran Duran does the greatest Bond theme, Christopher Walken is the bad guy,  Bond makes an omlet?  Does none of this penetrate the malice so clearly present at the event horizon of your heart's black hole?

[HaemishM]

[Shannow]

You didn't even mention the best part!

Grace.
Jones.

[Mattemeo]

Fuck yeah, Grace Jones. 

[eldaec]

View to a Kill was... imperfect. But still better than all the Purvis and Wade Bonds except Casino Royale (assuming you walk out after the car crash).

[NowhereMan]

Live and Let Die is one of my favourite guilty pleasures.

 "You wouldn't kill me!... Not after what we've done..."
  "Well I certainly wouldn't have killed you before."

[NowhereMan]

So I watched this this evening. Fun film, definitely some flaws but I feel like it's the first time they've really pulled some of the plot threads together from the last few movies at all. I think the biggest weakness might be more from trying to do full Bond style movies with an overarching background plot and then realising them in another Bond movie. MU stuff works because they can pull all the big hitters together for an obviously awesome Avengers movie. Bond doesn't have that kind of option to suggest: Fuck year, it's on now! Probably one of the best Bonds of nu-Bond since Casino Royale. My gripes are mostly plot related, the action was really well shot (no gratuitous shaky-cam)

[Mattemeo]

Just watched it.

It's fun, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It relies on a whopping great mcguffin for you to swallow to make the plot thread together and having watched the previous 3 Craig Bonds this weekend, I have noticed the sharp increase in camp. We're not quite at Roger Moore levels yet but the references are coming in thick and fast.

Better than Quantum of Solace, not quite up to Skyfall, and lurking in the shadow of the brilliance that is Casino Royale.

[Sir T]

[Soln]

Shitpuffin! 

[Shannow]

This was not a good movie. Nonsensical plot, too long boring action scenes, dull dialogue. It was almost Quantum of Solace bad (and I love James Bond).

[Merusk]

This was not a good movie. Nonsensical plot, too long boring action scenes, dull dialogue. It was almost Quantum of Solace bad (and I love James Bond).

I agree. I checked the time four times and the first came 45 mins in. The movie was slow and nonsensical. Several action scenes I rolled my eyes at as the stunt would have fit better in Dalton or Moore Bonds. Bond makes several WTF decisions because Plot and obvious bad guy was obvious.

[Merusk]

Rolling Stone's review covers some of my other issues with this one pretty well.
http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/spectre-how-the-multiverse-era-killed-james-bond-20151109

Spoilers, of course.

[Velorath]

Only tangentially related, but I've been rewatching all the Bond films in order after picking up a blu-ray set. I saw View to a Kill on TV a few times as a kid (the Dalton movies were on a bit also, but I'd never really watched them all the way through), and I've seen everything for Goldeneye to Spectre in the theater. Also had seen all the Connery stuff, but I'd only ever seen the Roger Moore stuff aside from View to a Kill in bits and pieces whenever a Bond marathon would be on (usually around Thanksgiving for whatever reason).

Fuck, some of those Moore flicks are pretty rough. I mean, I knew that already, but really, rewatching them... racist Louisiana cop J.W. Pepper. Slide whistle sound effect during one of the best car stunts in film. Having sex with a woman, then immediately after pointing a gun at her head and mentioning that he knows she's working for the enemy. Somehow making a fake deck of Tarot cards so he can have sex with the white virgin girl who is essentially held captive by the black villains. Stuffing a midget in a suitcase. Tarzan sound effect while swinging from vines. Somehow Moonraker ended up being one of the more enjoyable movies for me to watch because at least I can appreciate Jaws hooking up with some big-titted blond chick. Anyway finally through that mess and the first Dalton movie as well (which has aged fairly well and feels closer to the current stuff than any of the other Bonds).

[HaemishM]

The Roger Moore stuff just went really really over the top. It's one of the reasons the stripped-down Dalton was such a shock to viewing audiences, as they were used to insane gadgets, slapstick stupidity and just general campiness. That can't be blamed on Roger Moore, he was just the star collecting the paycheck. As for the racist/misogynist shit, it was the 70's/80's.

[Trippy]

The Spy Who Loved Me was the first Bond movie I saw in theaters as a kid. It was also the best of the Moore Bonds and still holds up pretty well.

[shiznitz]

Roger Moore had the hottest hotties too. Bach as a Russian agent is just squeeeeee.........

[Selby]

The only Roger Moore one I really liked was For Your Eyes Only, but I can tolerate the rest in small doses. I will say that the main reason Sean Connery gets such high marks as Bond is because he did From Russia With Love (arguably one of the best in the series if not the best) and Goldfinger (where goofy comes out but it was new & well done).  The rest of the Sean Connery ones are pretty tough to watch too. I watched a bunch recently and my nostalgia was almost not enough to get through the it, although midgets in suitcases & the rest of the Moore Bonds were pretty hard to swallow now too to the point where I don't go out of my way to watch them.

[MediumHigh]

This really came and went. I saw this with 3 others movies, by far the better of a mediocre block of early December movies but still kinda forgettable. Villain is the mastermind of all things wrong in james life seems kind of cheap and ultimate universe levels of bad and wrong. Villain was the least important part of this film really. Its basically allergy for the mid life crisis James Bond should be having complete with the left field desire to just settle down, quite his whore-mongering, hard drinking and reckless ways for a nice a girl who may or may not be half his age and his dream car. Why? Because he's tired and old and can't do this anymore, though for all intent and purposes he can do this (assassin spy gigglo) for a very long time and probably retire to some beach in brazil when he's 80 (cause literally no one can kill him) but he has to choose to be normal cause its the third movie god damn it and he has to feel sorry for a life spent whore-mongering, hard drinking, and fast living.

 

[eldaec]

I finally watched this. The first 90 minutes anyway. Then I fell asleep.

It is bad. But admittedly less bad than recent Bonds because they spend less time pretending the plot makes sense.

My main wtf monent was the point when I realised I was supposed to recognise that henchman from QoS. Literally the only thing I remember from Question of Sport is Gemma Arterton's "comedy" name.