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A blog that I haven't used in forever, but thanks to the coronavirus, I'M BACK. This time we're talking about 007 to get excited for the upcoming 25th Bond film "No Time To Die".
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Moonraker - #24WeeksofBond
Happy Labor Day! Here we are, the last Bond film until November’s release of No Time To Die. In a world, and in a year where everything has seemed to slow down due to the chaos and the uncertainty of a global pandemic...this project has done what I wanted it to, which was speed things up. I can’t believe we are already in September and only two months away from No Time To Die’s release. This has been fun and watching all the Bond films out of order has opened my eyes and offered a fresh perspective of each film respectively. That being said, Moonraker finishes our Bond marathon out and it actually was exactly what I remember it being, so no real eye opening, out of body experience here.
As a young adult I always rather enjoyed the humorous side of the Bond films. I thought the dirty one liners were hilarious and the gadgets were super cool. Which is why Moonraker had been one film I looked forward to as we would go through the Bond films in sequential order, over and over again. These days my palate is a bit more refined. I’ve matured and developed a taste for good story over anything else. Moonraker offers everything on the surface, a rather “paint by the numbers” Bond film; there is nothing hidden, nothing to go back and figure out. Not saying that that isn’t welcomed sometimes, but I would still like to try and figure out just who is behind everything rather than just being told right away.
Moonraker was a reactionary move on the part of Eon productions after Star Wars came out and after the box office numbers saw huge dollars, they decided to change gears. It had become customary after every Bond movie to reveal the title of the next Bond film in the closing credits, after The Spy Who Loved Me the credits rolled and said “James Bond Will Return In: For Your Eyes Only”. Whoops. Well because Bond is being reactionary here and because they only allowed a couple years in between each Bond movie, it was hard to change pace and give each Bond movie a unique flavor like the Daniel Craig Movies; therefor we get just another run of the mill, funny ha-ha Moore Bond movie...but in space with freakin laser beams!
We open up in the pre-title sequence with an airplane carrying a space shuttle called the Moonraker, but gets hijacked mid air. This causes alarm so Bond is called in, but before he reports for duty Bond is accidentally thrown from the airplane he is in by the returning Jaws! Yes, Jaws had been so incredibly popular that he had to come back, but this time...he’s pretty much a clown, but I’m kinda into it. Not the creepy ass clown we see in a dark alley which was horrifying...but just a regular clown that entertains kids at barbecues. I think it really would’ve worked better had they not re-introduced Jaws until after Drax’s man Cha dies.
Back to the film...Well, Bond says the shuttles are made by Hugo Drax (Michael Lonsdale) so that must be it. And yep, it is. Pretty simple. I wonder if they could’ve at least gave us a few scenes with Drax to speculate if it is him, or if he is being set up before we see Drax’s evil side. Drax and Bond have tea and Bond can’t even get out the door before Drax is telling his guy to F him up. So the plot is pretty much spelled out for you, the only thing we have to wonder...is why? Before we come to that answer, we are pretty much taken on a 2 hour ride of Drax’s people trying to kill Bond, but failing. Seriously, Drax has someone around every corner, how does he get these people to go along with these plans??
One heart wrenching scene in this film is when Bond discovers a safe, and Cha finds Bond with the pilot who took him to the property. They then stick the dogs on her, this poor girl is running through the woods like she is in “The Grey” trying to get away from the dogs, but ends up getting ripped apart. Unfortunately Bond never finds out that he had a hand in her death by getting her to help him - this could’ve added a little weight and dramatics to the film. But I love the part in that same scene where Drax wants Bond to shoot a pheasant from the sky for sport, but instead Bond shoots a gunman out of the tree, and as Drax says “You missed Mr.Bond” the shooter falls out of the tree and Bond retorts “Did I?”. Love it.
Bond eventually finds a laboratory where some vials are being filled with some toxic gas but Drax tries to throw everyone off the scent by replacing the lab with a giant office. Bond convinces M that the Lab was there, and M keeps Bond on the mission - but on the DL.
Along the way Bond is introduced to one Holly Goodhead, oh those funny sex pun names for females that have not aged well...Goodhead, played by Lois Chiles, is an undercover CIA operative working for Drax as a cover. When we first meet her she takes Bond to the flight simulator where all our worst nightmares about amusement parks come to life. Cha takes over the controls and damn near takes Bond’s face skin off before the wrist dart gun comes in handy. Pretty intense stuff there. Bond finds out she’s CIA and they begin working together. There’s nothing special about Chiles performance here...she skates by.
They follow the trail of crumbs until they are eventually finding themselves on one of the Moonraker space shuttles lifting into orbit and inside a space headquarters that will be used as a sex pit....yes, Drax is scheming to kill everyone on earth and replace them with men and women who are physically superior, and they are to breed and make babies so that the new world will be physically fit and sexy and Drax will become God. Hot. Well, of course Bond is not about that...even though maybe he could’ve prevented COVID-19 had he let Drax wipe out the population? Thanks a lot Bond!
Another funny avenue they take with the Jaws character is that he finds love in a woman we are supposed to believe would fall for someone like him...because she has pigtails and glasses? If she had had braces it would made sense...two metal mouths, ya know? But because Jaws finds love, he turns babyface and starts helping Bond kill Drax, because Jaws fears Drax is going to eliminate him for not being genetically superior. This ends with Bond and Goodhead trying to escape but can’t, so they enlist Jaws to break then free, and Jaws and girl fly off into the sunset...literally.
All in all, Moonraker is meant to just be a fun ride. I don’t mind that every once in while, and I do find a lot of Moonraker’s bits to be amusing, but because there is a lack of depth in the story and a lack of interesting personalities in Goodhead and Drax, this movie falls a little short. Not Moore’s worst, but not his best - just very middle of the road. And while it does have it’s moments of suspense with Bond and Goodhead being trapped underneath the ignition of the shuttle, and the cable car scene with Jaws - we are also taken for idiots with the gondola scene where Bond is driving it through the city - forcing birds to do double takes. Yeah you read that right.
Thank you to everyone who followed this little blog of mine closely, this was super fun for me, and I am going to use this as a way to rank all the Bond films once and for all!
Sound off, what did you think?
Reviews from Friends:
Curtiss Frisle
Pretty great until they get to space.
24 Weeks of Bond will return in November with -
No Time To Die
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The World Is Not Enough - #24WeeksofBond
Only two more films to go in my 24 Weeks of Bond marathon and already we are just a few months away from the big release of “No Time To Die” (so I hope). This week we are capping off Pierce Brosnan’s career with “The World Is Not Enough” the film that got its title from the Bond family crest motto. It is always rather funny now going all the way back to “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” when Bond goes to learn all he can about genealogy and they throw Bond’s family crest at him with the phrase The World is Not Enough on it - Just a little easter egg for all of you new found Bond lovers that have been following this journey. The year was 1999, Marilyn Manson was the hottest act in music, Stone Cold Steve Austin was in his prime, and Star Wars was coming back...things were getting heavy, gritty, and Bond started to get a little lost.
This was my first time seeing this movie in a really long time and I forgot just how dark is was intended to be. Things have gotten really personal with M and Bond. This is the first time that M had a major role in the plot. Every year before, M is just handing out the orders, sending Bond on a plane to some exotic location and interrupting Bond and Moneypenny’s game of temptation. Not this time. M is now involved after one of her beloved friends dies in an explosion in MI6. There is quite a lot to unpack with this plot, so forgive me if I don’t get to everything. Let me try to summarize this plot in one paragraph...
Elektra King (Sophie Marceau) had been kidnapped by a terrorist named Renard (Robert Carlyle). Elektra develops Stockholm syndrome and falls in love with her captor, they then scheme a plot to kill her father after M’s strategy of using her as bait failed to play out, and steal a nuclear bomb to be used to destroy the city of Istanbul in order for oil to be redirected to a giant oil pipeline that is owned by the company that Elektra now owns after her father’s death. All while making the whole thing look like an accident so Elektra can get by with the millions of dollars and total power over the oil industry. I think that’s all! I did it!
There is so much going on in this movie where it takes a few views to really put all the pieces together. However, I do like the dark and personal direction they were taking it. Something tells me that if they had saved this plot for “Quantum Of Solace” and Daniel Craig’s acting chops, it would’ve been a fantastic movie. Unfortunately Brosnan, while excellent in his own right, just can’t pull off a script of this weight. Pierce is great with the everyday Bond mission films, but when things start getting a little emotional or edgy, that’s when I start to lose him.
One key element to this film is that it sadly marks the end of Desmond Llewelyn’s career as Q. Shortly after this film’s release Desmond would pass away in a tragic car accident. Desmond’s contribution to the Bond series in indescribable. He was the face of the Bond gadgets that made the films so much fun over the years. Although he had only been used in a few scenes here and there in each movie, his long term impact would be incredibly significant. Llewelyn’s tenure spanned the first 5 Bond’s, first appearing all the way back to From Russia With Love. It’s a streak of films with a character played by one actor that can’t be measured up to and the Bond series will live on in his honor. Thank you Desmond Llewelyn for everything!
Llewelyn was retiring anyways, so they wrote John Cleese in as his replacement which was such a smart choice. Although the Q character had become comical over time - John Cleese was brought in from Monty Python to carry the comical Q flag into the future. Unfortunately for Cleese, they went in a different direction after Die Another Day. On top of the well known John Cleese coming in, we were also force fed Denise Richards as Christmas Jones...ugh eye roll.
Denise was a pretty obvious sex appeal choice here as that was starting to become the trend. Casting a well known actress as the leading Bond girl starting with Terri Hatcher, then Denise Richards, and finally Halle Berry. The character Christmas Jones was written for one reason, and one reason only...for the final line of the film where Bond says...(and I can’t even type this out without gagging)...”I thought Christmas only comes once a year”. Yeah, they went there. While watching this movie in the Theatres I was starting to get the feeling that Bond was getting a little too over the top with the one liners and the sex puns. I didn’t know it then, as I was watching the film sitting in the aisle because the place was packed, but I was ready for something different. I thought we deserved better. Then Die Another Day came out, and I for sure knew it then.
The World is Not Enough sparked the beginning of the end for Brosnan. He came out guns a blazing with Goldeneye and had a solid second outing with Tomorrow Never Dies, but The World is Not Enough was starting to feel like campy Brosnan is not enough.
This movie has it perks though. The pre-title sequence is the longest pre-title sequence in the franchise’s history, and is packed with exciting action which includes a high speed boat chase with Bond doing triple barrels and adjusting his tie under water. It’s in this pre-title sequence we see the beginning chain of events taking place that set up the rest of the film. One of those key events is when Bond jumps off the boat and grabs onto the rope thats attached to the hot air balloon that is holding the woman Bond is chasing. Bond tries to tell her that he can help her but she says “Not from him” and shoot the gas can, triggering Bond to just let go, dislocating his shoulder from the impact. Pretty exciting stuff for just the opening.
Sophie Marcou is also excellent in this film. She plays the victim so brilliantly that you are legit shocked at the reveal of her being the one who set everything up. Again, it’s the bad guys & gals that make you like them are that are the best villains. Elektra ranks for me as one of the best Bond villains just because you don’t, or don’t want to, suspect it. Bond is also becoming increasingly infatuated with her which makes the story even more deep.
But to me, this could’ve been a great film, but it was just too bogged down with the complication of the plot, the hokey character traits (Renard being immune to pain), the weird saw copter, and the blatant use of over sexualization in the Christmas Jones character. Also, Denise Richards is just kind of bad. There’s hints of sarcasm with her character giving her a bit of a rough around the edges feel, but overall it just comes off as bad acting.
There is much to like about this film, however, there is also much to dislike - I want to like this movie, I really do, but my typing fingers are saying otherwise. But that’s it for me - what did YOU think?
Reviews from Friends:
Tyler Dahlgren
I didn’t have a problem with Brosnan in this one. I mean he didn’t write the dialog. And I think he does fine with the edgier/emotional parts. He has to go a good chunk of the movie playing off Richards who is an absolute anchor dragging every scene to the dark abysmal depths. I think she’s honestly just that bad. It was after this one that Pierce started talking he was done. Can’t imagine why.
24 Weeks of Bond returns, for the last time, next Monday with -
Moonraker
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Dr.No - #24WeeksofBond
#24WeeksofBond continues this week with the first ever James Bond film under the leadership of Harry Saltzman and Albert “Cubby” Broccoli who would form Eon Productions to produce the James Bond films. Hollywood was skeptical about the films and didn’t want to make too much of an investment in it, saying that the novels were too British and sexual. When they finally got the green light to produce Dr.No, they were only given 1 Million dollars...can you imagine that? It takes 10 times that to shoot a rom-com these days. Well even back then, 1 million wasn’t all the much to make an action movie - and it shows.
There’s only so much negative you can say about this movie before you start sounding ungrateful or pretentious. It’s hard to really shit on Dr.No since this would be the start of a franchise that will last 57 years and counting. The longest Hollywood franchise ever all starts here with this stripped down, methodical, detective thriller that brought Sean Connery into mainstream heights. Cary Grant was the man who was the strongest choice for the role, however he was only willing to commit to one film and they needed someone who could provide a bit more staying power. In walks Sean Connery.
Connery was a relatively unknown at this point, he had a few roles on stage and in film but landing the role of 007 was Sean’s breakthrough. He went from “oh yeah that guy” to household name in two hours (or whatever the run time is for this film). Ian Fleming was originally against the casting of Connery but quickly changed his mind after how much of a commercial success Dr.No would become and started to work Connery’s Scottish heritage into the character in the novel “You Only Live Twice”.
So here we are, off to the races in 007′s first ever adventure to Jamaica where he will go and stay. Usually with the Bond films they are shot in multiple locations, but with the budget they had - they shot everything in Jamaica and in the famous Pinewood Studios. Dr.No isn’t what I would call a high octane, action adventure. The film itself is quite dull and slow, but it is more about the mission than it is about the stunts and the gadgets and the cars. This is a straight up detective drama. MI6′s contact in Jamaica goes silent, so they send Bond down to Jamaica to find out what happened.
First of all, this opening is just so 60′s, I love it. No pre-title sequence that will start to be a tradition come the follow up film “From Russia With Love” so it opens with the gun barrel sequence that Connery’s stunt double films right into this psychedelic light show that makes you feel like you’re raving at Studio 54. (Not sure if thats the right time period for that reference, but oh well). We see a man named Strangways get shot and killed followed by his secretary. Now Bond is on the case. But first we are taken to the local casino where we will meet Bond playing his favorite card game. Connery looks so good here, and delivers his first “Bond, James Bond” line to perfection, complete with cig hanging out of his mouth.
Right away we get a sense that James Bond is as smooth as butter and takes a lovely lady named Sylvia Trench to the cleaners with the game they're playing. He charms her and they become a thing. But after that, Bond is now on the mission in Jamaica. We come to find out after Bond’s great police work that there is this island named Crab Key that people on the island are scared of and rumors of a Dr.No running the island like a camp. Bond’s ears are perked up and he is curious. But everyone who gets a little too close to the island ends up dead. Naturally Bond finds convincing Quarrel (John Kitzmiller) to take him there. Quarrel tells the story of a dragon that lives on the island and Bond rolls his eyes.
While Bond is on the trail, there is a few attempts at his life. One right away when he arrives in Jamaica and a man posing as a driver takes him in his car. Then he finds a freaking tarantula in his bed while he’s sleeping and Bond get sweaty with fear. Bond finally defeats the spider with some very intense shoe squishes. Then there is another “car chase” on his way to ladies house. This car chase is so hilarious. You can just tell Connery is doing everything he can to simulate a car chase in front of a green screen with wonderful uses of his facial work.
Bond manages to avoid all the attempts on his life and finds his way to Crab Key with Quarrel’s help. Here Bond meets Honey Ryder (Ursula Andress), an explorer & orphan who loves wildlife and is very guarded, strapping herself with a knife to protect her seashells. I love Honey Ryder, she’s sexy but also has a dark past that doesn’t allow her to get close to anyone and is untrusting of anyone. I guess that’s just what Crab Key does to you. Bond’s crew is complete and it’s now time to get this Dr.No fellow.
This is where the movie finally picks up a little when the “dragon” or tank that shoots fire kills Quarrel. Poor Quarrel. Bond and Ryder are then brought to Dr.No’s office where they will dine and be softened up. This is where we finally meet Dr.No (Joseph Wiseman), The character that partially inspired the Dr.Evil character in the Austin Powers movies. Dr.No reveals that he is a member of SPECTRE, a name Bond has never heard before, and little does Bond know that SPECTRE will soon be a big ole pain in the ass for him.
What Dr.No is doing is toppling missiles by use of a beam in an effort to control the airspace and use it to extort countries. So Bond kills Dr.No because that’s not okay. But in doing so he has made it so the whole place is going to up in flames. They escape and the place explodes! Now apparently the studio got an extra 100,000 dollars to finance this explosion shot. It was worth it, because that is the big climax that they were building towards. I think It paid off.
I mean, that’s about it...Dr.No set the bar for what the essence of Bond is, a charming and confident detective who is damn good at his job. While this film lacks in crazy fight scenes, and plane shoot outs, and remote control cars, it is meant for the viewer to just get to know who James Bond is. From Russia With Love will then raise the bar when it comes to action, while Goldfinger sets the standard all Bond films from then on will have to live up to.
If you like a Dragnet sort of pace in your detective movies, then Dr.No is the film for you. I have all the respect in the world for this movie, but it just doesn’t do it for me as a stand alone film, and that’s my take.
What did you think? Let me know!
24 Weeks of Bond will return next Monday with -
The World Is Not Enough
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The Living Daylights - #24WeeksofBond
#24WeeksofBond continues this week with Timothy Dalton’s debut as 007 in “The Living Daylights”, a film about defection, deception, and a damn good cello player. Man, this movie felt LONG tonight, maybe it’s because of how slow the movie is to get going. There’s only so much you can take of Bond riding the bumper cars and taking in a community theatre performance before you start getting a little antsy for action and drama. Timothy Dalton is quite visibly uncomfortable in this role, he finds his footing with the character in his next outing in “License To Kill”, but here it’s like they wanted a smooth transition from the light hearted and comedic style of Moore to a darker Bond with inner conflict.
After 7 movies, Roger Moore has finally convinced the studio that he is done. Pierce Brosnan was the favorite to take over Roger Moore in this film as James Bond, but timing was not on Pierce’s side. Due to conflict issues with Pierce’s cop comedy “Remington Steele”, Brosnan was contractually obligated to turn down the role of James Bond, leaving the studio to turn to a welsh stage actor in Timothy Dalton. Dalton took his craft very seriously and wanted to bring a sense of freshness to the role after the Bond character had almost become a caricature.
Dalton had previous reservations about playing the part since he had been considered even before Moore was in the picture. Dalton had made public statements about his lack of interest, which made the choice of Dalton as Bond not a unanimous decision by the producers. Somehow Dalton finally agreed to play the role and the rest, as they say, is history. This plot was taken from a short story Ian Fleming had wrote and would be the last time a Bond film would be named after and influenced by an Ian Fleming story (That is until Casino Royale in 2006).
So now we are off to the races with Timothy Dalton and we are introduced to him in the pre-title sequence where Bond is sky-diving into a game of paintball. This is meant to be a training exercise, but ends up getting a little out of control when someone isn’t playing very nicely and kills one of the agents. Bond chases him down and latches onto the top of the guys get away vehicle with burning boxes of explosives in the back. A pretty good way to come in with a bang, I would say. I do enjoy this scene and Dalton nails the danger of the situation perfectly, but then we see him in a situation where Moore probably would’ve excelled better at when he drops in a bikini-clad woman on a yacht who is desperate for a real man. Something about this just doesn’t work. Dalton just doesn’t have a ladies man vibe.
Flash forward over a sweet Bond theme by a-Ha, where we are now starting to uncover a plot. Bond has been hand-picked to protect a KGB officer who is defecting from the Soviet Union. There is intel that there will be a sniper when Geogi Kosgov (Jeroen Krabbé) escapes the orchestra. But when Bond sees the sniper he sees that it is the female cellist that he noticed earlier. Right away Bond thinks something is up. Now Bond and Kosgov go way back apparently. They are like best buds and we see this friendship kind of play out in the beginning, yet Bond wonders why they asked for him to protect him? I don’t understand. This is supposed to add another layer of inner conflict when he starts thinking Kosgov is up to something.
Anyway, Kosgov is defecting (or so the British think) because the new leader of Russia is a mad man and is plotting a scheme to kill spies. Bond hears Kosgov’s pitch on this, and is not buying it, so he low key makes a pit stop before going to Vienna to take care of this General Pushkin, to see if he can find this cellist to figure out what’s what. Well turns out this cellist is Kosgov’s girlfriend and is easy to fool and influence. Kara (Maryam d'Abo) is probably the last of a dead breed of Bond girls. The poor helpless damsel who needs the man’s protection is all but dead these days, and the female characters are now written just as strong as the men. Watching d’Abo’s performance here is a little like listening to nails on a chalk board, her helplessness is just a little painful to watch.
Well Bond sniffs the track out and connects Kosgov to an arms dealer and army reject named Brad Whittaker (Joe Don Baker), a man you might recognize in Goldeneye and Tomorrow Never Dies. It always makes me wonder why they would cast the same actor into a different role within the same series. Whittaker is your typical dealer who supplies arms for governments and the like, but admires the likes of Hitler and is a war strategy enthusiast. He is bent, and this time, he is willing to kill the leader of the Soviet Union to protect his investment. Long story short, Whittaker, Kosgov, and Necros (the milkman who chucks milk bombs) are out to convince the British to kill Pushkin to start a war or something.
It’s an interesting plot from the start, but in my opinion, they just fall short in their execution. The first half of the movie is a little one note with Bond tracking down what’s really going on. The only highlight being Bond and Kara sledding away from the bad guys on Kara’s cello case, but even that is a little lame. Bond is telling his people that he is just trying to get information, but it appears that Bond is actually falling for this girl. We see him pulling romantic gesture in stopping the ferris wheel at the top and seducing her with Bond kisses. Then we see a hint of jealousy in Bond’s eyes when she asks about Georgi again. I don’t know, if Kara wasn’t written as such an air-head, I might have believed this.
The movie does pick up toward the end when Bond and Pushkin set up a scenario where Pushkin fakes his own death so that they can find out what the dangerous three have up their sleeve. This leads to Bond earning trust with an Arabic rebel leader who helps him out in getting to where he needs to be to put a stop to this plot. And the final battle scenes are pretty incredible with Bond and the Milk Bomber clinging to a net that has been deployed from the back of a cargo plane in flight. Some pretty jaw dropping stunt work here when they show the wide shot of two stunt men actually clinging to this net - like I have said before, that is the stuff that make Bond what it is...real stunts. Also the final showdown between Bond and Whittaker is super intense. I have always loved that scene. Bond going into war with a battle strategy guru.
Out of Dalton’s two movies he has contributed, The Living Daylights is far less superior than Licence To Kill. Dalton is at his best when there are clear stakes involved that affect his character personally, like with Felix’s leg being bit off by a shark. Dalton doesn’t play “for queen and country” Bond all too convincingly. The Living Daylights was just not a good movie to be a new actor’s first installment in the franchise. If you are introducing a new actor as Bond, you need a script that is going to deliver all the stops to get you excited. I can’t imagine The Living Daylights really did that for Dalton.
Dalton’s two movies were two of the lowest grossing Bond films in the series, although the late 80′s brought a lot of stiff competition the likes of Lethal Weapon, Jaws, Robocop, Beverly Hills Cop, and so on and so forth. There were plenty of other options in other words. The Bond series needed some help and Dalton was not appearing to be the answer. While The Living Daylights has its moments at the end, it really fails to nab the viewer in the first half. But a-Ha was wonderful!
That’s it for me, what did you all think?
Reviews from Friends:
My Wife
(speaking of Kosgov) He is such an over actor...
24 Weeks of Bond will return next Monday with -
Dr. No
#James Bond#timothy dalton#the living daylights#joe don baker#Roger Moore#Pierce Brosnan#24WeeksofBond
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Casino Royale - #24WeeksofBond
The year was 2006, 4 years after what would be the great Pierce Brosnan’s final performance as James Bond. We (nor Pierce) knew it was going to be his last. After Die Another Day, Pierce actually publicly stated that he was going to return for another film...but Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli had different plans. Plans to shake things up a bit, start anew, wipe the slate clean, or whatever euphemism you can think of. The Bond series was starting to grow stale...the cheesy lines, the over sexualized female characters, the over the top gadgets, the aging leading man. It was all running against a new action series that would change the way Bond would be presented, that series was “The Bourne Identity”.
The Bourne films had somewhat of a stripped down package when it came to spectacle. They were able to capture the intensity and thrill of an action film without the use of CGI or big dramatic action scenes. Instead, the camera was hand held to give it a jittery cinematic quality, the fights were hard hitting and raw, the characters were dirty and unpolished, and the viewers loved it. It was fresh - unlike James Bond. Things needed to change, the market was shifting, the storytelling was getting more real and up close. The call was made to unceremoniously dump Pierce Brosnan for a young upstart named Daniel Craig.
Little was known about this man, he had just come off an independent action film called Layer Cake and had starred in big box office hits such as Steven Spielbergs “Munich” and Sam Mendez’s “Road to Perdition”. Still, he wasn’t widely known, the only thing people knew about him was that he was...gasp...BLONDE! Man oh man, did people raise a stink about this. Bond is supposed to have jet black hair, this is BULLS*#%! I didn’t care at the time, but I just had no idea who the man was, and the reveal to me was a bit anti-climactic. But they sure made all the nay sayers eat their words as Daniel Craig has widely been considered the best Bond of all time. He has certainly become my favorite.
The plan was to start from square one, retell the story of Bond. How did Bond get to be 007? The only way they could retell the story of Bond, was to go back to the very first novel written by Ian Fleming, a novel that had only been filmed as a farce decades prior. It was time to make Casino Royale as it should be told. I was pretty pumped about this, I always knew of Casino Royale but only as a movie that wasn’t to be taken seriously. It was nice to finally be introduced to the story and to be able to erase whatever legacy Casino Royale had before.
I love this movie. It is just so beautifully done and it does what it is supposed to do, which is tell the story of how Bond becomes 007. Breaking from tradition, (much to my dismay) we do not open with the famous gun barrel sequence. Something we wouldn’t get until Craig’s fourth Bond film. Instead we open up on Bond in a mans office who is betraying MI6. The guy says “you’re not a double 0 because you’ve got no kills, dawg.” We then get flashes of the guys contact Bond is ruthlessly fighting (in very Bourne fashion). Apparently it only takes 2 kill to become a double 0. Bond kills the guy in the office, and his contact...Bond is now 007 - but he’s not QUITE 007 yet.
The best part about the first few Craig movies is that, yes his status is 007 now, but there is much more to learn about being an agent than getting your kills and finishing a job. There is finesse, there is restraint, there is an uncompromising dedication to the job and to your country, that Bond still has yet to learn and right now - Bond is as sloppy as Manwich.
This movie is about an accountant named Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen) who invests terrorists money in the stock market. Le Chiffre’s plans for making an airlines stock plummet get mucked up by James Bond who, on his own, has followed a trail that led right to him. So Le Chiffre attempts to recoup the funds by hosting a high stakes poker game with a 10 million dollar buy in. Le Chiffre is a math wizard which makes him almost unbeatable at poker, but Bond is sent to get a spot in the game to make sure Le Chiffre does not win. Mads is absolutely perfect in this role. He plays Le Chiffre with such class and has such a wonderfully menacing look to him.
While Bond is en route to Montenegro for the Poker game, Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) comes to the table to introduce herself as the money. Vesper works for MI6 and is the one in charge of handling the dough. Vesper has a bit of distain for this plan as she sees it as a risk, because if Le Chiffre wins, MI6 will have directly financed terrorism. Bond and Vesper trade barbs and VERBALLY dress each other down, showing how good Bond is at reading people - which makes him a good card player. Vesper is still not sold. The relationship between Bond and Vesper is so unique because we are seeing an unpolished Bond who still has feelings and is starting to have feelings for Vesper. Although it starts getting a little over the top when he sets his password to “Vesper” and names a drink after “Vesper” - it’s like ok, maybe one of those would’ve sufficed.
The best part about this movie besides all the amazing action sequences, is the card game. Somehow, they have managed to turn a game of poker into an intense and thrilling sequence where we see Bond trip and fall, almost die, put on a new jacket, and get back on the horse. I love the way we are taken on the journey to where Bond is figuring out Le Chiffre’s tell, so much so that Bond goes all in on Le Chiffre because Bond THINKS he knows what’s up, but we find out the Le Chiffre was playing Bond. Bond loses everything. Bond then suddenly grabs a knife and is in last ditch attempt mode, but suddenly one of the card players stops him...ITS FELIX, WITH TWO LEGS!!
We haven’t seen Felix since License To Kill, so this was a treat. I love Jeffery Wright as Felix, and I hope he sticks around after Craig leaves. Anyway, Felix helps Bond get back in, and then Bond gets poisoned and goes into cardiac arrest, only to be saved by Vesper. Bond eventually beats Le Chiffre with a royal flush and Le Chiffre’s days are numbered. What a beautiful sequence this whole thing is. It’s one of my favorite acts in all of Bond history. Just a quiet, but absolutely thrilling game of high stakes poker.
I could go on and on, but Bond ends up quitting MI6 because he wants to be with Vesper for the rest of his life. Bond is in love. Little would we know that Vesper has actually betrayed Bond by giving an account number that only she has access too so that she can withdraw the money and deliver it to the people who are ordering her to get it. Vesper’s back story is that she had a boyfriend who got kidnapped and Vesper was being blackmailed. Unfortunately for Vesper, she started falling for Bond as well, but she had a job to do. Vesper was definitely one of the ones to remember, it’s a real pity that she ends up being a baddie.
This whole movie we are seeing all of Bond’s actions, and consequences of those actions, shape who Bond will eventually become come “Spectre”. While it had bothered me that they decided to connect the Craig films with some over arching of characters and stories - I’m now finding myself appreciating the fact that they didn’t give it all to us right away. They didn’t turn Bond into Bond in one movie, it’s takes 3 movies to get the Bond we love. While we tend to live in a short term world these days with the need for instant gratification, it’s nice to get some long term storytelling. And now that we are a few years removed from it, I can really sit back now and respect the risk it took to break from all the tradition and give us a Bond that had some depth, meaning, and art.
I also love the song “You know My Name” by the late, great Chris Cornell who rocks that song. One of my favorite Bond themes ever with an artistic title sequence incorporating the playing card aspect of the film into it.
All of everyone’s worries about Daniel Craig being Bond quickly evaporated with Casino Royale, and it became an instant favorite. It’s in my top four for sure...EDIT: After watching this tonight, I have decided that I like this film better than Skyfall - top 3 for sure. And because this film had the novel behind it, there is just a little more meat to the story than your typical fresh idea Bond films. Casino Royale gave us a fresh start with James Bond, a fresh start we didn’t really know we wanted until we got it - and I am so ready for the journey to continue. I will be so sad when Craig is gone, but I’m so lucky I got to be here for it!
That’s it for me, what did you all think?
24 Weeks of Bond will return next Monday with -
The Living Daylights
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Diamonds Are Forever - #24WeeksofBond
24 Weeks of Bond returns this week with Diamonds Are Forever, Sean Connery’s reprising and final performance as Bond. (That is, of course, until Never Say Never Again - but that doesn’t count). This film was supposed to be a sequel to On Her Majestys Secret Service with Bond mourning the death of his late wife Tracey and going on a revenge mission. George Lazenby had originally been offered a 7 movie deal, but due to Lazenby’s unwillingness to cooperate with the studio and some bad advise from his agent saying that James Bond was flaming out as a franchise, he left after just one movie. This forced the writers to do a re-write, and for the studio to lure Connery back to the role for a hefty price tag and the promise of two non-Bond films of his choosing.
So here we are, the Bond franchise is in full on panic mode - and because of it, we get a rather odd Bond film with an aged Connery, some weird characters, and a questionable casting choice in Charles Grey as Blofeld....BUT it does have some rather fun moments, & cool stunts. I enjoyed this film a little more than I thought I would tonight, but the downright weird aspects of the film still weight the movie down in terms of overall standing within the franchise. I just can never get over this Charles Grey casting as Blofeld. Blofeld had been rocking a cue ball the past two films and that’s just how we know Blofeld to look...he can’t just GROW HAIR ALL THE SUDDEN!!!
Sean Connery is definitely just in it for the money at this point, but a little time away seemed to have done him some good as it looks like he is having a bit more fun with the role as compared to his last outing in You Only Live Twice. Still, it must’ve been so confusing back then to have three movies in a row have a different actor play James Bond. OHMSS, Lazenby....Diamonds are Forever, Connery....Live and Let Die, Moore...what a wild time that must’ve been.
We have Jill St. John playing Tiffany Case who is one of my favorite Bond girls. She has this commanding, no BS demeanor as a diamond smuggler should have but also has this way of comedically trying to weasel her way out of jail time when she finds out Peter Franks is James Bond. Tiffany Case is definitely one of the more memorable performances in the series. Although I still don’t know why she put on all those wigs in the beginning.
This film starts out with Bond on a mission to find Blofeld. Since this is the film after On Her Majestys Secret Service, you can only understand why he is desperately after him. However, any traces of a revenge plot quickly disappears when Connery enters the picture. No mention of marriage in this film at all. Except for when the guy asks how Bond’s holiday was, and Bond says enjoyable...what a sociopath. The story here is that there is a diamond smuggling ring that is operating, but the smugglers keep getting intercepted by two killer lovers named Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd. Well business has been amping up and Bond is sent to Holland to see what he can find.
Meanwhile Blofeld is creating clones of him self by people who undergo some sort of mud therapy to transform their faces to look like Blofeld. The reason the diamond smuggling has been getting hotter is because Blofeld is constructing a satellite that holds enough power to be a floating death ray from space...any of this sound familiar?? This is pretty much the story that was used in Die Another Day with Pierce Brosnan (A way more over the top version). So Bond thinks he has killed Blofeld in the pre-title sequence, and I’m sure the audience was fooled as well. But while Bond is following the diamond trail and throwing everyone off by replacing the real diamonds with fake ones...he runs into TWO more Blofelds! Double Trouble.
The plot gets a little muddy when we are taken on the mission with Bond, it’s a little hard to figure out who has the diamonds and how they got to Q and when they were swapped out with fake ones, and so on and so forth. But there are some great moments to be had. One of my personal favorite moments is when Bond kills the real Peter Franks in a rather challenging elevator fight. But he replaces his wallet with Franks, and when Case goes to see who it was she yells “Oh my God...YOU’VE JUST KILLED JAMES BOND!”. Love it. There is also the part where Bond wakes up in a casket while it’s getting burned which is the stuff of nightmares.
We also get a few fun chase scenes with a moon buggy Bond steals from a film set? I have to wonder if this was kind of a humorous way to call out the idea that the moon landing was staged, but I don’t know the timeline of when those conspiracies started taking place. Bond then gets chased by some Vegas cops on the strip where he entraps a bunch of squad cars in a parking lot. So much fun to be had there.
But along with the fun, there are some strange elements. Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd are such a strange duo. I don’t know where they got the actor to play Mr. Kidd but he seems like he has never acted before, meanwhile Mr. Wint seems like a classically trained stage actor. Who knows if that was intended or not, but I can’t help but feel like Mr. Kidd was a stage hand that got roped into playing the part because the original actor got sick or something. I don’t know, for some reason two cold blooded murderers found each other and fell in love. We know nothing about this duo at all. Missed opportunity, could’ve been a cool tandem, but came out looking liked a failed etsy project.
Diamonds Are Forever is what it is, it was a scramble job when Lazenby called it quits and it acted as a bandaid until they got Roger Moore in the picture. You really can’t blame Connery here, he did what he could and I’m sure having him helped bring the audience in. There are some good laughs here with this film, but all in all...it is what it is - and I can’t really think of anything more to say about it, so I shall say goodnight!
What did you think about Diamonds Are Forever...Let me hear you!
24 Weeks of Bond will return next Monday with -
Casino Royale
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The Spy Who Loved Me - #24WeeksofBond
24 Weeks of Bond continues this week with Roger Moore’s “The Spy Who Loved Me”. A tale of two government agents who are the top of their class who get paired up to work on a mission together and who ultimately fall in “love”. I put love in quotation marks because we never see or hear from Anya Amasova (Barbara Bach) ever again. Usually when Bond falls in love we here from them again in some way like with Bond’s late wife Tracey, or Vesper Lynd from Casino Royale - so I hesitate to say they fell in love, but I will because that’s the movie’s gimmick.
This is Roger Moore at his peak in the role. This has always been one of my favorite films because of the simple, playful, and fun plot of these two agents trying to best each other, the big action sequences, and of course...JAWS! There are a few things to not like about this one, I mean I can definitely think of a few, but overall you come away from this movie feeling like you have had a ton of fun. We still haven’t seen all the Moore films yet, but I’m pretty confident in saying that The Spy Who Loved Me just edges out Live and Let Die as Moore’s best Bond film. Moore is hitting his stride with confidence and playfulness, the two qualities that Roger Moore brings to the character, and wether you like it or not, what we know Moore’s Bond to be.
Like I said before, this film is incredibly easy to follow...A Russian submarine has gone missing due to a submarine tracking system that is low key being sold to world powers if the price is right. So while Russia deploys their best agent on the case, so does England. What I truly love about this film is the script and direction that set up this story so beautifully. In the pre title sequence we see a pair of lovers in bed, when an agent (we are assuming is the man - damn gender roles) gets called to report. The movie swerves us when the woman answers the call. This is how we are introduced to Triple X. Subsequently Bond is called to London and sets off to ski only to be chased by some henchmen, one of whom, is the man Triple X was sleeping with earlier.
What takes place next is a stunt that helped revitalize what was a struggling franchise on the brink of extinction. The Man With The Golden Gun was one of the worst drawing Bond films of all time - and the franchise was in jeopardy! But they pull off a stunt here when Bond skis off a cliff and they let the camera roll on the stuntman free falling for what feels like forever and kicking off his skis, he then deploys the parachute with the British Flag, and I’m sure people went nuts. This set the future of Bond in a comfortable place for decades to come. And to follow that we get Carly Simon’s “Nobody Does It Better” which I believe won an academy award for best song? I don’t know, I’m too tired to Wikipedia right now, but I know it was at least nominated. I love that song, it sets the tone for the movie in such a beautiful way.
I also believe they did that stunt in one take.
So we are starting off on a great path to an enjoyable adventure where Bond and Anya are gunning for the same microfilm that contains vital information. We are also introduced to Karl Stromberg (Curt Jurgens) who is a mega billionaire who as his own underwater marine laboratory. We don’t really know too much of his backstory and why he is so rich and why he loves the water so much, he just does and wants everyone to live underwater with him. So we don’t know too much about him, which makes his character, to me, rather uninteresting and uninspired. BUT he has got a killer henchman named Jaws (Richard Kiel) who lives in infamy as one of, if not thee most iconic Bond character of all time. There is no way that Jaws doesn’t come to anyone’s mind when thinking of the James Bond Franchise. You would of course think of Bond, Q, maybe Moneypenny, and Jaws.
Funny enough, Richard Kiel actually played the same exact character (Metal teeth and all) in a comedy the year prior to this film’s release called “Silver Streak” starring Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor. No idea how that happened. Silver Streak came out in ‘76 while The Spy Who Loved Me came out in ‘77. They had to have been filmed around the same time, so who thought of the character first??
This is the first of two movies that would have Jaws being a thorn in Bond’s side. Here he is absolutely terrifying - in Moonraker they turn him into a comedy act (which I admit is great, I love comedic Jaws). This Jaws is the quintessential Bond baddie. He is so big and strong and can kill people with his teeth and is seemingly invincible. Jaws dies like 40 times in this movie and keeps coming back - it is starting to feel like a running joke.
As the plot unfolds...so do the uncomfortable gender roles that the mid-seventies likes to rub in our faces. We have a bad ass Russian spy who has a Triple X (sex reference) code name and always seems to be falling short of Bond’s cunning - because, well, he’s a man. She also finds herself needing to be rescued by Bond a lot - because, well, he’s a man. I really think they fell short here with this character, they just couldn’t quite pull the trigger on writing a character that is truly Bond’s equal. She gets close, but in the end, she just becomes another “damsel in distress”. However, we get a powerful scene between Bond and Anya when she finally finds out Bond was the one who killed her lover after we had established that they had fallen in love. She says “Then after this mission is over, I will kill you”. Some good stuff there.
This is another film that makes me laugh when thinking about a man like Stromberg, who has these heinous plans to attack New York City and Moscow with NUCLEAR MISSILES, can gets thousands of employees to work for him and just go along with the plan. Stromberg wants to start a new world under the sea (did I get Little Mermaid stuck in your head?). An ungodly insane scheme, but whatever - has he even thought about where the hell he would get his GROCERIES??? This leads to a wonderful battle scene between the captive Naval soldiers who were taken by Stromberg and Stromberg’s men. I love these big battle scenes. Bond catches up with Stromberg who has found more time to sit his ass down for a dinner for 9. Kills him easily. But then runs into Jaws again but scoops him up with a magnet to the teeth. Ingenious.
Final scene of the movie where we expect Bond and Bond girl to celebrate a job well done boils down to Anya seeing her next mission out to kill Bond. But all is actually good, and we end up seeing them celebrate a job well done in front of their superiors. Classic.
The Spy Who Loved Me has some classic moments, unforgettable characters, and catapulted Bond into the future so for that I say it’s one of the best, BUT it does have it’s faults in poor character development and a weak portrayal of Anya Amasova (not Barbara’s fault, just a victim of the times and short sighted writing). That’s all I have to say about that...what did you think of The Spy Who Loved Me tonight??
Reviews from Friends:
My Mom
The Spy Who Loved Me was absolutely great. Roger Moore was so smooth. My favorite car scenes were in this movie. When his car turned into a submarine and even better, when it came drifting out of the ocean onto the beach and Bond tossed the fish into the gawking crowd, it was a laugh out loud moment, even though I am usually watching these films alone. I wasn't so impressed with the big boss, Stromberg, but Jaws was a lot of fun. Barbara Bach had that unforgettable face, but her acting was not quite as much. I don't know which number this was in the sequence, but I love these old Bond films.
24 Weeks of Bond will return August 3rd with -
Diamonds Are Forever
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Goldfinger - #24WeeksofBond
We continue our Bond marathon with an absolute banger of a movie - Goldfinger. When you think of James Bond, this movie might come to mind. There are so many classic lines, scenes, and characters in this movie that it is really hard to make the case of this film not being one of the best Bond films ever. In fact, until Goldeneye, this film was the bar when it came to James Bond. The franchise saw many crests in its lifetime, but unfortunately, it would never reach this level of excellence. Now a days, we have a few Daniel Craig movies to insert into the “Best James Bond Movie Ever” conversation in Casino Royale, and Skyfall. This is Sean Connery at his absolute peak.
Honestly, I’m finding some difficulty in unpacking all of this because this film is just so precious that I don’t want to do this blog an injustice of underselling this movie. This film has a wonderful, easy to follow plot, some cleverly crafted writing, and characters that have lasted forever. In some ways, this film could be viewed as the Bond film that started Bond as we know it today. Dr.No, and From Russia With Love hit a few singles for the franchise, but Goldfinger comes to the plate and hits a home run putting the Bond franchise in a very comfortable lead and giving it the momentum it needed to last as long as it has. If not for Goldfinger, Bond could have only lasted for a few more years.
Sean Connery is hitting on all cylinders here. He seems to have all the swag and confidence in the world, having played Bond twice now he really seems to have a grasp on this character. Remember that Connery is the man who made Bond, Bond. There was no man before him to learn from, only the fictional James Bond you would find in the books. And for a relatively unknown at the time...that is quite the responsibility to take on a franchise that everyone is expecting to be amazing, when nobody knows who you are. Well, Sean Connery did and now here he is at the top of his game.
Even starting with the pre-title sequence...a classic scene where Bond enters from the water in a wet suit and lays out some plastic explosives...only to take the wet suit off to reveal a white tuxedo that still has the steam coming off of it from the dry cleaners. I mean, that’s Bond in a nutshell right there. After this, we then move into the title sequence that would set a trend for Bond movies for decades - a title song. Shirley Bassey sets the tone of the film with an intoxicating, and eerie performance of “Goldfinger” that kind of stays in your head for a few hours after hearing it.
The film opens in Miami where Bond is being put up in a high end resort to keep an eye out for a man named Auric Goldfinger (Gert Fröbe). Apparently Goldfinger has sprung the curiosity of the British Government because of how much gold he is moving around the country. Bond sees Goldfinger playing Gin Rummy with a guy, and finds his suite to discover that he has been cheating at cards with his paid side-piece Jill Masterson spying on his opponent. Of course Bond breaks up the party and makes Goldfinger start losing which leads us to lovely Jill Masterson being asphyxiated by gold paint. Classic scene...however I’m curious about the dig at the Beatles...(Just as bad as listening to the Beatles without ear muffs.). Oddjob must’ve been a Beatles fan which is why he knocks out Bond right after this comment.
After Jill’s death, M puts Bond on the mission to find out all he can about Goldfinger and to figure out what he is up to. So Bond meets Goldfinger for a relaxing game is golf. Man oh man do I love this scene. A classic set up between Bond and villain where villain knows that this ain’t a coincidence so they both start trying to play each other. Bond whips out his big gold bar and Goldfinger ups the ante to put it on the line, exercising strict rules of golf to give himself an advantage. Bond expertly switches Goldfinger’s golf balls before the final hole, sealing the victory for Bond. Just so simplistic, & fun to watch. I love Bond’s relationship he develops with his caddy.
To spare you the lengthy, scene by scene description of the film, it turns out Goldfinger is trying to set off an atomic bomb in Fort Knox which would drive the value of his gold up by hundreds of thousands of pounds, all the while trying to set this up as a basic bank robbery. Bond finds out about Goldfinger’s operation while spying on his facility late at night where he will eventually get caught and tied up to a table with a laser slowly moving up to his crotch. Again, a classic scene where Bond says “You expect me to talk?” to which Goldfinger replies “No Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!”. You just can’t write that any better.
After Bond convinces Goldfinger that he is worth more alive, Bond is tranquilized and later wakes up to the site of one Pussy Galore (Honor Blackman). She may be more famous by her name, but this is the first time we see a strong women who isn’t just good looks as the leading female. This will also start the trend of naming female characters as puns. (Holly Goodhead, Chu Me, Jenny Flex, Xena Onatopp, etc.). Not that that was a crucial part of the Bond franchise, but it definitely became a signature that was eventually smoked out come the Daniel Craig era.
Honor does a fine job here, I wouldn’t say her character is written the best or that her character is given the proper chance to shine, which is why I would say that her performance simply is remembered by her name alone. Pussy Galore sounds ridiculously vulgar now a days, but back in the 60s it wasn’t. Her originally name was supposed to be Kitty Galore, but they opted for Pussy Galore, because Kitty Galore was too vulgar...lol.
What I REALLY love about this film is Oddjob (Harold Sakate). Oddjob is the quintessential quiet muscle man of a henchman who has a signature weapon in his top hat. He can frolf with his hat to kill people, basically. Oddjob was an olympic weightlifter and professional wrestler named Tosh Togo. He was stout, bulky, and stoic and really made you buy into the threat of his strength and frolfing skills. This of course comes to a head in the end when Bond is handcuffed to the atomic bomb in the vault with Oddjob and they battle it out. I love these old fight scenes where the only thing playing in the background is the sound of the bomb timer. This gives the fight more urgency as it’s an added layer of danger.
Another classic addition that would influence future Bond films is the Aston Martin car. Q is unleashed in this film as the over worked and underpaid government worker who makes gadgets, and who doesn’t have time for Bond’s games. Q tells Bond about his new car and lets him know there is an ejector seat to which Bond says “Ejector seat? You’re joking!” and Q brilliantly says “I never joke about my work, 007″.
I mean, everything I am pointing out here is groundwork for the future of the Bond franchise. The exotic cars, the dangerous henchmen, the women who had jerks for parents in naming them, the theme song, the list goes on and on...Goldfinger, to me, is the bar as far as James Bond films go. I love this film so much where it was very hard to say that any other Bond film was better. This easily sits in my top 3 with Goldeneye and Skyfall.
This film would be the third and best film of the Sean Connery era. Connery would still see success in his films, but tensions between him and the studio execs would start to mount as Connery was fearing the type casting that he might see because of his longevity with the character and getting tired of the grueling schedule. (His first three films came out in three years). But despite all that, Goldfinger will live on forever as one of the best Bond films in the history of the franchise.
What did you think, and where does it sit in your top three?
Reviews from Friends:
Jamie Gray
Not my favorite Bond movie, but DEFINITELY my fav and the best Bond theme song except for The world is not enough. I said what I said.
24 Weeks of Bond will continue next Monday with -
The Spy Who Loved Me
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Octopussy - #24WeeksofBond
24 Weeks of Bond continues with “Octopussy” - a title I’m sure they are regretting today - otherwise known as “What the Egg is Going On?”. It’s not known as that, but it sure would’ve aged better than Octopussy. The title is just so snicker inducing that it kind of overshadows the fact that this is actually a pretty good movie! I was so surprised tonight by how much I enjoyed this film, it’s still an installment in Moore’s twilight period so I can’t say it’s one of his best, but it sure ain’t the worst. Moore has a little more swagger in this film in comparison to “For Your Eyes Only” which makes his age a LITTLE less noticeable. That might be due to the circumstances of the time...
1983 saw a battle of the Bonds. Kevin Mclory (the ole dastardly producer who has the rights to Thunderball at this time) decided now was the time to make a Bond film of his own with none other than - Sean Connery. Yes, Connery was set to reprise his role of 007 in a “Bond film” called Never Say Never Again. Of course, this movie is NOT apart of this marathon because it is not produced by EON productions and the Broccolli family. It is an UNofficial monstrosity of a off-brand Bond film. Never Say Never Again is a remake of Thunderball but with a VERY old Sean Connery who looks like he would be drinking Vodka in his coffee at his breakfast bar in his apartment while watching the birds. Of course this nostalgia was the only thing it had going for it, and it was set to run against the official Bond series as competition.
Roger Moore was still on a film by film basis, after “For Your Eyes Only” Moore wanted out but with the upcoming Connery film coming up, EON could not risk having a fresh face as Bond so they convinced Moore to give it another go, and stuck with the sure thing. So the stage was set...Roger Moore vs. Sean Connery. I’ll give you one guess as to which film did better...Octopussy came out on top, but still had mixed reviews.
Yes Moore is older in this film, I think I’ve exhausted all of my old Moore jokes in my “A View To A Kill” review so if your looking for fun Dad puns here, you won’t get much. This film is a story of a fabergé egg and the trail that it leaves. We open up this film with a clown seemingly in danger, who ends up getting killed by some twin throwing knife assassins. The clown ends up being an MI6 agent and he had a fake Fabergé egg with him. That sparks the curiosity of MI6 because these eggs are extremely rare...and it just so happens, a real one is being auctioned off. MI6 thinks Russia is involved (of course they are, it was the cold war) so Bond is out to sniff it out.
The egg leads Bond to Kamal Khan (Louis Jourdan). Jourdan plays the part of Khan with such class, but with the slightest adjustment of his facials, he turns into a menacing psycho. I really enjoyed his performance in this film. Khan is basically a con man who has a guy that makes forgeries of classic jewelry pieces and sells them at auctions for a high price and helps smuggle the real deals for his boss (I think), that we will come to know as Octopussy, played by the returning Maud Adams.
It’s funny how the studio brings back actors to play different characters. I’ve never really understood why they would do that, especially with the same actor playing Bond. We last saw Adams in “The Man With The Golden Gun” and now she has been hired back to play the title character. Octopussy is a women who is a jewelry smuggler who has hired a harem of ninja women to help her with her smuggling while also working as a career placement agency - helping these women find what they are good at and giving them jobs. It’s not very clear if Kamal Khan works for Octopussy, or if he just partners with her because he is in the jewelry game too, but Khan is going over Octopussy’s head and is planning something much more sinister.
Turns out - Khan has partnered with a raving lunatic Russian General Oramov who is thirsty for war and conquest. They are using Octopussy and her jewelry smuggling habit, to low-key get a bomb into a circus in an effort to cause confusion and to start a war with the USA, leaving Europe vulnerable to attack and conquest. Not sure what Khan gets out of this arrangement other than money, but it must be enough to be ok with setting off a bomb at a circus, killing hundreds of kids. Money really is the devil.
This movie has a lot of great action and locations with the majority of the film set in India. Lots of fun to be had here with a baby taxi car chase and Bond escaping the baddies by using your stereotypical Indian street acts, like a bed of nails, and a sword swallower. We also meet Vijay who plays the Bond theme to charm his snake. Moore gives him a rupee and says “Charming tune”...lol, he doesn’t even know that he has a theme song, and that THAT is it!! Bond uses the egg to his advantage to get to Khan in order to shake him, hoping that coconuts of information will fall from his tree.
This eventually leads Bond into infiltrating Octopussy’s island by alligator boat. This whole movie we are being led to believe that Octopussy is the main bad guy, but she informs Bond that Bond had a hand in her father’s death a long time ago (which was apparently a good thing) and wanted to meet him. So Bond and Octopussy become buds, then lovers. Khan is pissed about this new found friendship and hires a guy with a circular saw yo-yo to kill Bond...well, that doesn’t work.
This all comes down to the wire as Khan secretly transfers a bomb inside a cannon where Octopussy thinks the jewelry is. Khan and his muscle sneak out to let everyone die while Bond infiltrates the circus where he dons the outfit of one of the throwing knife twins (where he will find himself running away from like 009 in the beginning), a gorilla, and finally a clown. Somehow Bond is able to apply clown makeup and get in costume in 30 seconds. The picture of Bond in clown makeup tends to linger in one’s mind - giving this film another strike in its legacy. But, Bond saves the day by dismantling the bomb right at 0:00, spoiling Khans plans.
There are plenty of flaws with Octopussy, there is the pre-title sequence, which is actually great, but has nothing to do with the rest of the movie. There is the goofy decision to put Bond in a clown costume. And of course, the out of nowhere Tarzan scene in an otherwise awesome safari hunt. But it’s got such a bountiful array of stunt work like Bond clinging to a plane in flight, and a train en route. All the work and risk put into the stunts of this movie, to me, makes up for some of the lack-luster aspects of the plot.
This is also a PRIME example of why I wanted to watch these films out of order. I REALLY enjoyed this film tonight because I wasn’t Moore’d out like I usually am watching this film. Octopussy is Moore’s 6th bond film, when you are watching these in order, by the time you get to Octopussy, you are so sick of Roger Moore that you start developing tunnel vision and his films start to bleed into each other. After watching a few Craig movies and a dose of Brosnan, I am all buckled up for another Moore film. This allowed me to finally see what Octopussy is all about on its own two feet...or should I say 8 feet?
Anyone in the mood for stuffed sheep’s head? That scene where Khan eats that eye still gets me.
Let me know what you thought of Octopussy, I love all your comments!
24 Weeks of Bond will continue next Monday with -
Goldfinger
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Quantum of Solace - #24WeeksofBond
And we are back with another Daniel Craig installment of the James Bond franchise for this week’s Bond movie, “Quantum Of Solace”. Don’t ask me about the name of the film because I don’t really get it. I know that the organization’s name is Quantum, but that’s as far as my understanding goes. Is it in reference to Camille’s story of her family being pillaged and burned and how she comes to deal with it? Who knows, but confusion is kinda the theme here with this movie...it’s just a little confusing. For those of you who watched this for the first time and completely understood it, then I applaud you. I’ve seen this movie countless times and still can’t figure it out. I’d be willing to bet that I’ve watched Quantum more than any other Bond movie because, for a while, it was just always on TV. Seriously, everyday I would see this movie playing somewhere.
This is a direct sequel to Casino Royale, the 2006 film where EON productions and producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson decided to hit the reset button on the franchise to freshen it up and give the Bond movies a little more grit, thrill, and depth. This was just odd seeing as all the previous Bond movies were stand alone installments that you could just pick up and not really have to wonder what the hell was going on. But now we are forever stuck with a Bond movie that is so reliant on the story of Casino Royale that one cannot simply pick this up and enjoy it. The Bond fan and traditionalist in me dies a little when I watch this movie for that reason.
This film, even when knowing the story of Casino Royale, is difficult to follow. There are so many different avenues this film takes with little to no explanation. It gets to a point where you are hearing new bits of information about the plot in the final scenes of the movie. I’m not going to lie - I’m still not too sure I have all the answers but I will do my best.
Basically, this is the story of a pissed off Bond who is carrying the weight of Vesper’s death with him. (Vesper is his love interest in Casino Royale - sorry for the spoiler if you haven’t seen it.). At this point we are still building up to the James Bond that we know and love...the James Bond we will eventually get come “Spectre”. Bond had just gotten to double 0 status, so he is not exactly seasoned - quite the opposite, actually. Bond is so blinded by revenge on the man who betrayed and played Vesper into what she does in Casino Royale that he ends up killing every lead he comes across. Bond is sloppy, and M is losing trust in him.
Lol, look at that GIF above...I’m noticing that guy in the background isn’t sweeping the floor...hahaha.
This movie opens up with a pre-title sequence of a high speed car chase for a reason unbeknownst to us. This car chase, like all the other action scenes in this film, is so choppy and hard to watch without it giving you a headache. The shots are so fast and cut to hell that they are hard to follow and difficult to understand what is happening. Bond gets away and opens up the trunk where Mr. White is lying. Mr. White is the man at the end of Casino Royale who Bond delivers his famous “Bond, James Bond” line to.
Mr. White explains that his organization has people everywhere and that they are so hidden, MI6 doesn’t even know they exist. This is made more evident when one of M’s men, who’d worked for her for years, ends up trying to kill her. Now M really needs to know how this organization has slipped through their fingers. So Bond is out to find out and to avenge Vesper in the process. After Bond accidentally kills a lead, he does some improv that would earn him a spot on Second City’s main stage and runs into Camille who was supposed to be the target of a hit. I do enjoy that scene where Bond jokingly says “I think someone wants to kill you”, then subsequently flips that guys bike. Makes me chuckle.
Camille (Olga Kurylenko) plays a Bolivian secret service agent who has infiltrated the organization in question to satisfy a revenge mission of her own. She is out to kill General Medrano for murdering her family and burning her house down when she was just a little girl. Olga Kurylenko does fine in this film as far as dark, brooding, mysterious, and spiteful goes, but her performance is rather un-inspiring, and not on my most memorable “Bond Girl” list.
Dominic Green (Mathieu Amalric) turns out to be the man heading this secret band of fools, a band in which - to my understanding - does all the logistics work for a dirty politician to gain power for a price. Enter General Medrano who is a dictator at heart and is seeking to overthrow the current Bolivian government to make way for his tyrannical leadership. So now we have Bond on the heels of Greene to get to Vesper’s betrayer, and Camille on the heels of Green to get to Medrano.
One scene that I find enjoyable in this film is where Bond follows Greene to the opera where his secret organization is to discretely meet and chat over ear piece in the audience while the show is going. (I would’ve been hushing them the whole time). Bond has infiltrated and gotten ahold of an ear piece and interrupts the conversation letting them know they are comprised. I love it when Bond cleverly bests the bad guys.
Like Camille, Mathieu Amalric’s performance as Dominic Green doesn’t really do much for me. His end goal with Medrano’s partnership is to basically become the Comcast of his water supply. Monopolize and then charge whatever you want. Not exactly super villain material. This happens because he has tricked Medrano into giving him ownership of land that Medrano thinks he wants for the oil. It’s actually the water Greene is after. He has created a drought in Bolivia and now everyone will need to turn to him for their lives. Well, when I put it like THAT then I guess that could be somewhat super villain.
The plot doesn’t exactly scream “get off your couch and pick this movie up now”, and it has some really dark undertones of sexual violence. General Medrano is an all around creep and scum bag who rapes and kills, and we see that on full display at the end when a poor cocktail waitress almost falls victim to his “needs”. It’s rather uncomfortable.
We also have Fields (Gemma Arterton) who is basically there to give us the “Goldfinger” shoutout to Jill Masterson with her dead body lying on the bed covered in oil, black oil. (You’ll get that joke when we watch Goldfinger). We also have the return of Mathis who was Bond’s contact for Casino Royale who Bond mistakingly accused as being a traitor. Well he got an acquittal, and now finds himself helping Bond again after Bond’s cards and passport was frozen. Mathis eventually gets killed at the hands of one of his connections who ends up betraying him. Plenty of betrayal to go around.
In the end, Bond ends up sparing the life of Greene to find out more about Quantum - the name of the organization that we just find out about at the very end of the film. Bond leaves him in the middle of the desert. Then he spares the life of the man who betrayed Vesper - leaving M to be impressed with Bond’s newfound restraint. He’s slowly becoming James Bond!
Apart from some amusing scenes and a great Bond theme by Jack White and Alicia Keys, Quantum Of Solace is Craig’s least inspired film. Only time will tell how “No Time To Die” ends up being, but I’ve noticed that the longer we have to wait for a Bond movie, the better the film is going to be....
After Licence To Kill we waited 6 years and got Goldeneye, after Die Another Day we waited 4 years and got Casino Royale, after Quantum we waited 4 years and got Skyfall...we’re on year 5 now, so you can imagine that No Time To Die has potential to be amazing! (Its slated to be the longest Bond movie in history.)
Too much confusion, open ended questions, and hard to follow action makes Quantum of Solace one of my least favorite Bond films. That isn’t to say that I can’t follow complexity, I love a good puzzle as much as the next guy...but this just feels like it is confusing on accident. It is worth noting that this film was in production during the infamous writers strike of 2007, not sure if that is to blame or not, but it is not well thought out or executed. And that, my friends, is all I got to say about that. What did you think?
Let your voices be heard! See you next week!
Reviews from Friends:
My Mom
I am relieved to hear that you "younguns" did not follow this film either. It is very frustrating to turn the volume up so high that the ensuing music blasts lifts the speakers off the wall, and you still don't understand what they are talking about. I agree that Dominic Green was not the most interesting villain. Just kind of creepy. I have never seen Casino Royale, so I guess I'll be in for a treat. Here is what I googled about the title: "It was the name of a short story in Ian Fleming's anthology For Your Eyes Only (1960). The film is related to the title in one of its thematic elements: "when the 'Quantum of Solace' drops to zero, humanity and consideration of one human for another is gone."
Tyler Dahlgren
Yep don’t like any part of this one. The only part I was liking was Mathis...and then they kill him.
Jake Benrud
I feel like I understood this movie and the plot progression, but it was still just kind of meh. If you didn't see Casino Royale, you would be really lost.
24 Weeks of Bond will return next Monday with -
Octopussy
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Die Another Day - #24WeeksofBond
24 Weeks of Bond hits the low point this week with Pierce Brosnan’s swan song as 007 in “Die Another Day”. Oh man, there is just so much to say and unpack about this movie, it’s hard to put into summary every which way this film fails to deliver. This film came at a cross-roads for film goers who still loved Bond, but were starting to grow a little tired of the hokey-ness and sleaze of James Bond and were wanting something a little rougher. “The Bourne Identity” had come out just a few months prior to high praise for it’s hard hitting, intense, stripped-down style...it was fresh. A few months later “Die Another Day” comes out with an older Pierce Brosnan, some god awful writing and cartoonish cinematography. Change needed to happen, and this movie would mark the end of the sex puns, over the top gadgets, and far fetched scenarios.
Listen, I LOVE Bond. I really have a hard time saying a Bond movie is bad...but this movie. is. bad. This is a tale of two films. The first half is an action packed drama that is gritty, and dark and the second half is like watching a Joel Schumacher Batman film (the one where Batman has nipples). The plot is also a rip off of “Diamonds Are Forever” and constantly goes for the cheap pop - bringing out all the old gadgets and familiar looking scenes for the 40th anniversary of Bond. There is just so much trash talk to shell out here, but let’s start with the good stuff.
Die Another Day actually starts out quite promising and delivers a thrilling pre-title sequence with Bond infiltrating a North Korean Army base where he has stolen the clothing of a man trading African Conflict Diamonds for some weapons with a Colonel of the North Korean military and his stooge Zao. Bond is eventually found out but manages to escape the firing squad to chase down Colonel Moon on a HOVERCRAFT! Pretty neat. Colonel Moon eventually runs out of road and takes a fall appearing to be slain, but Bond is caught again by Moon’s dad and for the next 14 months, Bond will be held prisoner and tortured.
I always liked how they utilized the title sequence to take us through Bond’s captivity (even though we are forced to listen to Madonna’s over produced and just flat out weird song...what’s the deal with the random “Sigmund Freud” lyric?). Though the song is hard on the ear drums, it does a great job in providing an aura of despair and pain in the torture aspect of the title sequence...maybe because the song is torture?
We come back from Madonna, and Jesus Bond is now being traded for Zao who has diamonds permanently implanted in his face from Bond’s intrusion. This makes Bond angry and makes him question why MI6 would give Zao up. M is also pissed about it, it appears that there is someone who is playing MI6 for fools. M is so mad that she essentially burns Bond and relieves him of his 00 status, but this doesn’t stop Bond from forcing himself into cardiac arrest to escape and find out who is behind all of this.
See? Starts out great! If only they can keep this momentum going...(spoiler alert: they can’t)
Another positive about this movie is a great fencing scene with Bond and Gustav Graves (Toby Stephans). I've just always been tickled by how much this scene escalates from a little game of fencing to an all out sword fight. It is one of the few highlights of the film, complete with a cameo made by Madonna...something I’m sure she negotiated to sign on for the Bond theme. Get that payday, Madonna!
Well thats about all the positive I can muster for this film. It’s time to take the gloves off. Die Another Day’s wheels start to come loose when Bond is in Cuba looking for Zao...during this time, he meets Jinx (Halle Berry), and the dialogue that will unfold, sounds like the writer brought in his perverted nephew, who is just out of high school, looking to write a scene to get his friends to laugh when they watch it in his parents basement. Halle Berry is the victim of poor writing, and possibly poor directing, yes, but she also tries WAY too hard to be a cool, witty, and deadly agent. I’ll give Berry the benefit of the doubt to an extent, but I really think she just over acted here.
On top of that - Brosnan and Berry have absolutely ZERO chemistry. Brosnan is no spring chicken anymore, so we are supposed to believe a woman like Halle Berry would welcome the advances from a bird watcher in his mid-50′s who says Mojito really weird? Come on. And the obvious dick jokes and creepiness from Bond who is foaming at the mouth, desperate for sex after being tortured for over a year makes this scene so uncomfortable to watch.
But we later come to find out that Jinx is more than just a reincarnation of Honey Ryder from Dr. No...she is also a secret agent that seems to never take anything seriously and in the face of death by laser, still has time for jokes. We find out Zao is trying to do gene-therapy treatment to change his identity to someone else. Much like Colonel Moon had done, turning himself into the man we will come to know as Gustav Graves. The adrenaline filled, publicity junky, billionaire with an eye for diamonds.
Speaking of over acting, Toby Stephans puts out a good effort with the Gustav Graves character but he is just so over the top with his “evil” looks that there is no denying that he is indeed the villain. Some of the best villains in cinema and television are villains that get you to like them. They play to your emotions, let you in on their dark secrets, give you a smile and a laugh, maybe even make you connect with them in a twisted way...but Graves lets you know by his nostril flares and angry glares, that you couldn’t possibly like him if you tried.
Graves invites Bond to his party in Iceland, (isn’t Greenland the icy one?). This is when the movie goes off the rails completely, the second half of the film that looks like the props, sets, and lighting design were borrowed from the Power Rangers. This ridiculous ice palace accompanied by the super ridiculous revelation of the “Icarus” - a satellite made out of diamonds (exactly like Diamonds are Forever) is just so off-putting. The Icarus shoots a beam as powerful as the sun and can also be used as a freakin sun beam death laser from the sky. Yes, you heard that right. At one point Bond is involved in a chase where he is being tailed by a sun beam death laser from the sky. This leads to the most cringe worthy scene in all of Bond...Bond escapes by CGI surfing.
I’ve said before, one of the aspects of the Bond films that makes the series so successful is the heavy emphasis on real stunts. REAL STUNTS. Director Lee Tamahori thought it would be fun to amp up the CGI because he thought that CGI was the future of the Bond franchise, oh was he sorely mistaken. He also thought it would be a good idea to insert a bunch of slow motion shots throughout the movie, they were going for the ‘Matrix effect’ but it did not play well. It’s choppy and pixilated and just ruins any momentum they managed to build up - it just ends up being annoying.
If that wasn’t bad enough, Q Branch comes out to “Jump the Shark” by delivering an invisible car. Really? This is just another example of the theme of this film taking everything one step too far. But maybe you could argue that that is what we needed in order to know what our threshold as a Bond audience is. You could say that maybe Die Another Day was the most important film in the canon for that reason. Maybe Die Another Day was the sacrificial lamb to fall on it’s own sword to prevent us from going in that direction again, maybe...this movie SAVED THE BOND FRANCHISE??
Eh, Now I’m just devil’s advocating myself. This is thee worst Bond movie of all time and anyone who says differently has no idea what they are talking about, or are just trying to be ‘Ironic’, or whatever. This film ends with Gustav Graves becoming an electrifying super-shredder villain whose design was probably stolen from the Mega-Man video games. The final battle taking place on a plane that is crashing due to a window being knocked out and is also being destroyed by the Sun Beam death laser from the sky. In other words...more CGI.
And to top it all off, we end on another uncomfortable scene with Bond and Jinx again, spitting out blatant toilet humor dialogue making us think that they are getting busy, but it turns out Bond is just putting diamonds in her belly button (which she really wants to leave in for some reason). Traditionally, a Bond movie would end with some witty pun being the last bit of dialogue you would hear before credits, but this...I still can’t figure out how this left the writer’s table.
Bond: “I'm still not quite sure how good you are.”
Jinx: “I’m sooo good...”
Bond: “Especially when you’re bad.”
huh?? It’s not even a pun, it just doesn’t make sense.
Honestly, you can tell Brosnan is thinking “who the hell wrote this shit?” while he is delivering that final line. sigh. The good news is that we can only go up from here! This would be Brosnan’s final performance as James Bond, even though he publicly announced he was going to do another one. Didn’t quite work out that way, the film studio eventually phased him out, leaving Brosnan at curbside. Probably for the best, Brosnan was great for that time, but the pressure was on for change. And change we would get - with Daniel Craig.
That’s all for me tonight, let me know why you hated this movie!
Reviews from Friends:
Tyler Dahlgren
See I like Toby’s Graves. That guy plays despicable well (Black Sails anyone?). It’s the redeeming part of the movie for me. That and the car. I love the Aston Martins, let’s stick to those.
Andrew Albertsen
I think the whole movie should’ve just been about Bond’s incarceration and torture and eventual escape.
My Mom
Sam you don’t mention Rosemund Pike in your review. I thought she made an outstanding ice queen. This had its moments and I do love Pierce Brosnan as Bond but this film was way too long and too much continuous action. A person tunes out.
Jake Benrud
The end of an era. All the gadgets and the over the top villains complete with "diamond face" and a genetically modified psychopath with daddy issues. I don't understand why he needed to drive his car in the ice palace in the first place. Also, that was an epic dive by Halle Berry.
24 Weeks of Bond will return next Monday with -
Quantum of Solace
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Skyfall - #24WeeksofBond
We are officially past the halfway mark, and what a way to kick off the second half of 24 Weeks of Bond then with “Skyfall”? It’s hard to place “Skyfall” when it comes to comparisons between all the other Bond films because it is just so unique. Looking at the entire film collection up to this point you could place these movies in two different sub-catagories, Action Bond & Comedy Bond. Skyfall falls under its own sub-catagory - Thriller Bond. This visually stunning masterpiece has a hair raising plot with eerie characters, brooding cinematography and it is topped off with a dusting of humor. Not only is it incredible to look at, but the writing and directing make you connect with the characters of Bond more so than any other film. Plus, it’s the film that ties all the classics in together to give us the cast of characters we had been missing prior. M, Moneypenny, & Q are now all established and everything is right in the world of 007.
Back in 2006 when Daniel Craig first came on, Barbara Broccolli and Michael G. Wilson, the main producers of the Bond series, had decided to essentially hit the reset button, and bring us back to give us the journey of how Bond came to be Bond, James Bond: License to Kill 007. These first three Daniel Craig films are building blocks for the continuation of the world of James Bond that we all know and love. But that meant 3 Bond movies that didn’t have cool gadgets delivered to Bond by a snarky head of Q-Branch, didn’t have a sassy, flirtaious Moneypenny at the desk of M, and worst of all, had no gun barrel sequences. That was probably what made me more frustrated than anything, the first three movies with Daniel Craig, and not one gun barrel sequence to open up the film...it’s just not Bond without it!
But by the time you had left the theatre after seeing Skyfall in IMAX, you felt a sense that everything was back to normal. They even threw a gun barrel sequence in at the end, which didn’t appease me, but when I went to go see “Spectre” in theatres, I was literally PRAYING that they would put the bun barrel sequence in the beginning. Once I saw that white circle in the middle of the screen, I literally yelled out loud with excitement.
But that is the end of the film, let’s keep with the theme of the film, and go back in time to the beginning of the film.
This is the story of M, and the coldness and callous thats required to do her job, and it’s also the story of how that affects those that fight for her and their country. Never before has M been so deeply entrenched in the plot to the point where M is the main character. Her decision making about her operatives who are in the field is quickly highlighted in the pre-title sequence of the film where everyone is out looking for a stolen data base of all NATO agents who are undercover - putting them all in danger of being exposed. Bond comes across another field agent Ronson who appears to have been shot. Bond tries to save him, but M directs Bond to “just leave him”. Then later, after Bond has caught up to the man we will know as Patrice (after a classic scene where Bond jumps to a disconnected moving train car and shoots his cuffs), Bond and Patrice are struggling on top of the train where M directs Moneypenny to take a shot at Patrice - even though M was told it wasn’t a clean shot and that she might hit Bond. Well, she does hit Bond and Bond dies...(but not really of course).
You will start to notice a pattern with the Daniel Craig movies...he always finds a way to lose his job. He is either resigning, getting stripped of his license, getting suspended, or dying. I hear he retires in “No Time To Die”. lol.
This would be the first out of two movies to be directed by Sam Mendes who wasn’t really known for making action movies. Sam Mendes is a storyteller and a visual artist and he makes that known here. Everything about the cinematography in this film is just absolutely stunning. The shots in Shanghai where Bond is swimming and later catches up with Patrice in a high rise office made of glass (one of my favorite fight scenes). The shots in the Macou casino, the breathtaking views of the hills of Scotland and firelit shots of Skyfall Manor after it had been blown to smithereens. All these scenes are just a feast for the eyes, and gives the film a sort of suspenseful energy making this film to be classified as a thriller.
On top of that, we have Raoul Silva who is played by the incredible Javier Bardem. There was a lot of hype surrounding this casting choice as he was pretty fresh off of “No Country for Old Men” fame. People waiting on pins and needles to watch his performance...unfortunately we don’t get to see him until halfway through the movie. But when we do see him, we are introduced with one continuous shot of Silva walking towards Bond and delivering a long monologue about rats and coconuts. As a former actor myself, that is not easy to do. Bardem gives Silva a nightmarish psychotic coat of paint, but can also make you laugh with just the slightest look accompanied with a bit of sass.
The story is that Raoul Silva had worked as an MI6 agent who was apparently M’s favorite. But Silva had gotten caught along the way, and was tortured, but never gave M up. He tried to kill himself with cyanid, to make sure he wouldn’t break and protect MI6 - but the cyanid didn’t kill him. This left his face scarred for life and left him broken and vengeful that M had given him up so easily. Now Silva has concocted a master plan to get captured, only to escape because of his forward thinking ability to hack someone who is trying to hack him, and get M into a position where he can get a clean shot to kill her. Pretty straight forward plot, but to say “This time, it’s personal!” may be putting it mildly here.
Inserted into this plot, is a slightly confusing run in with a women named Severine, who is ultimately Bond’s gateway to get to Silva. The reason I say it is confusing is because I don’t know what her directives are for the scene where she gets a drink with Bond. Severine is being controlled by Silva so her job is to be at the casino for Patrice when he comes and cashes in the chip that he had - but it ends up being Bond cashing in the chip. So, was the plan to have a drink with Patrice and kill him too? Or were they trying to get Bond to let his guard down so that they could kill him easier? And why were they going to kill him? So they didn’t have to pay up? Was Severine still a sex slave or was she merely Silva’s mistress? Not much is known about her, but she is clearly afraid of Silva and adds to Silva’s build up nicely.
Toward the end of the film, after some cat and mouse between Bond and Silva, Bond kidnaps M, uses her as bait (how does it feel, M?), and lures Silva to Skyfall Manor, which is the house Bond grew up in as a kid. Bond picks Skyfall because he knows of the gun room they had there, but Kincade, who had been the gamekeeper there since Bond was a boy, tells him that they had sold the guns to someone in Idaho. So now Bond, M, and Kincade have to get creative and “Home Alone” this house with booby traps. Any kid who grew up watching Home Alone would have been reminded of that movie right away after watching this. However, we see M getting shot in her side during the scuffle with the baddies and that will lead us to Silva’s killing, and M gasping her last breath in Bond’s arms. It sure was bittersweet to see Judi Dench leave the role. In my opinion, she is the best M of them all merely because of all she got to do with it. Not Bernard Lee’s fault, he just wasn’t given the depth of character that Dench got.
Between Sam Mendes’ commitment to directing the film, Adele gifting us with her incredible voice for the theme song, Javier Bardem playing the villain, and the 4 years it took to get this film into the theatres, this was one of the most anticipated Bond films ever - and it lived up to, or exceeded, everyone’s expectations. Skyfall is a beautiful and nerve-wracking action thriller that is just on another level as far as Bond films go. My only gripes with the film is how it slows down towards the end of an already long film, and all the mentions of Bond getting old...why mention his age when we are always going to have Bond movies?
But so many fun moments, like Q asking Bond if he was expecting an exploding pen (Goldeneye shout out), and bringing back the famous Aston Martin car from Goldfinger - that got an audible pop from the audience when I saw it in the Theatres. Skyfall is definitely Craig’s peak as Bond, but of course he has one more left. Only time will tell if he ends on a high note with “No Time to Die”, or if “Skyfall” was the high note of Daniel Craig’s Bond tenure. I’m sure there is more to say about this film, but I can’t think of them right now, so I will say goodnight!
What did you think? Let me hear you!
Reviews from Friends:
Andrew Albertsen
I read that Judi Dench has more screen time in this movie alone than Desmond Llewelyn has in 17 films as Q. I also read that there was talk of Sean Connery playing Kincade. God that would’ve been stupid.
My Mom
This was a fantastic movie. mark recently talked me into surround sound. I now have to look at little black speakers all over my living room. As I sat enjoying this film on my couch my heart was skipping a beat thinking intruders were sneaking up behind me. Turns out to be Daniel Craig and crew ambushing me with sounds of footsteps and guns. Terrifying.
Jake Benrud
Loved this movie. This is one of my favorites. Always a good Bond flick when there's a turned 00 agent.
24 Weeks of Bond Will Return Next Monday With -
Die Another Day
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The Man With The Golden Gun - #24WeeksofBond
Roger Moore is back for his follow up outing after “Live and Let Die”, and this time...IT’S PERSONAL. “The Man With The Golden Gun” quite surprised me tonight. I usually come into these Mondays with a pre conceived notion about the Bond movie I’m about to watch. For whatever reason, I came into tonight with the notion that this movie was on the dull side and that I might be in for a bit of a snooze fest. Well my notion was wrong, and I have to say that I enjoyed this movie. It’s not perfect by any means, there are some moments that leave me scratching my head, the plot with the energy crisis is a tad confusing, and we have a Roger Moore that is extremely short on patience - but it’s a good thrill ride, with a few laughs, cool stunts, kung-fu, and nipples.
Yes, nipples.
This is a story of a skilled hitman who kills for pleasure, and gets paid very well for doing so. Francisco Scaramanga, played by the great Christopher Lee, is portrayed as Bond’s equal in terms of marksmanship. He carries an unusual 4.7 millimeter gun, made out of gold, that is assembled with a lighter and a pen that shoots bullets that flatten on impact; making them untraceable. There is no photo of him and nobody knows where he is, making him the most sought after hitman who will kill anybody for the price of (cue Dr. Evil voice) ONE MIILLLION DOLLARS...go ahead, put your pinky to your mouth, I’ll wait.
This is a fun storyline especially with the wild and wacky funhouse that Scaramanga has at his estate for his human target practice. What also makes this movie memorable is Scaramanga’s personal butler Knick Knack (Hervé Villechaize) who helps Scaramanga with his game. In the pre-title sequence we see this play out with a man coming to the island, no idea why, but its apparent that he is there to kill Scaramanga for a chunk of cash. Knick Knack has a vested interest in this, in the fact that IF Scaramanga DOES meet his match, and is killed, he receives everything. So it’s a game between friends, Knick Knack makes it challenging for Scaramanga to get the kill, because Knick Knack kinda wants him to get killed, and because Scaramanga gets off on the thrill. Healthy relationship wouldn’t you say?
Scaramanga picks up the W (albeit unfairly with mirrors and such), and before we head into the title sequence, we see a wax figure of James Bond himself. This is just odd to me. Why go out of your way to make something like that? What purpose does it serve other than to establish that Scaramanga has his eyes on Bond? Silly things like this bother me. So it is set, we are about to witness Bond vs. Scaramanga, kill or be killed.
This brings us to my LEAST favorite Bond theme. I think they were kinda going for a hard “Goldfinger” thing here, but Lulu’s performance is just so obnoxious and the lyrics are so plain and straight forward...”He has a gun, he will shoot you, and you will die”, that could’ve been a lyric here. So points docked against the movie here for the song.
What they start to make us think in the beginning is that Scaramanga has sent a warning to Bond with a golden Bullet with “007″ engraved on it - signaling that Bond is next on his list. Therefor, M relieves Bond of his current mission, gives him a sabatical, and indiscreetly hints that Bond should use his time to hunt Scaramanga down before he pops up and puts a bullet in him. But what we come to find out later is that the plot is way more than what we think. Bond is tracking where the bullets were made and follows the scent until he comes across Ms. Anders (Maud Adams), Scaramanga’s mistress, who is picking up the bullets. She tells the most overtly aggressive Roger Moore Bond ever where he will be, and this is where the plot thickens.
Bond is where he thinks Scaramanga is gonna be, but Scaramanga shoots another man even though Bond was in plain sight. The man shot was the guy Bond was looking for in the mission he was let go from. This leaves Bond to question that if he is the target at all. Turns out, Ms. Anders sent the bullet to MI6 because Bond is the only man who can kill him, and she wants him dead because he is a creep who rubs his gun on her...not even being facetious, I mean literally. So Bond has been put into a hit job without him or Scaramanga knowing. But Bond comes to find out that Scaramanga has been paid by a Chinese 1%er named Hai Fat who has control over a Solex Aggitater.
Now I’m not going to begin to pretend that I understood any of the solar energy storyline, so I’ll spare you my wikipedia research and just leave you with this - there’s a Solex Aggitater and Bond wants it.
So we are led on this wild chase for the Solex, and along the way we meet characters like Mary Goodnight (Britt Ekland) who is a staffer for MI6 who has been working with Bond for a couple years now. Although, at the time, this character was intended to be humorous and light hearted...It just comes off very sexist. The dumb blonde trying to help Bond but keeps mucking things up because she’s a woman...did not age well, that’s for sure. We also run in to JW Pepper again, the foul mouth, racial stereotype spewing cop from the Bayou. He must have been a huge hit after “Live and Let Die” enough for them to bring him back for a second time. It’s rare that the Bond franchise brings back characters, so he must’ve made a good impression on the audience the first time around.
We also witness one of the more incredible stunts in the series with the corkscrew car flip over the river. This stunt was apparently done in one take and it’s still such a cool scene. One of the things that make the Bond movies so great is their heavy emphasis on real stunts, rather than relying on computer graphics. And this stunt is just an example of that.
Another amusing part of this movie is that Bond wants to go see Hai Fat, so he asks Q to make him a sticky rubber nipple. Scaramanga had one distinct characteristic, he had three nipples. So obviously a fake nipple stuck to your chest means you are now Scaramanga. I just find the thought of Q making a nipple amongst all the cars and gadgets he’s making hilarious.
Bond finally tracks Scaramanga down and flies to his island where Scaramanga is waiting for him with lunch. As usual, the villain treats Bond to a meal, explains his plans in detail, before he tries to kill him. They dine on some mushrooms, and have an awkward exchange in words that would make any dinner guest get up and pretend to go to the bathroom. During this conversation, it is decided that they will duel. Fun. But it’s all a ploy to lure Bond into his wacky funhouse for another game. But unfortunately for Scaramanga, he is dealing with the Yogi Bear of British Agents - smarter than the average.
Bond goes underneath the platform and hides in the scaffolding, away from all the cameras, putting Knick Knack in the weeds (a restaurant staff term for overwhelmed). Scaramanga notices that something is not right so as he is walking around, we see that Bond mannequin from the beginning, but Bond has replaced himself with it, puts a bullet in him, and picks up the W on Scaramanga. Then after retrieving the Solex, Bond has completed his mission. Now off to get steamy with Mary Goodnight on a boat. Fortunately for us, the film is not yet over. We get one last fight scene between Bond and Knick Knack that is just entertaining.
While this film is riddled with short comings and uncomfortable social norms that are not okay in this day and age, “The Man With The Golden Gun” is such a fun movie, and Roger Moore is beginning to hit his stride with the character. Not a huge box office smash however, it is one of the lowest grossing Bond movies in the series and almost put the franchise in jeopardy. It also gets pretty mixed reviews, but I have to admit that I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.
That does it for me this week, sound off! Let me hear you, what did you think?
Reviews from Friends:
Andrew Albertsen
Honestly hate this theme song...I appreciate they were going for a different tone.. it’s just that the results were poop
Jake Benrud
This song also gets stuck in my head, but I agree. The lyrics are dumb. Here's another one where if the Villain would have just killed Bond when he had the chance, he might have succeeded in his evil plan, but what fun would that be?
24 Weeks of Bond will return next Monday with -
Skyfall
#James Bond#Roger Moore#The man with the golden gun#24WeeksofBond#Christopher Lee#Austin Powers#dr. evil
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For Your Eyes Only - #24WeeksofBond
This week we travel back in time to 1981 with “For Your Eyes Only” - also could be known as “When Bond Came Back to Earth”. Roger Moore’s films had been getting a little cartoony and comical, and then they put Bond in space with “Moonraker”, essentially jumping the shark. They had taken Bond as far as they could take him, and now they needed to bring the series back down to earth and give it a fresh coat of paint. “For Your Eyes Only” is a story of two governments vying for the same prize while also being a tale of revenge. This movie has its moments, and plenty of layers - but in my view, just misses the mark on excitement.
Roger Moore is back in the saddle of Bond, only because they couldn’t find a replacement. Moore was having his reservations about playing the role due to his age, and after his original contract expired after “The Spy Who Loved Me”, Moore signed a film by film deal, where there were essentially no strings attached. If they felt that they needed Moore, and if Moore wanted another payday, then we got Moore Bond. (see what I did there?). You definitely start seeing Moore’s age more noticeably starting with this movie - but he’s still not “A View To A Kill” old yet so we are still in the clear.
What I do like is how they used his age here. After meeting a young olympic skater in training, she starts smitten with Bond right away, and Moore plays the uncomfortable and awkwardness perfectly. Moore was an excellent eye actor. His ability to clue you in on Bond’s inner thoughts by acting with his eyes is something I’ve always appreciated with Roger’s movies. As they say in comedy, less is Moore...(ok, I’ll stop). But one of my favorite moments in this film is when the skater Bibi (Lynn-Holly Johnson) is in Moore’s bed inviting him for some good times, Bond says in such a Roger Moore way - “Yes well, you get your clothes on...and I’ll buy you an ice cream.” That line makes me chuckle literally every time.
Let’s talk about this pre-title sequence shall we? In one of the more memorable scenes in this rather un-memorable movie is the opening. Lots to unpack here. We open up with Bond at Teresa Bond’s grave, his one and only true love. This is again, one of the rare through lines throughout this franchise. We know how Bond’s parents died when he was a kid, we know SPECTRE, and we know Bond’s wife was killed. So here we are with Bond Moore-ning his late wife...(that was the last one). He is told that MI6 is coming to get him via helicopter. Bond gets in only for the helicopter to be hijacked by a familiar bald head. Blofeld makes a random appearance here after not being seen or heard from since “Diamonds are Forever”. I always found this odd. But anyway, Blofeld takes over the helicopter by remote control to have some fun at Bond’s expense. But Bond manages to get to the driver’s seat after hanging on to the side of the chopper as Blofeld is trying to knock him off. It’s a wonderfully intense scene.
Bond gets to the driver seat, and this is where Blofeld always manages to muck it up. This is why Blofeld never took care of Bond, because he lets him GET TO THE DAMN DRIVER’S SEAT! Bond takes control and scoops up Blofeld (who is in a wheel chair with a neck brace for some unknown reason) and dumps him down a huge chimney. Now story has it, they were not legally able to use Blofeld and SPECTRE anymore because Kevin Mclory (the Thunderball producer who you can read about in my Thunderball blog) owned the rights to them because of his legal victory in obtaining the rights of the Thunderball story. How annoying is that? So they never say his name, and this scene was meant to be a statement to Mr. Mclory that they didn’t need those characters anymore and that they were literally dumping them.
I thought maybe this time around, I would discover a connection between that scene and the rest of the film...but no. That opening is humorous and action packed, but it’s all for nought because it has nothing to do with anything. The real story begins with a naval fleet that has an “ATAC” being attacked by an unknown source. This ATAC is an important control unit that is able to fire ballistic missiles where ever you want. If fallen into the wrong hands, it could be a disaster. Of course Russia is involved, and they are trying to get it along with England.
But another layer to the story is that a man in Greece, who was contacted by MI6 to get it, is gunned down with his wife in front of their daughter who ends up being Melina Havelock (Carole Bouquet). They really had an opportunity here with Melina. She had a dark, and dangerous look and strapped her with a crossbow after she witnessed her parents die. These were the ingredients for a DC Comics type superhero. I think they wanted to make her full Green Arrow, but were maybe afraid to go too far away from the damsel in distress type that Bond girls had a reputation for. She has these moments where she attacks from the shadows, but still cries for James when she’s in trouble. The balance is just off, and it makes the character weaker than she should be. Not Carole’s fault, just poor writing.
Bond goes to Greece where he meets Kristatos (Julian Glover) who tells him the man who payed off the guy who killed Melina’s father was is working for a man named Columbo (Topol). So Bond starts to dig more, but keeps getting hunted down by men trying to stop him from the truth. Almost everyone Bond comes into contact with in this film ends up dead. Something is going on and Bond is forced to have eyes in the back of his head. We get some fun scenes along the way here with a car chase where Bond is driving a ragged Beetle, and a fun ski chase with awesome “Shaft” style music.
Bond kills Locgue (the man who payed the parent assasin) and is now on the hunt for Columbo. This movie is like a video game where there are all these different levels, and every level has a boss. Bond is now ready for the “big boss”; the Bowser or Gannon, if you will.
But Columbo finds him and convinces Bond that Kristatos is the real Bowser. Topol is great in this movie, he was primarily known for his broadway career, but he is able to bring all that charm to the screen and does a wonderful job of making you love him. Bond and Columbo are now working together and they go to infiltrate Kristato’s lair. This scene also gives me the willy’s. Bond has to be an epic mountain climber, but gets caught and kicked off. We see Bond free falling like Tom Petty until his rope catches him. That’s the stuff of nightmares there.
Anyway, they storm the castle, kill Kristatos, and destroy the ATAC so nobody has it. Leaving no country to worry about them using it against any other country. Yay. Feels like a pretty hollow accomplishment at the end. But at least we get a funny parody of Margaret Thatcher speaking to a parrot who she thinks is Bond. Not sure how accurate the parody was back then, but I’m sure it got roars of laughter?
To me, while we have a decent amount of action like the yacht scene where Kristatos is pulling Bond and Melina through the shark filled waters - the film falls short of any color what so ever. This movie is littered with forgettable characters and villains that don’t leave you as the viewer feeling invested. And while the plot may be deep and layered, the execution of it is just sleepy and un inspired. This sort of begins the twilight of the Moore Bond films, and little did the producers know that they would get two more films out of him.
Well that’s it for me this week. What did you all think? Let me hear you!
Reviews from Friends:
Jake Benrud
The Blofeld scene is comical. He could have killed Bond so much easier than that. His downfall is he lets him get out of his sight and assume it all goes according to plan. I guess that's the story with any Bond Villain. Similar to Dr. Evil's, "I'm going to leave them alone and not actually witness them dying, I'm just gonna assume it all went to plan. What?" This one I don't understand why the Olympic skater was infatuated with Bond. He's so old in this one. Also, that's possibly the worst car anti-theft system ever.
24 Weeks of Bond will return next Monday with -
The Man With the Golden Gun
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You Only Live Twice - #24WeeksofBond
This weeks installment in the 24 Weeks of Bond marathon continues with 1967′s “You Only Live Twice” where Bond DIES....then comes BACK TO LIFE...then becomes JAPANESE...then has a WAR INSIDE A VOLCANO. If someone who hadn’t seen this movie was given that description of this film, that person would’ve dropped everything that they had in that moment and found a way to see this movie. While that description makes this movie sound like a great cinematic experience, it ultimately falls flat with every bit of the plot being rushed to hell. But that’s just my opinion, read on and see if you agree.
Sean Connery is back for the 5th time as Bond, and only because the producers agreed to bump his salary considerably. Sean was getting tired of the grind that came with Bond and was having a hard time finding other film work with the hectic schedule of filming and promoting...(life sure must’ve been tough, eye roll.) But they showed him the money, and with it, we get a checked out Sean Connery on a mission to find out who is causing chaos in outer orbit?
Let’s start with some positives...the pre-title sequence is fun. We start out with a couple of American astronauts in space, and one of them goes out to check to make sure everything is working fine, but we see a mysterious spacecraft approaching undetected until it’s too late and swallows up the Americans, but in doing so, cuts the said astronauts lifeline. That scene always made me cringe as a kid. Then we see the American’s blaming Russia for the abduction, but Britain disagrees and think they saw something coming out of Japan. Cut to Bond in bed with a lovely young lady...(who makes a quiet cameo in Daniel Craig’s Casino Royale). She surprises Bond and traps him with the fold up bed they were sleeping on for some evil bad guys to open fire, KILLING JAMES BOND. I mean, there was blood and everything!!!
I must admit, they got me with this when I first saw this movie. I was legitimately shocked and sad when I saw this. I thought to myself “how can this be??”...well, turns out it was all a stunt to fake his own death so his enemies all write him off - giving MI6 a little breathing room for Bond to do his job.
The job is to figure out where this unidentified spacecraft is coming from. M has intel that there was some fishy stuff going on in Japan, so that’s where Bond is sent with the code “I love you” for his contacts to identify him. Basic, but humorous. Moneypenny gets a great line out of it, “repeat it please, so I know you have it”. Bond gets to Japan where he meets Aki (Akiko Wakabayashi) who is NOT his contact, but will be bringing him to his contact who is Mr. Henderson (Charles Gray). This is sort of a wasted role for Charles Gray. A very brief conversation with Henderson ends with him getting stabbed in the back through his paper walls.
Bond catches the guy, kills him, steals his clothes and goes to the get-away car that is being driven by none other than Peter Maivia. Who is Peter Maivia you ask? Well he is the father of Ata Maivia, who had a son who would go on to become THE ROCK. Yes, Peter Maivia is Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s Grandfather. No wonder Bond has a rough time handling this one. The Rock has said before that he would love to land a Bond Villain role one day. Maybe to avenge his grand daddy?
Aki bails Bond out by getting him out of harms way after taking out Peter Maivia and stealing some documents from a chemical facility and she takes him to Tanaka (Tetsurō Tamba) who works for the Japanese secret service. I would love it if my office had a slide attached to it. Bond and Tanaka talk business over Sake at 98.4 degrees fahrenheit, then what follows next is a rather uncomfortable scene that really doesn’t age well.
Tanaka takes Bond to his personal spa where his massage and bathing slaves wash them both while Tanaka says “In Japan, men come first - women come second.” ugh, some things about Bond that make you wish you could forget. We also get close to seeing Connery’s junk. If you look close enough while Bond is in his hot tub you can really see pretty far down through the water...not that I was looking...ok I was, I do every time.
But now suddenly, Aki joins the party taking over for the girl who was giving Bond a massage and she acts like they have been long lost lovers - whispering sweet nothings, and kissing his ear as he turns around and yells AKI, longingly. I’m sorry, when did they suddenly fall for each other? This is a very rushed relationship, we don’t have any time to get to know Aki before we are supposed to accept her as Bond’s love interest. Have I mentioned this movie was written by the man who wrote Matilda, and James and the Giant Peach?? Roald Dahl, swings in and writes the screen play after having no screen play writing experience. Apparently he and Ian Fleming were buds.
Anyway, there seems to be a lot of danger surrounding this chemical facility as the document Bond stole said that a picture of this boat had been taken by a tourist, and that the tourist was liquified. Bond goes sniffing, enlists the help of trusty ole Q and his “Little Nelly” toy helicopter with missiles and flies by the coast of where the boat in the picture was at. But one simply cannot go to the coast as an englishman, no no. In order to get there, Bond MUST become a Japanese ninja who has a wife and goes undercover as a poor worker.
Enter Kissy Suzuki (Mie Hama) who is another Japanese agent, picked to pretend marry Bond who is made up as the worst looking Japanese man ever. Seriously, this is just so goofy and ridiculous where it really takes away from the movie. Aki ends up getting poisoned accidentally and Bond has a hard time giving a crap about it. Thank you for your service Aki. But Bond now has to find where this spacecraft is coming from and fast, otherwise it’ll be Bond’s ass.
Kissy says there was something going on with the volcano. So they go hiking and discover that that is where the spacecraft is coming from. Man, Blofeld has an impressive collection of headquarters and hide outs. You have to wonder how long it took Blofeld to construct this volcano lair, it is very impressive.
Bond gets to work infiltrating the volcano while Tanaka sends his ninjas, and now we have a war.
This is the first time we get to see Blofeld’s (Donald Pleasence) face and also the first time we get Blofeld as the main henchman. In the previous movies Blofeld was just a voice and a cat who deployed his empire to be the Bond villains, but Blofeld is alone here with only Hans, Mr. Osato, and Helga Brant as his backup. Not exactly the “A” team. After a pretty intense battle, Bond manages to destroy the Spacecraft, sent out to create a world war between America and Russia, and escapes...mission complete.
While “You Only Live Twice” has it’s moments - The pre-title sequence, the Volcano fight, and the Peter Maivia easter egg. “You Only Live Twice” is a rather forgettable film in the series. Connery had enjoyed incredible success in his first 4 films, and even this movie was touted as a major success when it opened - but this just comes up short in flavor and substance. The whole movie is just about Bond looking for the spacecraft in Japan, and running into all sorts of vanilla characters along the way, making me have to think twice about watching this again. (pun intended, unfortunately).
Connery would exit the franchise after this film to be replaced by George Lazenby, but after George decides to walk, Connery will come back again for one more film - but you can definitely see the writing on the wall for Connery here. You Only Live Twice is at best, a passable Bond film that lacks depth and void of any creative passion, but gets by because it’s a Bond movie. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it, what did you think? Let me know!
Reviews from Friends:
Jake Benrud
I enjoyed this movie. Although the spaceship "eating" the other spaceships was comical by today's special effects standards. Watch out for the piranha pool. I've always enjoyed this theme song. I don't know why. It always gets stuck in my head.
24 Weeks of Bond will return next Monday with -
For Your Eyes Only
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On Her Majesty’s Secret Service - #24WeeksofBond
1969 certainly must’ve been a wild time. For the first time ever, Bond lovers and general movie goers were to go see a Bond movie starring the first “new Bond”. After 5 movies, Sean Connery simply had enough with the character, the franchise, and the main producer Albert “Cubby” Broccoli. So how in the world do you step into a role that had been created and branded into the minds of the fans by Sean Connery? Why even carry on the series without Sean Connery? I wonder what people thought of the concept of a “new Bond” back then? Now a days, it’s a right of passage. We all know that an actor playing Bond has a shelf life, and that they will eventually leave the role only to be replaced by another. In today’s world, for Bond fans, this moment can be a very exciting thing. While I LOVE Daniel Craig, I am very anxious to find out who will replace him. But back in 1969, the thought of a new actor to come in and just carry on the role like nothing happened? There must have been tons of criticism, skepticism and curiosity.
Enter George Lazenby, the man with the distinction of being the first “new Bond”. Lazenby was a legit no-name with a care-free, “fly by the seat of your pants” personality. He was a male model who only got into modeling because someone thought he had the look for it and gave him an opportunity - so he went and did it. Then the role of Bond came along, and with Lazenby’s natural good looks and cavalier attitude - Lazenby literally just walked into the audition room un-announced and told the directors that they were looking at the man they needed. Lazenby got the part. Those actors who had their 2 contrasting 3 minute monologues ready were probably furious.
Back in the day when my brother and my best friend were playing “Goldeneye” on the N64 non-stop, and learning about Bond and all it’s history and the previous actors that came before Brosnan - we had learned that there was a guy who only did one movie. We didn’t know the man’s name back then, so we always referred to him as “Zachary Dumbhead” when discussing Bond. As funny of an anecdote that is to me, I must say that Lazenby deserves a little more respect than that. This was a tough position to be in.
Lazenby may look a bit goofy, and his undercover role of Sir Hilary Bray doesn’t do anything for his overall bravado - but Lazenby plays the role of Bond with a sense of fearlessness and charm, much like how I imagine he was in real life.
Also, nobody throws a harder punch than Lazenby. Sheesh!
I simply cannot imagine Connery playing Bond here, especially given how pivotal this Bond movie is to the rest of the series before they hit the reset button with Daniel Craig. I just don’t think Connery could’ve convinced Bond lovers that he was legitimately in love. A fresh take on the role would’ve made it easier to buy into the love between Bond and his soon to be wife Contessa Terese di Vincezo (Diana Rigg) or Tracy as she would be known in the film.
I love Lazenby and Rigg’s chemistry, I think these two pull off a believable performance despite their off screen distain for each other. Yes, it is widely known that Diana Rigg did not care for Lazenby’s childish attitude and over confidence and it created friction while filming. There is a pretty famous story of Diana Rigg purposely eating food with lots of onion and garlic right before their love scenes so her breath would stink. If you have time to watch the documentary “Becoming Bond” I suggest you do that - it’s pretty much a doc on Lazenby.
Let’s talk about this plot, this strange, fear of chickens curing plot. This movie starts out with Bond bailing out who we would come to know as Tracy on a couple of occasions. Saving her from her trying to drown herself (I think?) and giving her financial help when she blows it at the casino. We come to find out she is the daughter of the European, generic brand version of Blofeld named Draco (Gabriele Ferzetti). He brings Bond to his office in forcible fashion and tells him that he’ll give him a million pounds if he marries Tracy. Bond is like huh? Bond thinks about the offer because Draco has connections to Blofeld himself, and if he got some info he just might go along with it.
Tracy sniffs this out right away and forces her papa to give Bond the info he desires, so he does. But here’s the twist, Bond still pursues Tracy...not because she has any other info on Blofeld (which is Bond’s only thing he looks for in a mate) but because he just has an infatuation with her. So then we see a montage of the typical things two people do while discovering a love for one another...riding horses, sitting by fountains, and what not. 2 minutes of Louie Armstrong later, and boom, they’re officially in love...at least she is. But now it’s time to work.
Bond follows the lead given to him by Draco and finds where Blofeld is and finds out that Blofeld is bringing a genealogist up to his location to dub him as a count. Who knows why...Bond meets the man who is supposed to go meet him and quickly learns all there is to know about the subject and comes up with an uncanny impersonation of him.
This is where “OHMSS” really starts getting weird. We take a break from Bond’s love story with Tracy to go to the Swiss alps where Bond or “Sir Hilary Bray” is to meet Blofeld. But in doing so, he discovers that he is housing a harem of women to try and cure their allergies by making them eat their allergies for dinner and hypnotizing them every night. The real plan being that Blofeld is designing a virus to halt all crops from growing and using the girls to distribute the virus. Of course the ladies love the new man on the block and Bond has a few encounters after-hours. You sure know how to pick em Tracy!
The odd thing about this is the fact that Blofeld doesn’t recognize Bond right away. Maybe it’s the Superman effect, where instead of glasses being the difference between Superman and Clark Kent - it’s a Kilt being the difference between James Bond and Sir Hilary Bray - who knows? Blofeld finds out it’s Bond, not because it’s so obviously Bond, but because he made a tiny slip in the details of the history of his ancestors. What a Sherlock.
Bond’s discovered, and escapes by ski and some entertainingly bad green screen work and bumps into Tracy again who saves him from the bad guys where they finally escape in a horse barn where they will spend the night. This is where Bond finally confesses his love for Tracy and asks her to marry him. I think this scene is beautiful and both actors do a wonderful job. It’s so simplistic, spontaneous and romantic.
The bad guys catch up, Tracy gets captured after being swallowed up by an avalanche and Bond goes against M’s wishes and enlists the help of Draco and his henchmen to storm the castle and destroy Blofeld’s headquarters. This complete with an iconic shot of Bond sliding over the ice on his stomach, gun in hand, and shooting the villains. Great stuff. But more horrible green screen work to follow. Bond catches up to Blofeld during a bob sled chase and hangs him up in the branches. The objective seems to be complete.
The final scene is where Bond gets married, and as they are driving away, Blofeld and his hench-women Irma Bunt drive by and shoot at Bond, killing Tracy in the process. Say what you want about Lazenby’s performance, but his final dialogue to the cop about Tracy is heart wrenching. Lazenby does a fantastic job grieving the loss of his newlywed, and this would be one of the only consistent pieces of Bond’s backstory that we hear throughout the rest of the series.
OHMSS is a good Bond flick, although it is a bit odd with the plot, the unusual casting choice of Telly Savalas as Blofeld, and Lazenby’s random insertion in the role - it is a very important piece of the Bond puzzle and up until Daniel Craig, we don’t see Bond this full of raw emotion ever again. It also has lots of fun callbacks to the previous five films with the gadgets he pulls out of his desk, the janitor whistling “Goldfinger”, and even Bond saying before the title sequence “This never happened to the other fellow”, which makes Bond theorists believe that James Bond is just the name given to the man who holds the 007 number. I’m sure it was just there to call out the elephant in the room and break the ice with the skeptical audience.
As important as this film is to the series this is not one of my favorites given a lot of factors that just bother me. Lazenby does a hell of a job, but he simply just did not care for the real life Bond lifestyle which caused him to break from the role. Lazenby was told to present himself as Bond where ever he went to keep the mystique alive, but at the premier, Lazenby showed up with long hair and beard and did not please the studio execs. Lazenby was just too care-free to be a celebrity, but he does admit that he wished he had knocked some sense into himself back then as it could have made him for the rest of his life. Instead, he is just a blip on the radar and you have to wonder how the next film would’ve have done with Lazenby at the helm.
We will never know.
That’s all for me, hope you enjoyed it tonight! Let me know your thoughts!
Reviews from Friends:
My Mom
I’ve decided it’s really hard to follow a high action film like 007 s in two parts. Started it late last night and fell asleep somewhere in the Swiss alps while watching a group of girls getting hypnotized. Who knows maybe I was drawn in to the relaxation technique. Tonight I resumed so it really lost some luster. This James Bond never really filled the role for me. He was kind of sweaty and goofy. Not the cool calm character he is supposed to be. The chases were fun from the Volkswagen bug to the horse drawn sleigh to the bobsled scene. Not to mention the harrowing ski chases amid avalanches. Wow. And of all the choices this girl was THE ONE for James? I did get a better perspective though after reading your review Sam. You are a very detailed critic. Great evaluation.
Dan Perch
Love the review!!
Admittingly It took me a long time to watch OHMSS because lack of interest in George Lazenby. However, when I came around to it I fell in love with the movie!
It was So (not so) subtly over the top throughout the whole movie. Lazenby was actually pretty good throughout, and certainly had some cringing lines “call me Hilly”😬 haha!
From the sweet 1960’s villain pad, the way he smokes his cigarettes, and how he manages to stunningly excel in all winter sports, Telly as Blofeld is my favorite of all time!! (That bobsled gif had me rolling laughing😂 cinematic gold!)
He finds a way to ‘best’ Bond at absolutely everything in this one (strong booking) then right when you think Bond goes over... what an ending!
Lazenby delivers that line, and the credits start to roll, Had me speechless!
One of my favorite movies from the 1960s
Telly was the man!
Jake Benrud
LOL. I forgot all about "Zachary Dumbhead". I honestly have never watched this whole movie. Or at least, I didn't remember it. The plot is strange with the hypnotized girls releasing bioterrorism agents. If I were Blofeld, I would have invested in a helicopter to chase down Bond after he escaped instead of going skiing after him myself. Just a thought. There's a lot I didn't know about George Lazenby until I did some searching on him recently. Apparently he never signed a contract during the whole filming of this movie. Unreal. He also didn't want to play ball with the studio with maintaining the look of "James Bond" outside of work after filming. Interesting guy. Devastating ending to the movie, but we all knew that 007 the playboy couldn't stay married for long.
24 Weeks of Bond will return next Monday with -
You Only Live Twice
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Goldeneye - #24WeeksofBond
24 Weeks of Bond continues this week with Goldeneye. Ask anybody who grew up with an N64 what their favorite Bond movie is. I’d be willing to bet 9 out of 10 of those people will tell you this film. I grew up with an N64, I knew the Goldeneye video game before I even knew it was a Bond Movie. The Goldeneye N64 game was my introduction to James Bond. Today, i feel like shouting from the mountain tops...I can now confidently say, that Goldeneye is my favorite Bond movie.
Besides the incredible amount of nostalgia playing multi-player Goldeneye in the basement of my best friends house almost every day after school - this movie is gritty, dark, witty, complex, and full of “punch you in the gut intensity”. Sean Bean plays 006, and it is the ultimate villain. Who would be a bigger adversary to Bond, then Bond himself? That’s how close 006 compares to 007. This film is as close to Bond vs. Bond that we will ever see. We also have the overtly sexual psychopath in Xenia Onotopp (Famke Janssen) and Boris Grishenko (Alan Cumming) a high level computer programmer and overall sleazy creep who uses “boobs” as his passwords.
It’s hard to top this cast of characters. It doesn’t end with the bad guys either, we have our seductive Natalya Simonova, who isn’t the obvious “sex appeal” pick, which is nice. When we first see her, she has a wool sweater on, a “Karen” hair cut, and a voice lower than mine - but she gets her shit done and nobody is going to tell her no. I love seeing Natalya boss Bond around, one of my favorite Bond girls for sure. We also are introduced to the new M, Judi Dench. Of course, with any new boss, there is chatter within the work force and M finds herself over hearing some of it. I do wish we had some moment where M proves her trust, but it’s all well and good in the end because she’s Judi Dench, the best M ever...with all due respect to Bernard Lee of course.
This movie starts hot, with Bond bungee jumping off a giant dam in Russia. He then infiltrates their military base where he meets up with his pal, 006 Alec Trevelyan. We see them tackling this mission together, but Alec finds himself in trouble. Bond decides to improv, and adjusts the timers to 3 minutes instead of 6 - but Alec gets killed despite following orders. Bond is now pissed. He manages to escape by driving off a cliff to catch a falling airplane.
This is probably the most eye-rolling part of this movie. I can suspend my disbelief more than most (I’m a pro wrestling fan), but this is just non-sense. He manages to catch up to the nose diving airplane, get in, buckle up, adjust the rear view mirror, throw on some AC/DC for the road, and escape. We see the bombs going off, Bond has completed this mystery mission. We never really find out what the mission was for. I guess just to introduce us to Oromov and Trevelyan who will become key figures later on.
We come back from an intoxicating rendition of “Goldeneye” sung by Tina Turner, and we are now 9 years into the future. Think of all the potential movies we missed out on in those 9 years! We see Bond in Monaco being evaluated where he meets a crazy speed demon who turns out to be Xenia. Bond later goes to a casino where he find Xenia there and starts to realize that something troubling is brewing. After further digging, he finds out she has a connection to the Janus Group - a crime syndicate who has an unknown leader. Not really sure what Bond is doing in Monaco. Was he on holiday? Was he sent there for something in particular?
ANYWAY (thanks mom), Xenia ends up killing an admiral with her apparent titanium alloy thighs during a hot night and steals a “Tiger” helicopter that can withstand any sort of electro magnetic blast. Bond doesn’t get to it in time, and the helicopter takes off. Now Bond is really curious...and pissed. General Oromov from the opening and Xenia set off one of the Goldeneye satellites which trigger an electro magnetic pulse, destroying every type of computer generated device. They then enlist the help of Boris, who had just hacked into the FBI security system all nonchalantly before having a cig.
The Goldeneye destroys the area and Oromov tries to cover it up by blaming it on British separatists. But doesn’t realize that Natalya had survived the blast. Bond now wants to meet thee Janus, and goes to see a russian mafia don who Bond has had history with and gets a meeting set up. This is when we find out that Janus is actually Bond’s ole mate, Alec Trevelyan. Bond is stunned and shaken. 9 years after he saw his death, here he is. Trevelyan notes that he didn’t account Bond improving and setting the timers for 3 minutes which burned half his face, and broke his heart. “007s loyalty is always to the mission...never to his friends”. Tear.
The plan is to set off another Goldeneye in London, creating a financial meltdown, putting England back into the stone age. But now Bond has entered the fray, and is keen on throwing a wrench into the plans. He does so...with a tank. In one of the more entertaining chase scenes in Bond history, we see Bond chasing down Oromov with a bloody tank. Destroying everything in his path, and finding time to adjust his tie in the process. Man I love this scene. Oromov is also another great character. Played by Gottfried John, Oromov is a desperate, corrupt General - trying to put on a front as head of Russia’s space division, but also keep Janus’ plans in tact. With flask in hand, and sweating profusely, he has to tell Janus that Bond escaped.
(Seinfeld reference alert)
Bond saves Natalya from the bad guys, yadda yadda yadda, SATELLITE FIGHT SCENE!! Bond comes to blows with 006 on the second base where another Goldeneye detonator is being held. This fight is so brutal and hard hitting that it really feels like Bond is fighting Bond. These two, once friends, now bitter enemies. Just watching this fight hurts. And just when we think Bond is at a dead end, he kicks a lever for the ladder and drops all the way down to the tiniest platform on the bottom of the satellite, leaving himself with no room for error. The fight continues on this tiny platform where we eventually see Bond kick Trevelyan off and grab his foot for a final farewell.
I don’t necessarily have a fear of heights, but I do have a fear of falling. What happens next always leaves me with the feeling of my stomach being sucked up into my throat. Bond has Trevelyan by the foot as he dangles thousands of feet in the air. Alec finally looks up and says “For England, James”, then Bond says “STFU” and lets him go. I get shivers just thinking about it.
Oh, did I mention this score??? The music that plays throughout this scene is heart pounding and really gets me going. There’s nothing like incredibly written fight music and Goldeneye has the cream of the crop.
There is just so much to love with “Goldeneye”. But unfortunately for Pierce Brosnan, this movie will be his first and his best. Goldeneye was such a tremendous success coming off a 6 year hiatus after “Licence To Kill”, that all Brosnan’s next films suffered because of it. This film was so good because it was dark, had an unforgettable cast, and had a TOUCH of humor. That scene where Bond goes to see Valentine is really all the humor you need - how about that Minnie Driver cameo? After this, I guess the writers went all in on the humor bit of it because the rest of the Brosnan catalog can be little more cartoony and goofy. While I did enjoy “Tomorrow Never Dies” - it just does not compare to “Goldeneye”.
Pierce Brosnan is the perfect Bond for this era and this film in particular. I just cannot imagine and older Timothy Dalton doing this film justice. Goldeneye ushered in a new style of James Bond. This film would be a taste of what was to come with the future Daniel Craig movies, and it provided an opportunity for a new generation of young, teenage movie goers to hop on board the Bond Band Wagon with the N64 video game. It got me, that’s for sure. This was the first Bond film I ever saw, and I’m proud to say that it is my favorite Bond movie ever.
That’s it for me this week, let me know what you thought and why it was your favorite Bond movie ever!
Reviews from Friends:
My Mom:
I watched with your dad and two of your brothers. It was a very intense and exciting film. Brosnan is so good. But it was pretty complicated and as is typical, I have a hard time keeping up with it all. That is why I loved the simplicity of last weeks choice. Lol. Because I’m old. The characters were great and I loved the feisty females
Jeremy Tillema:
Greatest bond movie produces greatest first person shooter on the greatest gaming console of all time.
I said it.
Jake Benrud:
Great review Sam, and I’m with you on this one. This is a fantastic Bond movie and one of my favorites, if not my favorite. I think I have seen this movie more times than any other (I think Casino Royale might be second). I’m pretty sure I had the VHS, and I think you and I watched it numerous times. (I think Joanna was getting sick of me quoting the movie when we were watching it since I knew all the lines.) This is the movie that really got me into Bond movies. The action, the plot, the twists all made this an excellent and entertaining installment in the Bond series. Makes me want to fire back up that ‘64 and get the rumble packs out!
Tyler Dahlgren
I have been following along to these and have been giving them the Facebook like, but haven’t been commenting or watching along because honestly I could probably recite every Bond moving verbatim from start to finish. My earliest childhood memories (way, way earlier than any kid has a business being exposed to Bond) are of sitting with my Grandpa in his recliner while he munched popcorn and watched Bond. For better or for worse they are like a comfort food for me.
I say all of that to say this. Goldeneye is my favorite. I still remember watching it for the first time with Mark Kulig. We played the game and watched the movie more times than you’d think possible. The double cross, resurrection storyline. The characters. The cast is stacked. It all adds up so well and revived the franchise from some abysmal showings. I love this movie.
24 Weeks of Bond will return next Monday with -
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
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