Reviewing all James Bond 007 movies (140 characters or less)

[llsaidknockyouout]

Dr. No - 9/10
Strong introduction. Terrifying villain. Minimalist direction accenturates. Connery's perfect in the role, sexy, interesting, dangerous.

From Russia With Love - 7/10
Found the first 40 minutes to be dreadfully slow, but it's a good serious story with a wonderful third act, train fight and all.

Goldfinger - 10/10
Was a landmark that started the funny henchman, grandiose villain, sexy women. It was a well told story, good plot and good fantasy too.

Thunderball - 7/10
Has SPECTRE, gadgets and plenty of classic Bond moments. Unfortunately hindered by an extra 20-30 minutes of needless underwater filler.

You Only Live Twice - 8/10
This Bond film has the best scenery between urban and rural Japan and a volcano lair. It's epic fantasy but suspenseful too.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service - 8/10
A different kind of Bond movie, closer to Fleming. Fights, ski chases, amazing score. Lazenby did a good job.

Diamonds Are Forever - 4/10
Ruined the trilogy's story with too much inanity. Derivative of older films (nothing new). Connery gave a lazy performance.

Live and Let Die - 8/10
This is a strange, creepy, bizarre Bond and Moore was the perfect actor for a funny Bond. Also, great villains.

The Man with the Golden Gun - 5/10
Conflicted in tone and identity. Second act was entirely filler. Lee gives a memorable performance though.

The Spy Who Loved Me - 7/10
It's standard Bond formula, but with a big budget and done well. This showcased Moore's acting very well.

Moonraker - 5/10
The space station was ambitious. The 90 minutes before it was a formulaic slog. Plot is very thin.

For Your Eyes Only - 6/10
Moore plays a good serious Bond. The movie was average. Stripped of Moonraker's stupidity, but didn't innovate a lot either.

Octopussy - 9/10
This is everything I want in a funny Bond movie. Creative action scenes, color, personality, humor and genuinely tense moments.

A View to a Kill - 5/10
Walken as a psychopathic villain. I like the self-parodying camp but movie sorely lacks in energy and innovation.

The Living Daylights - 8/10
Dalton re-energizes Bond as a young, ruthless killer with a heart, and some respect for women too. Plot is complex.

License to Kill - 9/10
Really dark and gritty, emotional, perfect for Dalton. Franz Sanchez is a terrifying villain. Q also gets a sizable role.

Goldeneye - 7/10
Bond formula, really predictable, but done well. Great cast all around. Was a strong debut for suave Brosnan.

Tomorrow Never Dies - 6/10
Really good action scenes. Thin plot. More of a generic action film than a spy film.

The World Is Not Enough - 6/10
Really great idea for a plot and villains. Directing was mediocre though.

Die Another Day - 5/10
Entertaining flashy over-the-top action. Predictable plot. Too much CGI. Messy all around.

Casino Royale - 10/10
The revolution that the series needed. Emotional, story-driven, flawlessly directed. True to Fleming, but modernized too.

Quantum of Solace - 8/10
Underrated. I like the fast face, frantic action, beautiful shots, artistic touches, and the believable story.

Skyfall - 8/10
Robust, grandiose. Has fantasy elements but with Craig's psychologically disturbed Bond. Batman-like.

Spectre - 6/10
Competent action and directing. Nostalgic. Some uniqueness within formula. Terrible writing.

 

[Hawki]

Damn man, slow down with these threads.

Anyway, I'll do a ranking, but rather than doing it out of 10, I'll rank them by worst to best. Also note that I haven't seen every single James Bond film, and a lot of them are blurry in my mind. So, on that note:

15) Diamonds Are Forever

Lacklustre, boring, forgettable. Connery was beginning to show his age.

14) Quantum of Solace

A mess. It's a weird mix of being a sequel to Casino Royale, and trying to be its own thing.

13) Die Another Day

Height of camp that broke the camp ceiling. Messy, silly, stupid.

12) Doctor No

Barely remember anything about it. Feels like "proto-Bond," given it was the first installment.

11) Moonraker

Haven't seen all of it. So-so. Nothing special.

10) The Living Daylights

Decent. Not the best Dalton film, but I like the 'feeling' of the film.

9) Tomorrow Never Dies

A bit silly with its premise, marred by lack of chemistry with Wei Lin. Not too special, but not too bad.

8) The Man with the Golden Gun

Quite decent. Bond vs. Scaramanga is a nice premise. Some humour, but not too much.

7) The World is Not Enough

Underrated, IMO. Very good villain, quite rational plot, pretty good overall.

6) Spectre

A nice mix of modern and old Bond - the villain has a lair, but it's based on information retrieval. Riddled with plot-holes and contrivances though.

5) Licence to Kill

A very dark Bond film, and all the stronger for it. Quite good.

4) Goldfinger

Perhaps the quintissential Bond film prior to Craig. The gadgets, the villain, Connery's acting. Holds up very well.

3) GoldenEye

First Bond film I saw, favorite Bronsan film. Great villain with Travalyan, great action, good plot, good Bond girl. N64 game also helped.

2) Skyfall

Take all the strengths of GoldenEye, insert Craig and realism, and you get a raw, emotional poignant film.

1) Casino Royale

Amazing. New Bond, new series, new feel. And it all somehow works. It made a poker game tense. A POKER GAME!

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

Huh. Surprised you both found Diamonds Are Forever to be the weakest. I found it to be the weakest Connery Bond movie, but my least liked overall is A View To A Kill.

Still, pretty good reviews. Makes me feel like crap for going so in depth into them when you were able to sum up that well.

 

[ThereIsNoSanta]

Do you have a twitter? You should post these on Twitter. Pretty clever format.

 

[gorfias]

13) Die Another Day

Height of camp that broke the camp ceiling. Messy, silly, stupid.

7) The World is Not Enough

Underrated, IMO. Very good villain, quite rational plot, pretty good overall.

Interesting points by you:
I loved Die Another Day. Terrific swan song. It was flashy and over the top but I didn't find it campy in the least. Do I buy a guy would leave diamonds embedded in his face? No but it looked cool!

The World is Not Enough was really good though. Came out of nowhere for me. Relatively down to earth and first time I ever saw Sophie Marceau. As one critic put it, they made the wrong woman the film's "Bond girl".

 

[Hawki]

13) Die Another Day

Height of camp that broke the camp ceiling. Messy, silly, stupid.

7) The World is Not Enough

Underrated, IMO. Very good villain, quite rational plot, pretty good overall.

Interesting points by you:
I loved Die Another Day. Terrific swan song. It was flashy and over the top but I didn't find it campy in the least. Do I buy a guy would leave diamonds embedded in his face? No but it looked cool!

The World is Not Enough was really good though. Came out of nowhere for me. Relatively down to earth and first time I ever saw Sophie Marceau. As one critic put it, they made the wrong woman the film's "Bond girl".

My dislike of Die Another Day is probably down to prejudice in a lot of areas - it's actually the second highest Bronsan Bond in terms of its RT critic rating. You're probably right, in that "campy" isn't the word, but while Bond has often stretched credulity, Die Another Day went too far for me, and bounced off other films to do it.

Laser scene in Goldfinger? Lasers everywhere in DoD. EMP satellite in GoldenEye? Laser satellite in DoD. Threat of nuclear war between the West and Eastern blocs in the Connery era (e.g. You Only Live Twice)? North Korea outright plans to invade South Korea (true, they don't invade because Icarus is destroyed, but I can't help but wonder what happened AFTER that in terms of international relations). Bond going rogue in Licence to Kill? Bond does it here, but only for a fraction of the movie. Bond cars with gadgets since Goldfinger? Bond car that turns invisible (granted, I like the film's car battle). Oh, and gene therapy. Yeah...

Even in the midst of all this, I don't find DoD that compelling. I don't find the villains that interesting, I find M to be "off" in regards to how she greets Bond (this being the same M who ended her briefing with "come back alive" in GoldenEye and opened up to Bond how guilty she felt about Elektra in TWINE), I didn't find Jinx that compelling of a character, and the plot seemed to plod along, and felt divided between part 1 (everything up to after the Cuba shootout) and part 2 (return to MI6, gets briefing, etc.). At the end of the day, Die Another Day feels like a film that's driven more by gadgets than by plot, as a reviewer put it. I'm inclined to agree. While I favor darker Bonds (as my list shows), I can still enjoy the charm of Connery for instance, and Goldfinger is where it is partly because it feels like the emergence of that trend (receiving the Aston Martin), and in a positive way. DoD just goes far too overboard for me.

Now, moving onto TWINE, I more or less agree there. Elektra is how you write a villain. She manipulates Bond and does so believably (arguably, she's even manipulating Renard). Her backstory is sympathetic, her plan is sociopathic, but it also has a clearly defined aim and rationale behind it. Think she works better as a villain than "Bond girl" though (i.e. it would have been detrimental to her character to end up with Bond by the end of the film).

 

[gorfias]

"campy" isn't the word

That word would fit perfectly with "Moonraker". This was, maybe "over-blown"? with the invisible car, etc. But Brosnan knew this was his swan song so they made this to be a sort of homage to the Bond franchise, complete with lasers, Goldfinger era cars. I'm pretty sure they pass by Moonraker props such as a vase in the sword fight scene.

Biggest plot hole for me? That this guy amassed billions and a super star reputation when only a few months earlier, he had been a North Korean military officer. Holy Empire Strikes Back Luke becomes a Jedi in an afternoon Batman!

Think she [Sophie] works better as a villain than "Bond girl" though (i.e. it would have been detrimental to her character to end up with Bond by the end of the film).

Agreed. I think the critic was just noting how amazing she is compared to Christmas.

She definitely owned Renard. Her "super power" is that no heterosexual man can resist her. Bond had great difficulty doing so (though Connery and maybe even Moore would have broken her arm without pause). Had Bond turned her ala Pussy Galore, it wouldn't have really worked as one could surmise she was just setting him up for a fall.