James Bond Franchise (1962-∞)

[jojo]

Am I mistaken in thinking that the Craig Bond is a bit more serious than his predecessors?

For the most part. Not quite as serious as Dalton (he's allowed a certain wry humour), but a lot more serious than Moore or Brosnan.
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Dalton's Bond cracked jokes, but he delivered them with a certain amount of nastiness--they sound like jokes when taken at face value, but his voice would tip you off that he wasn't really joking at all.

I watched The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill recently, and I've come to really like Dalton's Bond. There's a meanness to him that's appealing, because he doesn't pretend to be as "badass" as other Bond actors.

I agree with those here slagging the Brosnan Bonds. I think the poor scripts and direction affected his performance as well, because he often seemed highly disinterested, but not in an entertaining way. More of a "I'd rather be somewhere else, but at least this pays well" kind of way.

[Mr Sausage]

I liked Dalton's Bond, tho' I think The Living Daylights was a Moore film with Dalton awkwardly shoved into it. Dalton's Bond had a nasty edge to him, you're right, and I think it nicely built on things that Connery had implied in the first two films. But then I cannot stand Moore's Bond, so it's no wonder Dalton appealed to me.

[flyonthewall2983]

Finished the Top Gear special on Bond cars last night. I've only really just seen the last couple of movies in their entirety and a few others while channel-surfing, but I found it intriguing and entertaining enough.

I would give a bit of warning to those who haven't seen Skyfall yet that there is a BTS on a stunt from the movie you'd probably prefer to see on the big screen instead of your computer's.

[Anhedionisiac]

Total Bond fanboy question, but does anyone know if they put the down-the-barrel opening back in? I liked how they incorporated it into the opening of Casino Royale but I admit it sort of irked me that it was missing from the beginning of the last one.

Having just seen it, I can confirm the classic down-the barrel opening is

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indeed back in, although set at the beginning of the closing credits. However, they 're also slyly and tastefully referenced to in the way James draws his gun when he first appears in the film
Opinions vary, obviously, and perhaps it's too soon to call it the best entry in the James Bond franchise but I honestly believe Skyfall to be at the very least the best since the initial three Connery installments. The sequence in Shanghai is practically an instant classic, brilliantly photographed from beginning to end. The film would merit a recommendation on the basis of Shanghai alone but, thankfully, the pace and script's storytelling structure is top-notch, great sequences one after another. The worst I can say of the film is that the dialogue in James and M's first meeting is somewhat too on-the-nose. I was worried that they would delve too much in James' past since I heard that the last act included a couple reveals about him but I needn't have worried, details are kept to a minimum and his backstory remains mysterious enough. Oh, and Bardem gives it his all. A fantastic villain. I won't say more since I wouldn't want to spoil it for you guys.

Incidentally, can anyone answer whether the new MGM logo animation was created to debut in this film or was it first seen in theaters elswehere?

[Forrest Taft]

Surprised at the overwhelmingly positive response to this. The first hour is a top notch Bond picture, and I do agree that the scenes set in Shanghai are very good. And Ola Rapace is great as the henchman. I loved the way they'd lit the scene where the confrontation with Rapace and Bond takes place. Very surreal, and it remimded me of one of the best scenes in Jonathan Demme's Manchurian Candidate remake. Roger Deakins' work really is superb here, though I do suspect that many of my favourite shots are the work of the second unit.

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But then Bardem appears, and from then on the film is almost as tedious as Quantum of Solace. In retrospect, anonymous Bond girl's speech about "not knowing fear until you've met Bardem" is pretty funny, as I hardly saw anything suggesting that this dude is capable of inspiring a "new level of fear". Bardem was funny for the first two minutes, but then I grew tired of his schtick, and in the end I much preferred Mathieu Amalric in the otherwise dreadful previous Bond picture. Things looked like they were about to pick up once they reached Scotland, but this kind of climax is much more enjoyable in any of the first 3 entries in the Home Alone saga.

The gun barrel thing came at the in Quantum of Solace too,, I think.

No way that this is one the best in the series. The first three with Connery were better, and so where (at least) On Her Majesty's Secret Service, The Spy Who Loved Me, For Your Eyes Only, the Daltons, GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies and Casino Royale. I hope James Bond has sorted out his emotional issues now.

[skuhn8]

Am I mistaken in thinking that the Craig Bond is a bit more serious than his predecessors?

Definitely agree with that. You can count the number of times he smiles on one hand. And that's what I like about him. He'll execute a particularly nasty piece of action on someone and let slip a sliver of a wry smile--it works for a laugh better than half the zingers delivered throughout the franchise IMO.

Just came out of Skyfall a couple hours ago. I loved it. Easy to appreciate it after Quantum, and I think it comes close to the level of Casino (one of the best in the franchise by my estimation).

[Finch]

3.5 out of 4 from Slant

[moviscop]

With all of the hype surrounding Daniel Craig's "Bond epiphany" from an acting standpoint, I didn't see that big of a difference this time around. Javier Bardem really put this one over the top for me, and made it memorable. I would easily say it is easily the best "Craig Bond" film, but it is difficult to put it on par with some of the classics. Also, I think everyone can agree that Deakins did another mind-blowing job on this project.

[dustybooks]

James Bond movies were always something I ended up watching because they were "on" or because my family was watching them -- dad, brother and sister are/were big fans -- and I haven't remembered them too fondly. But I had the opportunity to see this in IMAX for free this afternoon, I like Sam Mendes and Roger Deakins and Thomas Newman and the cast so I figured what the hell... and thought it was a blast. The last film in the series I saw was GoldenEye and this was good enough that it has me interested in going back and watching the first two with Daniel Craig, and perhaps reevaluating some of the earlier entries as well.

The Shanghai sequence was beautifully shot and certainly the best moment, and the performances were almost uniformly above-par, but what made the film especially compelling for me was the clarity and competence of the "big" scenes. I'm a bit of an old-fashioned sort and tend not to enjoy the hyperactive way that action sequences are shot these days (in the Nolan movies and such), largely because I have trouble following them -- I'm even left in the dark a bit by something like Looper. Mendes (and his second unit, perhaps) mounts this in a way that sustains tension and excitement but is never confusing and moves swiftly; I like that you don't have time to consider how eye-popping some of the images are before the story moves on. This feels like an older film than it is, with a modernist slant -- and I think the screenwriters and Mendes' big accomplishment here is bringing forth affection and reverence for Bond as a cultural figure from another era, even to someone like me who's not really a fan.

I don't know how well Skyfall will hold up for home viewing -- since there's always the chance I would have liked prior Bond films more if I'd seen them theatrically -- but if you have a chance to see it projected or at seat-rattling IMAX, it's really a lot of fun.

[HistoryProf]

Die Another Day is easily the worst Bond film, which I think is saying something when there's shit like The Man With the Golden Gun. Going through the Bond set I got through Die Another Day again and was just groaning most of the way through it. The dialogue was nothing but innuendo or one-liners and the whole film felt like it was simply trying to out-do XXX for "extremeness".

I also feel bad for Pierce in closing out on that one because I did like him as Bond, even if 3/4 of his films are some of the worst in the series. I do like Tomorrow Never Dies if only because it at least went all out in its ridiculousness and was like some of the Moore films in spirit, plus I like Pryce as the heavy. But Goldeneye and The World is Not Enough are some of the blander Bond films. I'll never really get the love for Goldeneye that most seem to have. I remember coming out of the theater thinking "I waited six years... for that!?"

An acquaintance who works at an LA multiplex and fancies himself a cinephile declared Skyfall "the Best Bond since Goldeneye!" I could only ask "is that good?" He went on to present as his bonafides the following list of the top 5 Bond flicks:

From Russia With Love
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Skyfall
Goldeneye
Casino Royale

I can't get too excited about this...the last one was a mess. But Casino Royale was entertaining at least. People really do seem to be losing their minds over this for some reason though. I've seen sites declaring it the best Bond movie without peer. That seems silly to me. Nothing will ever top the Connery films and Moore entries like The Spy Who Loved Me - simply because they're destined to be entirely different animals from an entirely different cultural landscape.

[knives]

That seems silly to me. Nothing will ever top the Connery films and Moore entries like The Spy Who Loved Me - simply because they're destined to be entirely different animals from an entirely different cultural landscape.

I have to admit this sentiment likewise seems a bit silly to me. None is the series is a great work of art or anything like that (much like the books there's something second rate about them to me), but even as simple entertainment I can't get excited for the Connery films at all which with the exception of You Only Live Twice aggravating to me in their stiffness and over seriousness in the face of very silly elements (I believe I broke a muscle arching my eyebrow when Bond tries to kill a tank with a small hand gun in Dr. No). I'll at least give the Moore films I've seen the satisfaction of knowing when they were acting silly. That sense of fun is greatly appreciated by me. That is not to say Bond can't succeed with seriousness as On Her Majesty's Secret Service proves in spades, but that's only because it seemed to be stealing from better spy films (and books if we go back to the source).

[matrixschmatrix]

Hmm, I was a bit let down by this, but I think that says as much about what I'm looking for in a Bond film at this point as it does about the inherent quality of the movie. I liked Casino Royale because it had three or four astonishingly well done set pieces, and they were linked together by material that worked quite well- and the overall tone pushed it much closer to something like The Bourne Ultimatum, one of my favorite big studio action movies in the past decade.

This movie is much less setpiece oriented, which I think is conscious- it seems to be going for something more character driven- and it has a lot more of the classic Bond elements, especially the big evil villain with a superplan that makes absolutely no sense. And it works well at what it is trying to do, though the ending

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where everything turns into a combination of Batman, with Bond's own Gotham Manor and Alfred, and Straw Dogs, with Bond and company rigging murder devices out of every day household items, seems like just an odd choice to me.

It's also possible I was less on board with this because I was in a shitty seat in a tiny little theater, though. Bardem was certainly a lot of fun, and there was one absolutely fantastic gay joke that brightened the whole thing up for me.

[Niale]

I thought skyfall was just okay. It did not feel so much like one complete film, as a lot of different episodes of some bond television program, each with its own beginning, middle, and cliff hanger. The whole think on your sins thing, seemed like something straight out of a first draft, and although Mendes was consistently brilliant, the script was not. I rather admired the subversion of product placement. All of it really seems to come right at the start, and it is either smashed to pieces, or bonds fingers curl around the label.

I found the film to be unexpectedly elegant at times, like take for example the villain introduction, stunning! For all its coverage, Im straining my mind trying to conjure up insert shots and their like... None of it seemed furious. I can really even only think of one point of view shot, of bonds pants legs during the interrogation... And for that reason it stuck out. If only the music was so economical, or at least PERCEIVED to be... I thought the orchestration was an abuse of its own power, and my ears. It never stopped... and it was pure garbage! As for the remake of Straw Dogs at the end of the picture... Well, I put up with it... Which is saying a lot.

As a rather pointless side note, the motif of technology and a ever changing world, I know real groundbreaking, sort of paid off, AFTER the film had finished. As is my custom, I watched the credits through, only to find at the end of the film, instead of the old kodak color chart (which by the way I had of course not expected), the image of a computer desktop appears! Ha.

[mfunk9786]

I thought skyfall was okay no you only live twice no dr no no die another day but okay

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

This was a lot more enjoyable than I'd expected. I've not liked Craig very much, but his scenes with Dench were great. I hadn't expected there to be so much of her onscreen, but it really balanced the film as well as added to Craig's struggle as an old agent needing to focus on his future. Ralph Fiennes was a welcome sight. I feel like Naomie Harris wasn't given very much to do - yeah, James, I get it: she's not a field agent - but she still worked it out well. As a great contrast to these cold, professional Brits, I have to admire Javier Bardem here. The man's elegance and mad charm really made all his scenes out as highlights of the entire film. The Oedipal side of his antagonism towards M and Bond was rather interesting, but I was impressed by how Bardem sold it. Roger Deakins stands very high in my estimation here. The whole film looked excellent, but I loved how he shot Scotland so gorgeously. I had been dreading sitting through it, but along with Deakins and Bardem on the ride the pacing hardly made this feel like it was almost two and one half hours. That title sequence was great as well. I might try to catch this again pretty soon.

[Drucker]

I'm not a huge Bond fan, but I did like this movie (first one with Craig I've seen). It was enjoyable to watch, but there were enough things that felt like plot holes to kind of bother me:

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1. Did Bardem's character mean to get arrested, a la Joker in Dark Knight? If not, how did he manage the entire London sequence?
2. How did Bardem's character escape the first prison?
3. There were a lot of false endings here, and probably one or two too many for me.
4. I really expected the whole identity-cracking thing to last more than for just one week. Not that it necessarily had to, but it felt like a pretty big deal that wasn't addressed as best as it could have been, just tossed off that "3 agents are dead".

This could all be par for the course crazy in Bond films and I honestly wouldn't know it. Still entertaining, fun, and the incredible amount of self-referential Bond business towards the end (and the way they handled the classic martini line) was great. Q was good, and on a personal level, I consider myself a bit old(er) fashioned (compared to my peers) (I don't have an mp3 player or a smart phone and have no desire for one) so it was nice that the whole movie was based around an "old shit still works well" mentality.

[HistoryProf]

my 13 year old daughter saw it today with a boy and said it was "AWESOME!!!" So there's that.

[hearthesilence]

Just saw this, was a little disappointed because I had high expectations, thanks to some enormous praise from others. It's not bad, but the first half was a slog.

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I didn't think the film picked up until Bardem made his entrance.

I liked the new territory that was staked out this time around (Bond's past, a bit more of M for once), as well as the winks to the franchise's past.

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With the Aston Martin that was rolled out, followed by the use of the classic Bond theme, unfettered, and the retreat to Scotland, I nearly expected Connery to pop out of the shadows instead of Finney. And considering how much the Craig Bond films sought to re-invent the franchise, it's amusing how this one basically planted everything back to the ways of old. Whishaw and Harris are obviously a change, but still, we've got Q and Moneypenny back in place as well as a male M whose demeanor doesn't seem far from Bernard Lee's. Kind of nice and tidy how most of this happens in the very last scene, punctuated by the return of the barrel-POV of Bond.

[hearthesilence]

Surprised at the overwhelmingly positive response to this. The first hour is a top notch Bond picture, and I do agree that the scenes set in Shanghai are very good...

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But then Bardem appears, and from then on the film is almost as tedious as Quantum of Solace. In retrospect, anonymous Bond girl's speech about "not knowing fear until you've met Bardem" is pretty funny, as I hardly saw anything suggesting that this dude is capable of inspiring a "new level of fear". Bardem was funny for the first two minutes, but then I grew tired of his schtick, and in the end I much preferred Mathieu Amalric in the otherwise dreadful previous Bond picture. Things looked like they were about to pick up once they reached Scotland, but this kind of climax is much more enjoyable in any of the first 3 entries in the Home Alone saga.

LOL, pretty much the opposite of what I said! Actually, the Shanghai scenes weren't bad, and the setup seemed more exciting in the trailer, which again showed M16 HQ blowing up, Bond getting shot, etc. But having got that from the commercials, I didn't get much from watching the film proper, at least not in the first hour. The action clichés are still cringe-inducing. "Where have you been?" "What took you so long?" The only way it could've been worse is if Craig replied "traffic," but only Schwarzenegger's characters would still do that.

I agree, I expected more from the climax (I still enjoyed its setup), but the way it played out felt a bit generic.

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I actually watched L.A. Confidential the night before and couldn't help but compare this climactic shootout with theirs, and this one didn't come close in terms of execution or urgency. Bigger and louder, but that's it.

I should add, I'm not a huge Bond fan. I watch them the way I might return to a local dive for a burger. The only ones I'd ever watch again are the first three.

[cdnchris]

An acquaintance who works at an LA multiplex and fancies himself a cinephile declared Skyfall "the Best Bond since Goldeneye!" I could only ask "is that good?" He went on to present as his bonafides the following list of the top 5 Bond flicks:

From Russia With Love
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Skyfall
Goldeneye
Casino Royale

I'm really amazed by that list because my top five would resemble that pretty closely except Goldeneye would be nowhere near the top and closer to the bottom. Watching it again it's still, for me, one of the more mediocre Bond entries. I'm guessing if it was one of the first ones you saw, maybe I would understand the love, but it really has one of the lamer schemes, a bland Bond villain (even though I like Sean Bean a lot as an actor) and other than the tank chase some of the more ho-hum action scenes. Famke is great, and so is Gottfried John, who I really wish was the primary villain, but everything else -- meh.

I loved Skyfall, which I felt was a love letter for Bond nuts like me. My favourites are From Russia with Love and On Her Majesty's Secret Service and this one was more in tone with those. I actually liked the more reflective nature of it, and thought Craig delivered one hell of a performance. I think Bardem ranks up there with the top Bond villains, though I'll admit his scheme was a bit farfetched (I guess his character would know how MI6 would react to certain things but it was hard to buy he could plan everything down so perfectly.) I realize now there was actually very little action in the film, but the set pieces it had (the opening, the midway chase, and the finale) were all great. But I loved how Mendes and team actually tried to build up suspense instead of coming up with outlandish scenarios. I also geeked out from many of the references

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including the Aston Martin from Goldfinger

and was especially thrilled by the ending and what it might mean for the series as it continues.

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Seeing Miss Moneypenny back in her little reception area, complete with the coat rack, really made me giddy, as did the padded sound proof door to M's office. And though I figured it out a bit early, I was so happy to see Ralph Fiennes now behind M's desk. I'm actually surprised he'd sign on to play the character, who is important but is really secondary to everything else, but I think the casting is rather perfect.

I'm really thrilled about where the series could be going now. Yet I will admit I hope they can bring back some maniacal villain hellbent on world domination, or comes up with extraordinary extortion schemes. Blofeld could use a refresh.

[matrixschmatrix]

As far as Bardem's scheme goes-

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I'm wondering if there was an earlier draft where he actually, totally destroyed the extant MI6 infrastructure. The pieces are there- Bond is working with all new people by the end of the movie, all the stuff about being the only rats left, a lot of the political questioning the continuing relevance of the organization, and the fact that as it stands the whole being captured and taking over the MI6 computers aspect of his scheme apparently accomplishes nothing whatever. Even Bond going to earth in his childhood home seems like it would be more motivated had that happened. As it is, it feels like a lot of the plot just doesn't link up.

[Mr Sausage]

I had the same reaction as Chris: fantastic Bond film. Definitely up there with Casino Royale and From Russia With Love as my favourite Bonds (while I haven't seen all of them, the ones I've missed are Roger Moore Bonds and I can't stand them).

Bardem's making quite a career out of playing terrifying men with odd hair. This was one of the few action movies where I actually looked forward to hearing more of the villain's speeches. His performance was delicious without being campy, and he had these odd, amusing looks and asides. His weary exasperation with all the running, shooting, and exploding that's never far from Bond was a nice touch. The psychology that the movie suggests is behind the character helped make the over-elaborateness of what turned out to be a

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simple revenge plot

work, at least I thought. It let me keep being swept along by the plot. With a movie like this you only need just enough to keep going along with it all.

I had a friend in highschool who was a Bond nut, and Daniel Craig has all the characteristics that we would come up with whenever the topic of our ideal Bond came up. And both Casino Royale and Skyfall are the kind of Bond films we always wanted to see.

[HistoryProf]

An acquaintance who works at an LA multiplex and fancies himself a cinephile declared Skyfall "the Best Bond since Goldeneye!" I could only ask "is that good?" He went on to present as his bonafides the following list of the top 5 Bond flicks:

From Russia With Love
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Skyfall
Goldeneye
Casino Royale

I'm really amazed by that list because my top five would resemble that pretty closely except Goldeneye would be nowhere near the top and closer to the bottom. Watching it again it's still, for me, one of the more mediocre Bond entries. I'm guessing if it was one of the first ones you saw, maybe I would understand the love, but it really has one of the lamer schemes, a bland Bond villain (even though I like Sean Bean a lot as an actor) and other than the tank chase some of the more ho-hum action scenes. Famke is great, and so is Gottfried John, who I really wish was the primary villain, but everything else -- meh.

I loved Skyfall, which I felt was a love letter for Bond nuts like me. My favourites are From Russia with Love and On Her Majesty's Secret Service and this one was more in tone with those.

Those are my two favorites as well. I think FRwL is by far the best one and it's not really close. I think you are spot on with the love for Goldeneye or any of the 90s entries...just a different generation. Looking at my post I think it was more dismissive than I meant it to be...mostly I just find it interesting that younger fans tend to love the Craig flicks and Goldeneye in particular of the modern era. I'll be honest, i've never seen a Dalton Bond and i've mostly ignored the Brosnan entries since they originally came out. Bits and pieces on tv is about it...but I LOVE most of the Connery films, and find the better Moore's eminently rewatchable and entertaining. They got downright silly towards the end, but you can't deny Moore's charm. But I'm a child of the 70s so I grew up with Connery and Moore, and in my 30s Brosnan and Dalton in particular seemed almost sacrilegious to me. Add in casting like Denise Richards as a nuclear physicist and I just can't take them seriously...because unlike the cheekier Moore films they enter the realm of tepid, predictable, and ridiculous.

I'm curious to see Skyfall - I like Casino Royale quite a bit as it seemed to harken back to the older school, but Quantam of Solace was a mess that tried to be too Bourne with the action. It feels like the praise this is getting, however, is built on the desire for something to equal the 1960s and better 1970s films..because nothing has come close since The Spy Who Loved Me (with the possible exception of For Your Eyes Only in 1981). Moonraker and Octopussy were not good, but still entertaining in an MST3K kind of way. The 80s and 90s were just derivative money grabs in my opinion, though I think I'd like to see Tomorrow Never Dies again. That seems to be the one bright spot there.

[Drucker]

Surely some love of Goldeneye in young kids is partially a result of the superb N64 video game?

[Mr Sausage]

Historyprof, you really ought to check out License to Kill. An excellent Bond, not at all a money grab, with a really surprising mean streak to it. Dalton is a superb Bond, I think, provided you like his hard edge.