Your Favorite Bond Film? (Page 1 of 3)

I'm a big fan of Tomorrow Never Dies, definitely like it more than Golden-Eye. Surprised it doesn't get more respect, it's by far the best Brosnan bond in my opinion.

However, if you want to talk most realistic bond films, by far the most grounded in the series, and my personal favorite, is From Russia With Love. It manages to be a super grounded straight-ahead spy thriller, while still setting up most of the tropes that we still associate with the series today. The gadgets bond gets are actually believable and practical (a suitcase with sniper rifle), the villain is great, the story is small-scale and intimate (stealing a Lecter encoding machine), but there's still some cool bond action as the story wraps up. I actually think Goldfinger is pretty over-rated. It's iconic as hell and helped cement the series tropes that From Russia With Love introduced, but there's also tons of wacky ridiculous shit, some pretty slow sections, and a pretty weak final act in my opinion. I think From Russia With Love and Thunderball are both much better.

Casino Royale is a close 2nd for me, for having the balls to re-invent the series while also having some of the best action film-making of the last decade (steady cameras, clean cuts across action, elaborate practical stunts, extended action sequences that have a chance to build momentum and escalate throughout). Hollywood Saloon have a pretty excellent extended breakdown of why it's amazing in the context of the series (http://www.hollywoodsaloon.com/podcastEP28-3.html)

Sidenote: A bunch of bond blu-rays are on sale today as part of the 50 year anniversary, worth picking up

Last edited by bullet3 (2012-10-05 18:34:46)

I'm pretty sure I've seen either Casino Royale or Quantum of Solace. I don't remember which, and I don't remember the movie too well. That concludes my James Bond knowledge.

/has a movie podcast, respect my authoritaiiii

From Russia with Love is fantastic. But it's also the most humorless of the Bond films. Which can be good or bad depending on your taste. Dr. No and FRWL are both proto-Bonds to Goldfinger's complete Bond. Dr. No had the goofy gimmick villain with the ridiculous world domination scheme, and FRWL had the super henchman and gadgets and cold open. Goldfinger fused those two together, added humor, and now we have Bond as we understand him. But I won't argue with anyone who wants to say FRWL is a better film than Goldfinger.

And I don't know if I want to buy the entire collection again. I bought them all on VHS. Then on DVD. The DVDs have DTS sound, and that's good enough for now. Maybe I'll pick up a handful of favorites on BR.

On Casino Royale, my gripe is that they didn't go full reboot. I've read all the books and novellas, and the film stays very true to the book. But if they were going to gritty reboot the series, they should have gone all the way. Instead of the silly parkour non-sense and trying to convince me that a defibrillator is a cool gadget. I don't think those action-adventure flashes meshed well the serious tone taken from the book. Was still a great entry though. No other complaints.

Eddie: OHMSS is way, way underrated. Nice pick. I love Goldeneye more because of the game than the movie itself.

If I had to summarize Craig's interpretation of Bond it would be "Military Weapon Who Gets Pissed Off A Lot." And in that respect, he's carved an distinct angle for himself. He definitely executes the calculated & cold blooded attitude better than anyone else.

Arnold did some nobel work. I love everything musically in TND, and he produced You Know My Name which was awesome. Newman will be interesting. It could end up being the best score of all the films. I mean. Look at his resume. Shawshank's score is amazing.

Last edited by oTom (2012-10-05 20:07:50)

Royale is the best for sure. Didn't the legend really start in America once JFK told the press he was reading them while on vacation?

I love Quantum of Solace unashamedly. Casino Royale was great, but it was a little bloated and the drama isn't very nuanced. Which is fine, because that's not what I go to a Bond film for, but if you're not going to commit to it 100%, don't try it. Quantum is a lean, brutal movie. Daniel Craig has really found his footing in the role and is wonderfully ruthless and deadpan. The last scene in Russia is one of the best in Bond history. Disregarding the shakycam (which actually doesn't bother me, personally) I think it also has the best cinematography in the franchise. Though we'll see how I feel about that come November 9th.

Ya, if we go by actor I go:
From Russia With Love
OMSS
Spy Who Loved Me with For Your Eyes Only close behind
Living Daylights
Tomorrow Never Dies
Casino Royale

Regarding Quantum of Solace:
It's watchable, but hugely disappointing coming off of Casino Royale in my opinion. A really lame villain plot, really poorly shot action, resolving the threads from Casino Royale in a throwaway scene at the end instead of having that be the main plot. I think the biggest failure is the direction by Marc Forester. The Opera sequence typifies this because it should be an amazing Sam Peckinpah cross-cutting action scene, but its edited so badly you can't really follow what is happening. Not to keep plugging these guys, but they basically lay out all the reasons I dislike it in their review: http://www.hollywoodsaloon.com/podcast/THS-284.mp3

Last edited by bullet3 (2012-10-05 21:09:47)

Spy Who Loved Me... it opens with one of the greatest stunts of all time. It's got the underwater car, the massive submarine hanger, and Bach.

Olga in Quantum of Solace was...err.. underutilized.

I think it would have turned out basically the same for Brosnan if he had started with the Dalton flicks, and we might never have gotten golden-eye as a result. Their problem ultimately was the same thing that screwed up Quantum of Solace, namely, trying to ape what was considered "trendy" in action films at the time, instead of leading the way and doing their own thing. With License to Kill, it's extremely obvious they were trying to model themselves on Die Hard, which had just come out and revolutionized the action genre. The weirdly violent tone, the marginalization of spy elements, the blatant Die Hard/Lethal-Weapon wannabe score that sounds nothing like a Bond film (seriously ,listen to this thing:

).

We should probably be thankful Brosnan managed to dodge that bullet.

Last edited by bullet3 (2012-10-06 06:51:16)

Well, it was the same composer and that is basically just what his action scores sounded like at the time, he got very lazy. I do like his scores to Die Hard and Lethal Weapon but hate his Bond score.

You Only Live Twice and Goldeneye.

I love the gunbarrel.