I shouldn't have to add "to me" onto the end of every subjective statement I make. As someone who found out about Bond as a kid and proceeded to marathon the entire film legacy in order, and re-watch many of them several times over the years, I have my image of what Bond films should be about, what has changed for better or for worse, and about what does it for me with Bond as a character. TO ME, Bond is about the wackiness and over-the-top characters/plots. Without that, it doesn't really work for me. That's all.
James Bond Thread
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In the public mind i would've thought that silly fun ans gadgets was synonymous with the Bond character.
I mean the villains you remember are the weird ones, the voodoo man, midget assasain, really sharp hat man and of course Richard fricking Kiels jaws performance.
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In the public mind i would've thought that silly fun ans gadgets was synonymous with the Bond character.
The audience raised on Sean Connery will most likely cite "suave asskicker womanizer" as the gist of things.
And really in the public mind Connery is Bond. -
@Monkey:
The audience raised on Sean Connery will most likely cite "suave asskicker womanizer" as the gist of things.
Did he ever stop bringing those things though?
Even in the silliest ones he still kicked ass and got laid. Just with exploding whosits and electronic whatchamacallits.
And really in the public mind Connery is Bond.
He could very well be, as much as it suprises me personally.
Out of all the Bond's i found his to be the most forgetful. Not the movies themselves, but him.
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Did he ever stop bringing those things though?
Who? Bond or Connery?
Moore mostly comes off as an annoyed WASP father in pretty much every one of his exasperatingly long tenure.
Dalton comes off as just sort of a mad person. Though he tried to smile a lot more in License to Kill I guess.Connery, Lazenby, Brosnan and Craig all hit the notes on that account but in fairly different ways.
I always liked the contrast between Connery and Lazenby is that Lazenby is friendlier, but also kicks more ass.
Brosnan for his part hits the notes and not one damn thing else.He could very well be, as much as it suprises me personally.
Out of all the Bond's i found his to be the most forgetful. Not the movies themselves, but him.
I dunno, which Connery Bond's did you see.
He was really off his game in the last two, especially the crap that is Diamonds Are Forever.
He's most fun in the first three.But yeah there's zero dispute that at least in the US Connery is seen as the ideal Bond. I'm pretty darn sure that's true in the UK as well.
I think the younger generation is emotionally attached to Brosnan entirely because of reasons though. -
@Monkey:
But yeah there's zero dispute that at least in the US Connery is seen as the ideal Bond. I'm pretty darn sure that's true in the UK as well.
I think the younger generation is emotionally attached to Brosnan entirely because of reasons though.I know that's at least one of the reasons people took issue with the remake.
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Hum, this seems like an interesting subject.
What´s your opinion on this Rush?Thank you Rush. You are truly an American Hero!
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Hum, this seems like an interesting subject.
What´s your opinion on this Rush?Thank you Rush. You are truly an American Hero!
http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/231690000/231691870.JPG
Lazenby: Australian
Moore: English
Dalton: Welsh
Brosnan: Irish
Craig: Half English/Half Welsh.Honestly it's way more odd to think of an Irish Bond than an African one. Nevermind that the African guy in question is born and raised British lol.
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Rush is just being Rush. And what Rush is a fat, ignorant, white guy who loves to do nothing more than to (in this instance) engage in race baiting.
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In which case, Casino Royale as THE FIRST BOND BOOK EVER WRITTEN, and that actually stayed fairly faithful to the book instead of going in crazy directions, most certainly counts. Hell, its even been adapted twice!
This is getting super nitpicky and nerdy but technically there are three adapatiations of Casino Royale.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casino_Royale_(Climax!)Besides being the first James Bond adapatiations it's only notable for having an American play "Jimmy" Bond, and for Peter Lorre playing Le Chiffre
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@Monkey:
Lazenby: Australian
Moore: English
Dalton: Welsh
Brosnan: Irish
Craig: Half English/Half Welsh.Honestly it's way more odd to think of an Irish Bond than an African one. Nevermind that the African guy in question is born and raised British lol.
I know, and that´s why the more people argue about this the dumber the whole thing seems.
If anything, Idris has more arguments to be James Bond than some of those had.
But hey! A lot of people also argued that Craig couldn´t be Bond because he was blond and stuff, so I´m actually going to try and believe this is not a race thing.Rush is just being Rush. And what Rush is a fat, ignorant, white guy who loves to do nothing more than to (in this instance) engage in race baiting.
Has a foreign guy, listening to guys like Rush and Beck is actually a good comedy hour.
How the hell do people like these get on National TV over there? -
Has a foreign guy, listening to guys like Rush and Beck is actually a good comedy hour.
How the hell do people like these get on National TV over there?Because they are not the only ones who are like that.
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How the hell do people like these get on National TV over there?
Beck actually doesn't really have a TV show since Fox cancelled it years ago, Rush on the otherhand is mostly relegated to Radio.
But technicalities aside they get airitme because there are dumb people in this country who eat up and buy into the shit those two shill on a regular basis.
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One of the guys at my office used to listen to Rush Limberger on a regular basis. As a result, I heard a fair bit of him and I'll say this. The man actually has a few legitimate points and its easy to see where the audience comes from… but the man himself is really awful.
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I'd be hyped for Elba as Bond.
As would anyone who watched Luther I suspect
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Sad, Craig will only have done four movies, I wanted him for longer. Elba as Bond is pretty pimp though. I hope they keep the darker style of the Craig films.
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I thought Craig was actually contracted (and willing) for quite a few more yet? And that talk of a new guy was just that… talk.
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Yeah. I thought all the Elba talk came from him being mentioned for the role in the Sony Leak.
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@TLC:
Sad, Craig will only have done four movies, I wanted him for longer. Elba as Bond is pretty pimp though. I hope they keep the darker style of the Craig films.
Craig is on contract for at least two more.
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@Monkey:
Craig is on contract for at least two more.
Yeah I don't see him leaving until his contract is complete.
Unless so etching goes terribly wrong.
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I'm not sure I've seen anything where Elba used his actual accent so it'd be weird for me to see. But he can't possibly be worse than Brosnan so why not.
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I'm not sure I've seen anything where Elba used his actual accent so it'd be weird for me to see. But he can't possibly be worse than Brosnan so why not.
You could watch Luther.
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@Galaxy:
16 chars of tasty.
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Well Brosnan has come out saying Elba would make a great Bond. Which I originally thought was a good idea until I realized how old he is. With Craig still having another 2-3 to go Elba would be around 50 before getting his first one out. Still would like to see him in the franchise though, the best Bond villains are as iconic as Bond himself, so that's an option.
Besides I value Brosnan's opinion about as much as I do his acting….
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The first teaser trailer is out, and dumps a lot of info.
! Personally, the angle that James Bond and Blofeld might share a familial connection ("Brother of mine! Why u So Evil!?") turns me off. I've always found Daniel Craigs Bond agressively unlikeable (which is probably the point), and have little interest in soaring drama regarding his personal history.
My nostalgia has most likely put zany old school Bond on a piedestal where it doesn't belong, but then again, my favourite scene in Skyfall was James Bond fighting a henchman in a Komodo Dragon pit.
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I loved Skyfall, and this trailer seems to to be dovetailing right off that, which is all the better for me. So bring it on.
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I'm excited. Of course, this movie has SPECTRE and Christoph Waltz, so I think it sold me even before the trailer.
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Yeah, I'm a fan of Craig Bond, Skyfall, and Christoph Waltz, so I'm really feeling it.
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New trailer!
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Still not a huge fan of Craig's Bond since he continues to lack charisma, but Spectre is probably my second most anticipated movie of the year after Star Wars. And we get a proper car! Sky fall was great but it felt like it lacked a lot of the panache the Bond franchise is known for.
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Craig Bond and Christoph Waltz together… excellent.
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So is Waltz Bond's father? I don't remember what was told about Bond's family in Skyfall. This ain't a manga so I know they won't overdo it.
You know, I bet it'll be good - as was Skyfall - but it won't top Casino Royale for me. I dunno why. Maybe it was the love angle. M died in the last movie and he was shaken and all but watching him watching Vesper die was more effective.
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I just…can't get into this. Not at all.
Bond being referred to as a has-been...again.
Bond going off on his own on personal business...again.
The villainous orginization being linked to Bond somehow, and Blofeld in particular being set up as his brother or something.
Blofeld being all Aizen-y "it was me all along!!!!"Its all just so super duper dramatic, and I just don't care much about Bond as a character, or these latest movies' attempted deconstruction of him. Maybe if Craig had spent a few movies going on more regular missions and building him up as a charismatic likeable dude, before going all grit'n broody. Then again, I thought Kingsman was flipping great and scratched my "colorful-adventure Bond" itch, so as far as I'm concerned they can tweak Bond however they want now.
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Anyone heard "Writing's on the Wall - Sam Smith"?
I guess it's so-so ~ acceptable theme song.
Couldn't really hum it after listening to it few times. -
Anyone heard "Writing's on the Wall - Sam Smith"?
I guess it's so-so ~ acceptable theme song.
Couldn't really hum it after listening to it few times.Well they don't all have to be memorable like Skyfall. I've watched all the bonds multiple times, but only songs I could hum for you are Goldfinger, Live and Let Die and Skyfall.
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Well they don't all have to be memorable like Skyfall. I've watched all the bonds multiple times, but only songs I could hum for you are Goldfinger, Live and Let Die and Skyfall.
For me, I can hum Goldfiniger, Goldeneye, On Her Majesty etc etc, Casino Royale and Skyfall.
Oh well, I was just wanting some catchy tune but I guess it will be serviceable.
Did you like this one? :)
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So… anyone seen this? Quite a hit everywhere.
Peanuts apparently was a better film (haven't seen either as they didn't open yet in NZ). -
I've seen it….it's meh.
! From an actioney, turn your brain off standpoint it's fun and entertaining and mostly (I say mostly because the ending is an anticlimax) keeps your interest. It's beautifully shot, wonderfully acted and impeccably directed.
! The script however is really lazy and sloppy relying on cliches, plot conveniences and recycling themes from the previous movie (while not executing them nearly as well). It's a script that really could have used a few rewrites.
! For the purposes of entertainment, I'll give it a comedic review, bear in mind that this is done in fun, overall I think this movie is decent and worth watching for the reasons said above but it does have problems which really brought it down in my eyes.
! Movie starts in Mexico with Bond and a random chick dressed as skeletons during the Day of the Dead. I guess it's supposed to symbolize how much they want to bone. They're getting into it then Bond goes "Wait a mo, gotta off a guy". So he gets a position to snipe a guy, he picks off his goons and fires a shot at his target and misses…and then the entire building explodes. There is no explanation why or how, it just explodes, I guess he hit a random barrel full of dynamite because it's a huge ass building and it somehow comes completely down. Even Bond is surprised this happened. The building Bond is in collapses but luckily Bond falls into a sofa in a very funny scene. No idea how his target got out of there in one piece though but he's on the ground and so an exciting chase sequence ensures.
! In retrospect bad guy maybe shouldn't have picked an all white suit because he sure stands out in a crowd. He whips out his cellphone and calls a chopper to pick him up, I guess he has a helicopter on speed dial. Chopper lands in the middle of a parade and bad guy leaps in it but Bond leaps in right after him and they get into fisticuffs. I don't know why he didn't just shoot him with a pistol, guess he only brought his sniper rifle with him. There's this really weird fight scene where Bond and bad guy are wrestling each other while the helicopter is in the air and Bond keeps attacking the pilot while thousands of Mexicans are below them. This gets even weirder when Bond dropkicks the bad guy out of the chopper than choke holds the pilot into unconsciousness...then there's this very tense scene where Bond has to get into the pilot scene in time before the chopper makes Day of the Dead live up to its name. Of course he makes it and cue Bond music, fuck yeah Bond is a hero. This seems all very unnecessary to me though when Bond could have just told the pilot to land. He didn't need to almost cause a war between Britain and Mexico.
! Cue Bond's classic openings which in this case involves weird tentacle porn, I'm being unfair, it's a very dark, visually scintillating sequence albeit having unnecessarily weird focus on Bond's boning prowess. The song is godawful and sounds like it's sung by a Justin Bieber wannabe with lyrics that have absolutely nothing to do with the movie.
! Bond gets shit for it by new M back home and Bond is like whatever, I prevented the mass murder of a large population of Mexicans by evil bad guy so that means I should get to almost murder them. New M is like this shit ain't cool anymore, the government is thinking of axing us and updating the system. Cue Moriarty from Sherlock walking in prattling on how outdated the double O programme is and how his way is the way of the future. Apparently he has a plan to make all the intelligence agencies pool all their resources and intelligence into one big...system? because putting all our eggs into one basket is the key to preventing terrorism I guess. That indicated three things to me, Moriarty is a bad guy, the update of the system is a terrorist plot and we're recycling themes from Skyfall. At least we're being economic about our lazy story-telling.
! Moneypenny goes to Bond's house and asks him what's up and he reveals M made a video before she died telling him to kill random guy and go to his funeral in Rome. Absolutely no idea where she got this info. Bond wants to go but new M ain't having any of his shit and implanted him with a tracker to keep tabs on him at all times. I'm sorry, I said tracker because that would have been the sensible thing, but this is a movie so we gotta amp that shit up, he injected him with tiny nanomachines making his blood "smart", yes they call it smart blood. This seems excessively elaborate especially since Bond easily cheats it by telling Q to fuck off and leave him alone. You'd think new M would not assign surveillance to only one guy who also happens to be a close friend of Bond.
! So Bond goes to Rome and follow dead guy's wife played by the luscious Monica Belluci. He saves her from evil organization assassins because apparently dead guy was stupid and told her everything about work. Naturally Bond gets all the information he needs from her through boning. I just love how Bond apparently killed a guy and fucked his wife, it's just so hilariously caveman to me in a good way. He tells her to go to his people for protection and I thought she'll come back later for a gratuitous murder but...she never shows up again. Which was weird to me because why do you bring an actress like Monica Belluci and not do anything with her?
! Bond goes to the address she gave him which looks like the set from Eyes Wide Shut. He sneaks into a boardroom meeting where evil bad guys are looking to replace dead guy. They had one guy ready and ask if anyone else thinks they're more qualified. Then Dave Batista stands up and snaps the other guy's neck, you got the job (actually that was a pretty badass scene, Dave Batista was pretty good in this movie for a guy who had no lines)! Bond gets exposed, cue exciting car chase scene where Bond trashes another car.
! For some reason that maybe I missed during a quick exposition dump scene, Bond then goes to a random cabin in the Austrian mountains where Bond finds another member of evil organization (whose dying from poisoning for leaving the organization) who gives him information with the condition he protect his daughter. So wait, didn't we just do this? Track a bad guy to get a Bond girl to help track down the main bad guys? So now we dumped our Bond girl to get another Bond girl? Couldn't we just have fused these two characters together? Also why the fuck did this guy tell his daughter everything? For a super secret organization, their members keep mouthing off everything!
! Anywho Bond tracks down new Bond girl who isn't as pretty at a retreat and she tells him to piss off. Bond goes to a bar because of course we had to have the Martini scene but the bartender says they don't serve alcohol because it's a special retreat so he orders a protein shake instead and tells the bartender to flush it down the toilet because COMEDY nyuk nyuk. Meanwhile Bond girl no.2 gets kidnapped, cue exciting chase scene where Bond somehow pulls a plane out of his ass and chases the men on jeeps. He catches them and rescues Bond girl who insistently says she wants nothing to do with him and his world which is a sensible reaction. Bond tells her you need me so tell me what you know! So they go to Africa where Bond gets coordinates to main bad guy's hideout. He tells Bond girl he doesn't need her anymore but out of the blue she says she wants to tag along now. Because they shared one night in the same vicinity and he tucked her into bed while she was drunk, that counts as an emotional bond I guess.
! On a train to bad guy's hideout, we get a scene of Bond girl going, I'm secretly super badass cause my dad taught me everything he knew! I roll my eyes because how many times do we get supposedly bad ass chicks in a movie only for them to completely fumble the ball? Batista shows up and beats the shit out of Bond in a pretty awesome action scene while backhanding Bond girl into unconsciousness. Of course. Batista is about to throw Bond off the train when Bond girl wakes up and shoots him. They work together to throw Batista off the train. Then in their fiery passions of a near death experience, they bone hard. So basically the movie sacrificed a prime lieutenant bad guy to get the two characters to fuck. Okaaaaay. I kid, I actually liked that scene a lot, it was a cool fight. The implications of it were just a tad weird. I did like how Bond girl wasn't totally useless though.
! So they make it to middle of nowhere in Africa where evil bad guy sent someone to pick them up. In a Rolls Royce…cars not exactly made for trekking the Savannah!
! So they get to the base and our main bad guy is waiting for them played by Christoph Waltz who is being his most fantastic Waltz. Waltz reveals his obvious evil plan that we all guessed at the start of the film and also reveals DUN DUN DUN he was responsible for all the evil villains in all the previous Craig movies! We're Aizening the shit out of this, because the movie totally needed this anime cliche. Also Bond and Waltz are actually..DUN DUN DUN...brothers (though adopted) because let's throw in Star Wars too while we're at it. To be fair the first twist isn't so bad albeit cliche but the brothers thing is totally unnecessary. It's like a cheap, lazy thrown in way to make the confrontation more personal. To make things worse, Waltz apparently resents Bond because his daddy loved him more...so he killed his dad out of jealousy...why not just kill Bond? It's all weak emotional drama especially since we feel nothing from this personal history, we never see some sort of flashback or anything, we're just told to care.
! Anywho Waltz who is dun dun dun secretly Blowfeld (yeah thanks for the white cat, movie, we all knew it was Blowfeld from the trailer) ties Bond to a weird dentist chair which he uses for more sophisticated torture. I guess hitting Bond in the junk with a rope is too crude for him. He starts drilling all over into Bond (phrasing) and then says he's going to drill into a part of his brain where he will no longer be able to recognize faces once it's damaged. He does this...and it just doesn't work. It's really weird, I thought it would come back later for some thematic symbolism relating to his character but it just didn't work. It did give him an excuse to hand Bond girl his explosive watch though. He escapes the chair and gets a machine gun.
! Bond is injured with a single machine gun and he has to wipe out a huge complex with Blowfeld's personal army. Surely this will lead to some sort of epic battle the likes of which will make Die Hard blush in shame! No, he kills a couple of guys and shoots at a couple of buildings and SOMEHOW the whole thing blows up.It's like the size of three football fields and it just....completely blows up somehow, even Bond is surprised it happens. What is with his special ability to cause spontaneous massive explosions?!
! We get to the third act where the movie kinda falls apart. Bond tells new M everything that's happened and you'd think this would be a simple issue of telling the appropriate authorities Blowfeld's plan and not activate this system that gives all the world's intelligence to his organization. But nope, we need to get Q in to hack it and go to MI6 HQ to confront Moriarty.
! Before this however Bond girl tells Bond she can't do this anymore, that she hates this world Bond lives in and knows that he'll never leave it so she's just gonna bail on him now. This is all very weird, random, out of the blue and a complete character 180 on her part which I had no idea why she was doing it at the time especially near the endgame. Anywho she says bye and Bond goes to finish the mission.
! Moriarty's goons intercept them and kidnap new M. Except what a tweest, they took Bond by mistake! At least that's what I think happened since they let their guard downs completely assuming he had no fighting skills. He kills them while blinded and bound. Yet there's no way they'd mistake Bond for new M, he wasn't wearing a disguise like Tom Cruise or anything! Yet they took him to old MI6 HQ where Blowfeld was waiting for Bond...so did they take Bond intentionally? The movie frames it really weird and inconsistently all for the sake of a cheap reveal when Bond removes the rag covering his face.
! New M and Q confront Moriarty who goes into a long spiel about how they should give power to the true power and yadda yadda, they fight and he trips off the building.
! Blowfeld meanwhile had completely renovated old MI6 HQ to be a personal Bond horror house putting pictures of all the people Bond lost. Bond finds Blowfeld and shoots at him but Blowfeld had put up a bulletproof barrier beforehand. They look at each other through the barrier and Blowfeld reveals the place is set to blow and Bond Girl is tied up somewhere, you better run to find her!
! Ah...so that explains her character 180. So for all her puffing her chest on being a badass, once again we're using her as the damsel in distress...of course...
! Anywho Bond runs like mad to find her while Blowfeld overlooks this all in his helicopter. Bond finds the room she's being held in and I assumed he was going to find her with the bomb attached to her leading to some sort of dramatic qunadary where he'd be forced to abandon her...no. She wasn't even tied up in chains or even rope! She was tied in strings...STRINGS! Blowfeld can invest in bulletproof glass spanning a room but can't even get some decent rope!? Anywho Bond grabs Bond girl and they jump off the building....into a net...
! Okay, I can accept Bond knew about this since this was old MI6 HQ, I can forgive that we the audience didn't know about this net beforehand but what makes absolute no sense is that Blowfeld completely renovated the place from top to bottom and he missed the fucking net below the balcony!? Our mastermind everyone! Too stupid to get rope and too stupid to remove nets from under windows. Can we get LeChiffre back please? Give him a twin brother or something?
! Anywho, Bond chases Blowfeld who is escaping in his chopper. He has no way to get him so he just shoots at his helicopter in vain with his pistol. This causes the helicopter to crash somehow. AGAIN WITH HIS MAGIC GUN! Again, Bond is surprised this happened!
! Anywho Bond confronts Blowfeld who is dragging himself from the wreckage and Blowfeld says finish it and Bond says...no? Huh? Are we doing the mercy stuff for Bond out of the blue? Actually Bond says he's not doing it because if he kills him, he'll never get out of this spy game and he wants to run off with his Bond girl. Which is a fair development but...this really doesn't mesh with the film at all. The whole theme of the film was this weird mix of recycling Skyfall's themes of old vs new and Bond wanting to move on with not enough focus on either which is especially detrimental since these themes conflict with each other causing mixed messages. In Skyfall, it gelled better since it was all about a broken Bond regaining his groove. Here a Bond at the top of his game suddenly decides to quit and the movie never really developed his desire to stop except for the forced in confrontation by his Bond girl near the end. It just comes off really forced, like the writers weren't told that Craig wasn't doing anymore till near the end and they hastily added it in in a rewrite.
! Anywho Bond shows up to HQ one last time to pick up his car and drives into the sunset with his girl. Credits!
! So yeah, on a visceral level, the movie was mostly fine but that last act really brought it down. After all the hype Blowfeld had of being this master villain with all the resources in the world in his hands and a huge criminal network full of people willing to die for him, it ultimately comes down to Bond shooting down a helicopter with a pistol because Blowfeld just waltzed in with a stupid horror house, some string and no backup of any kind. You know, even in my popcorn flicks, I want my heroes to struggle and earn their wins and the villains to live up to their hype. Ah well. it's worth watching but go watch MI5 or Kingsmen or Man from U.N.C.L.E. instead for a better spy thriller. -
@TLC:
! So yeah, on a visceral level, the movie was mostly fine but that last act really brought it down. After all the hype Blowfeld had of being this master villain with all the resources in the world in his hands and a huge criminal network full of people willing to die for him, it ultimately comes down to Bond shooting down a helicopter with a pistol because Blowfeld just waltzed in with a stupid horror house, some string and no backup of any kind. You know, even in my popcorn flicks, I want my heroes to struggle and earn their wins and the villains to live up to their hype. Ah well. it's worth watching but go watch MI5 or Kingsmen or Man from U.N.C.L.E. instead for a better spy thriller.
This was one of my problems with Skyfall as well. Villain hacks MI6, masterminds an escape, has goons in position for costume changes, redirects a freaking train with a bomb to help his escape, and it all culminates in him walking into a meeting to try and shoot M. Yawn much? Same goes, to a certain extent, for the Home Alone bit at the end where Silva goes in with two cars of guys and a helicopter. Sure Bond maneuvers him there but it's still pretty damn unimpressive.
Say what you will about Quantum of Solace but at least it has a proper climax.
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In general, I'm ok with climaxes that aren't huge action pieces, especially with the new James Bond films. I mean, yeah, it's kinda awkward when you have a bunch of other impressive action sequences going on in the movie, but I'd rather see it play out on the small scale than see a villain die in some hamfisted fashion of old, like falling off a cliff and shouting Noooo all the way down. But the one in Spectre could've had more to it, I will admit.
! Shooting down a helicopter with a gun? Not sure what to think of that.
I liked the movie, but I don't think it was better than Skyfall. Some great scenery and good characterization for Bond. Although the film seems to take a step back to the sillier kind of bond films, which I don't really want happening. Overall it still holds a pretty realistic tone that the Craig films have.
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This was one of my problems with Skyfall as well. Villain hacks MI6, masterminds an escape, has goons in position for costume changes, redirects a freaking train with a bomb to help his escape, and it all culminates in him walking into a meeting to try and shoot M. Yawn much? Same goes, to a certain extent, for the Home Alone bit at the end where Silva goes in with two cars of guys and a helicopter. Sure Bond maneuvers him there but it's still pretty damn unimpressive.
Say what you will about Quantum of Solace but at least it has a proper climax.
The movie had similar problems to Skyfall and I wasn't a huge fan of Skyfall. It had more impressive set pieces then Skyfall but ultimately I think Skyfall was better for a better focus on its message and a more satisfying resolution of the story. Neither of them have shit on Casino Royale.
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@Daz:
Then again, I thought Kingsman was flipping great and scratched my "colorful-adventure Bond" itch, so as far as I'm concerned they can tweak Bond however they want now.
Hells yeah, Kingsman was flipping great!
That vibrant, climatic fight scene with Gazelle easily blows any of these Daniel Craig snooze-fests out of the water. Hands down one of my favorite films of 2015.
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I don't think it was better than Skyfall either and they really wasted Christopher Waltz which is like a crime against humanity.
! A lot of people have already mentioned how the climax was kind of stupid and I agree. Blofield went completely out of his way to put himself in danger just to, if his plan went right, say bye to Bond face to face. The huge reach of Spectre was never really shown other than Batista being an amazing tracker. My biggest problem was that Blofield and Bond were like adoptive brothers and that's touched on and it comes up often but it's never given any real weight. Their scenes should have had more bite to them. Any time Silva was in a room with M you felt the tension and history between them. Silva similarly put himself in harms way just to finish off M face to face but he was clearly insane and obsessed by that point and it shows. Blofield and Bond never have that kind of chemistry and they should have.
! Also the way Blofields entire secret compound just blew up because of one explosion was comically lame.I think a good Bond film needs a strong villain. They had the right actor but the writing wasn't there. As other people have said the sets were great. I enjoyed a lot of the movie for me it's.
Skyfall
Royale
Spectre
QuantumOne of the people I saw it with thought it was better than Skyfall and he praised the second half for being really close to previous Bond films. I only started with the Craig ones though so I don't have that kind of comparison.
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I don't think it was better than Skyfall either and they really wasted Christopher Waltz which is like a crime against humanity.
Ah, forgot to mention that. Yeah, Waltz was criminally underutilized here. He did great with what he was given, which wasn't exactly a whole lot… He got some pretty short screentime, made worse by all of the build up they created in his first scene.
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It was an ok movie. I wonder where all the money went, though. And I missed and will miss Javier Bardem in any new Bond film now.
! Also, you may think after this experience Blofeld may say; "Mh, it is indeed a mistake to deliberately let Bond in my secret compounds. I will avoid that in the future."
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One thing that really bothered me:
! Bond takes the train, arrives in the desert somewhere, a car picks them up, they drive up to the secret compound and then … they get captured, of course. What else. They took his gun. Obviously they would take his gun. What was the plan, then?
! That right there is Brosnan era Bond stupidity/arrogance. -
! "Mmmmm, I must show my enemy my secret lair, confirm his suspiciouns, reveal my plans, then strap him to a death machine and play around with him before I kill him. Yeessss, there's no way this can ever go wrong for me!"
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! "Hopefully he doesn't find out the weakness of my super advanced facility : a single bullet"
My favorites Craig:
Casino Royal : perfect
Skyfall : very good and unlike any other James Bond
Spectre : the first part is pretty good, once they are on the train it gets very bad
Quantum of Solace : the opening song is alright -
I've gone into a Craig marathon (it's not a marathon when you see 4 movies in the span of a week, but let's just call it that for now), and I'm honestly quite satisfied. Today I finished this "saga" with Spectre, and I honestly had a great time. It has flaws? Yeah. In fact, I get the feeling I liked this movie more than it deserved, considering some elements were kinda meh, or felt like the writers didn't give it enough thought, and that it didn't NEED to be 2 and a half friggin' hours long. . .but I just had quite a ton of fun with it, to the point I wanted more by its end.
I think it has to do with the fact that Quantum of Solace is SUCH a letdown that both Skyfall and Spectre, which neither are in Casino Royale's league, became so much more enjoyable when compared to that disapointment of a movie. But I'd say even without that bias, both are definitely cool Bond movies. Cinematography is off the scale in both movies, with some really cool scenes here and there (specially fond of Mendes' clever use of silence in some scenes to great effect, which felt like a great novelty), some great action scenes and, thankfully, some very funny and crisp dialogue, specially in Spectre between Q and Bond (I don't remember laughing that much in a Bond movie before).
I could get into the disappointing elements in both Sky and Spectre, wich both have and in pretty good measure, but. . .in the end, I had a good experience with them both, and both feel similar too. GREAT first hour or so, not so great climax, overall great entertainment value with tons of legendary Bond elements being playfully winked at (the back and forth with Q's gadgets, the Aston Martin, Monneypenny. . .). I just can't much get into grumpy mode as most of you seem to be getting into. Like, I could easily dislike Jurassic World when I could've been as forgiving with it considering "it's just an entertaintment", but I just wasn't very entertainted by it; these movies? Oh yes, I was!
Needless to say, Casino Royale is still the absolutely undefeated one. Probably best Bond movie ever? I'm planning on revisiting some classic Bond (From Russia With Love, On His Majesty's Secret Service, still not sure on the other ones), but man it's just such a full package of a movie. . .