CFE's James Bond Countdown

[Majik1387]

For me it's

1) Brosnan
2) Connery
3) Craig
4) Dalton
5) Moore
6) Lazenby

 

[kedrell]

Screw that, View to a Kill is awesome.

VTAK had good stuff to be sure. Walken & Jones were good villains & the opening song is possibly the best in a Bond film, ever. But Bond himself never seemed so terrible. Moore has always been my least favorite Bond and in this one he needed a cane, he looked so old. That's why it comes in last for me, possibly.

 

[CFE]

#22

A View To A Kill (1985)

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Directed by ... John Glen
Written by … Richard Maibaum and Michael G. Wilson
Based on the James Bond Character Created by ... Ian Fleming

Roger Moore ... James Bond
Christopher Walken ... Max Zorin
Tanya Roberts ... Stacey Sutton
Grace Jones ... May Day
Patrick Macnee ... Sir Godfrey Tibbett
Patrick Bauchau ... Scarpine
David Yip ... Chuck Lee
Fiona Fullerton ... Pola Ivanova
Manning Redwood ... Bob Conley
Alison Doody ... Jenny Flex
Willoughby Gray ... Dr. Carl Mortner / Hans Glaub
Desmond Llewelyn ... Q
Robert Brown ... M
Lois Maxwell ... Miss Moneypenny
Dolph Lundgren ... Venz
Walter Gotell ... General Anatol Gogol
Geoffrey Keen ... Sir Frederick Gray
Jean Rougerie ... Aubergine
Daniel Benzali ... WG Howe
Bogdan Kominowski ... Klotkoff
Papillon Soo Soo ... Pan Ho
Mary Stavin ... Kimberley Jones

An investigation of a horse-racing scam leads 007 to a mad industrialist who plans to create a worldwide microchip monopoly by destroying California's Silicon Valley.

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Ever wonder what happens when you try to make a James Bond film in such a hurry that you don't have time to write a script?

1985’s "A View to a Kill" might give you an idea.

This marks the third Bond film which was not based on one of Ian Fleming's novels. Like “Die Another Day,” the film is an example of a Bond film that has all the right elements in place but comes up short in its execution. To be honest the film plays fairly much like a remake of “Goldfinger,” if you trade out gold for computer chips (the theme of a villain corning the respective market). Too bad it couldn’t take further inspiration from that film and be good.

The movie starts with Bond (Roger Moore) on a mission in the Soviet Union where he narrowly escapes after recovering a microchip off the dead snow-bound body of 004. There is a great ski chase in the movie's opening scene as he's pursued by the Russians.

It seems that the microchip that Bond recovered is a "silicon integrated unit" capable of triggering a magnetic pulse and blowing out everything that uses a similar chip, which would include anything from toasters to the most advanced computers. I didn't know toasters were computerized in the mid-1980s, but needless to say a nuclear explosion over England would short out the entire country, destroying their national defenses and rendering the entirety of their population completely…toast-less.

The British have a computer chip that is impervious to all magnetic pulse damage, and Bond's mission is to find out how the Soviets have managed to get a hold of an exact copy of one.

An investigation of a suspicious horse-race gambling circuit leads to Max Zorin (Christopher Walken), a purebred Nazi baby all grown up into a psychotic capitalist madman who is suspected of selling the design of the chip Bond initially confiscated (he was the inventor) to the Russians. But of course, starting a war between the British and the Russians is not nearly enough, Zorin plans on destroying the key geological lock underneath the San Andreas Fault, resulting in a massive flood that will drown Silicon Valley, thus allowing him to corner the "chip market".

If you're going to make a Bond film where there's not a single action scene which is inventive or interesting or different in any way (granted the first big action scene is entertaining), at least make the screenplay interesting. John Glen offering up some of the laziest direction in the series is only another aspect of this movie which makes it such a totally flat, boring failure.

However for being a film that doesn’t quite fit as much, Moore gives one of his better performances in “A View to a Kill” and it would be his last, being replaced by Timothy Dalton for 1987’s “The Living Daylights.” It’s a better swansong than Brosnan was given, but that’s not saying much at all. I will say Moore does looks his oldest here.

Though he does a good job in the role, Christopher Walken’s Zorin is among one of the more boring Bond villains that Walken has to work with.

But the film does have one hallmark moment for the cast, as “View” marked the end of an era being the final Bond film for the late Lois Maxwell, who dutifully portrayed secretary Miss Moneypenny from the series’ 1962 inception.

We get a nice career debut for Alison Doody (Elsa Schneider from “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”) as Jenni Flex…and even Dolph Lundgren gets in on the action as henchman Venz.

Then there’s the very attractive but underwhelming former “Charlie’s Angel” Tanya Roberts (younger viewers will recognize her as Donna Pinciotti’s buxom mother on “That 70s Show”) as Bond’s love interest Stacey Sutton, the beautiful blond geologist and heiress who results a vital assistance to 007 in unraveling the details of Zorin's scheme to detonate a bomb in one of his mines and create a cataclysmic earthquake. While she plays an important role in the plot, I’m just not as involved as with other Bond women…buying her as a geologist and businesswoman is also quite difficult.

Zorin’s sidekick, May Day, is played by Jamaican actress/model Grace Jones, who is best known for doing scary roles like this one. I'm not sure what the deal was with her hair in this movie, but they definitely went overboard a few times. There is one point in the film where it looks like it was sculpted to look exactly like Batman's ears. Who comes up with this stuff? She’s not all that attractive either (maybe a bit shallow on my part but I don’t know what to tell you).

Nevertheless, she is one of the better female Bond villains (and a rare example of genuine character development and change), as is Walken's Max Zorin. I mean in order to raise money for his take-over of the computer market; he devises a scheme where he implants devices into race-horses that deliver timed injections of horse steroids, so that they aren't detected in pre-race blood tests. It’s pretty ingenious, but it's the design of that underground earthquake that really takes the cake on being clever. So clever in fact that it even provided the inspiration for an episode of the Disney cartoon "Ducktales!"

There is some depth added to the characters of Zorin and May Day near the end of the film as well when it is revealed that Zorin is ex-KGB and, if it weren't for them, he and May Day would now be nothing but walking biological experiments. We never learn exactly what is meant by this, but it doesn't matter. Both Walken and Jones play it with enough malice and conviction.

John Barry’s score is tolerable, but considerably weaker compared to earlier material…but one of the few factors I did very much enjoy is Duran Duran’s title song (one of my favorites).

But the action sequences are just a combination of being tiresome or outrageously outlandish…even by Bond standards. Again, there’s a rhythm to these things. There’s a more refined way to be over the top.

The technically well-done chase sequence in Paris is ruined due to a ludicrous moment in which Bond’s car is hit by another and breaks in half! It looked cool driving on two wheels, but seriously, it’s like something out of a cartoon. In keeping with some of the less attractive Bond conventions, some of the other action scenes are ruined by an overly-jokey feel - the San Francisco fire truck chase, for example, is played totally for laughs, and, like the Golden Gate Bridge scenes, features so much poor back-projection it is hard not to laugh. Plus, the pre-credits ski-chase is wrecked by an 80's cover of 'California Girls' being played over the action, and Bond's companion and vehicle at the end of this sequence. For all the problems aforementioned, director John Glen deserves the blame…although he was hardly alone in getting things wrong during 007's history.

The film arguably holds up to some extent (May Day’s stunt on the Eiffel Tower is fantastic) but in the long run it just can’t cut it.

"A View to a Kill", unlike "Moonraker" or "Diamonds are Forever," isn't juvenile…it's just absolutely lazy; a lame rehash of old ideas with little inventiveness or energy. It's one of the worst of the series because it commits the cardinal sin in film: laziness. At least "Moonraker" tried and failed, but it didn't seem that this film even bothered trying at all.

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[TruerToTheCore]

Still no QUANTUM OF ****?!

Yes, A View To A Kill is bad.

 

[Homer J. Fong]

Well, at least the Duran Duran song is good (one of the best Bond themes, in fact).

I don't hate Roger Moore's Bond; in fact, I think he was great in The Spy Who Loved Me (and I have to correct you here, CFE, TSWLM was the first Bond not at all based on an Ian Fleming story), For Your Eyes Only, and Octopussy. But in his other 4 films, he had scripts that (IMO, of course) reduced Bond to a joke, and he played along. Sure, Bond should be stylish, debonair, and witty, but he should also be plausible as a threat and, you know, a spy. It's unfortunate that Moore went out one movie too many instead of with the far superior Octopussy. (Even he's admitted this.) He's just blatantly going through the motions here.

Aside from being young enough to be his daughter, Tanya Roberts is pretty bland herself - and yes, totally unconvincing as a geologist/businesswoman. Grace Jones' May Day...well, she's no Fiona Volpe, but she is memorable. Lois Maxwell (in her swan song as Moneypenny) and Desmond Llewelyn do what they can with even less material than usual, but the obvious cast standout is Christopher Walken as Max Zorin. Walken's good here, but it feels to me like he could have done a lot more with the part, and it's a shame he had such a lazy, derivative script to work with.

(Also, isn't this exchange - May Day: "What a view" Zorin: "...To a kill" - just incredibly awkward?)

Bottom line: A View to a Kill is a silly, uninspired mess. If you took the biggest Timothy Dalton hater and sat them down to watch AVTAK followed by The Living Daylights, I'd think the latter would be a breath of fresh air.

 

[CFE]

^Yeah I double checked and it turns out AVTAK was the third film to have an original screenplay...I've re-edited my review to account for the accurate info.

Thanks, Homer

 

[Bunker]

CFE: The god of countdowns.

 

[Majik1387]

I would have rated it higher.

 

[Ace of Knaves]

Same here, if only for Walken and that nut case Grace Jones

 

[CFE]

#21

License To Kill (1989)

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Directed by ... John Glen
Written by … Richard Maibaum and Michael G. Wilson
Based on the James Bond Character Created by ... Ian Fleming

Timothy Dalton ... James Bond
Carey Lowell ... Pam Bouvier
Robert Davi ... Franz Sanchez
Talisa Soto ... Lupe Lamora
Anthony Zerbe ... Milton Krest
Frank McRae ... Sharkey
David Hedison ... Felix Leiter
Wayne Newton ... Professor Joe Butcher
Benicio Del Toro ... Dario
Anthony Starke ... Truman-Lodge
Everett McGill ... Ed Killifer
Desmond Llewelyn ... Q
Pedro Armendáriz Jr. ... President Hector Lopez
Robert Brown ... M
Priscilla Barnes ... Della Churchill
Don Stroud ... Heller
Caroline Bliss ... Miss Moneypenny
Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa ... Kwang
Grand L. Bush ... Hawkins
Alejandro Bracho ... Perez
Guy De Saint Cyr ... Braun
Rafer Johnson ... Mullens
Diana Lee-Hsu ... Loti
Christopher Neame ... Fallon
Jeannine Bisignano ... Stripper
Claudio Brook ... Montelongo
Cynthia Fallon ... Consuelo
Enrique Novi ... Rasmussen

James Bond leaves Her Majesty's Secret Service to stop an evil drug lord and avenge his best friend, Felix Leiter.

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1989 was the simultaneous end and beginning of two eras in cinema. On the one hand, Tim Burton’s dark and majestic “Batman” was injecting new blood while Spielberg and Lucas’ Indiana Jones literally rode off into the sunset.

However, things were neither re-energized nor poetically ended for Special Agent 007.

“License to Kill” goes against the grain of the Bond series at large, going for a more plausible and darkly realistic approach to Fleming’s character. The quality of the outcome is up for questioning and, from what I can see, this is the Bond film most people are on the fence about. Some say it’s criminally underrated while others say it’s the worst in the series.

And while I wouldn’t call it the absolute worst, I’m inclined to say its close.

Following an important drug bust, Bond (Timothy Dalton) attends the wedding of his close friend, CIA Agent Felix Leiter (David Hedison). But soon after Felix’s wife is killed and Felix is mortally wounded and left for dead by Columbian Drug Lord Franz Sanchez (Robert Davi), the drug kingpin Felix had put away who had escaped. Refusing to allow Bond to go on a personal vendetta, MI6 puts him to work on another assignment…but 007 has other plans. Turning in his license to kill (hence the title) Bond becomes a rogue agent in order to go after Sanchez and have his revenge.

Even though I appreciate the risk they took with the story, it falls tremendously short for me. I’m sorry but, while the concept of Bond going rogue and completely abandoning Her Majesty's Secret Service in the name of revenge is a refreshing angle, “License” doesn’t execute it as well. Plus I know that for audiences in the 80s, and nowadays as well, the re-assurance that our hero is in fact human is a necessity so we can relate to them…but while Bond does have human feelings and personal issues, I’ve always had the impression that he would NEVER let those factors get in the way of the mission or of his being a Secret Agent.

But here the biggest issue is that they’re still treating him like an Agent. He goes absent without leave, and once tracked down resigns his 'license to kill'. I’m sorry but what were they thinking? How can you make a spy thriller if there are no spies…and there in lies the true problem.

Now Bond’s just an angry man who wants revenge…like any ordinary punk or cop or gunslinger. I’m sorry but no, just no…This is James Bond, AGENT 007…you don’t reduce him to that level.

The one thing I do appreciate about the story, however, is the loyalty Bond displays for his friendship with Felix. But again, it wouldn’t be at the expense of his duty.

What makes the film beyond redemption is the awful script and unremarkable acting.

Timothy Dalton gives it his all as Bond, but he fails to impress (personally, he’s my least favorite Bond). It doesn’t have so much to do with Dalton, who’s an excellent actor…, it’s the script. If he had a better one, Dalton could easily pull off being a better Bond. In fact you can clearly see hints of a better 007 beneath the surface in both of Dalton’s films, I feel.

The two Bond women this time around, Carey Lowell and Talisa Soto, arguably deliver two of the worst performances in the series. They are almost staggeringly bad, stale, scripted, stilted, like two reluctant students being made to read aloud in class.

And Robert Davi, playing a heavily accented drugs baron who speaks fluent English except for the word "amigo", is actively horrid.

The rest of the supporting cast is instantly forgettable, with Desmond Llewelyn being the only notable exception (Q can do no wrong in my book). But no one else, not even Benicio Del Toro, can manage anything memorable here.

There is something unique about this particular installment in the 007 series, easily the ONLY thing, which must be cherished and given notice. That is its renegade darkness, its fearless exploration of more intense scenes of violence, its use of black and deep red in the costumes, sets, and cinematography, the chance the series took to be like other action movies instead of being isolated a James Bond film. Ultimately the risk doesn’t pay off, but I admire the fact that they took one in the first place.

The title song is performed this time around by the soulful Gladys Knight, and it’s a pretty decent track…

And despite my not being a fan of the film, the brilliant Michael Kamen supplies us with an elegant, sensual and brooding score that is a vital player unto itself, complimenting the visuals excellently…still no John Barry, but you know…

But see that’s just the thing. “License,” structurally, is well crafted. But it just doesn’t work out of the mere fact that it’s not traditional Bond. The producers took a gamble and, for me, it didn’t pay off. It’s the most violent of the series and that, coupled with all the major releases of 1989, saw to it that the film bomb at the box office.

One of the cornerstones of Bond is that, while the sex and violence is obviously insinuated…it’s never presented in a no-hold barred way. The sense of subtlety is what makes the series unique after all.

The film was bashed by both critics and moviegoers alike. However, that is not to say that “License” has gone completely without any success. The movie has become a cult classic among many hardcore Bond fans for these reasons, so it's not that the movie was a complete failure, just something that the public may not have been ready for.

It’s brutal, it’s gritty…but it’s ‘Bond’ in name only.

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[-Arya-]

Another excellent countdown by CFE! Though Im not as much of a Bond fanatic as some of you are I still love many Bond movies.

My favorite Bonds...well I only have 3 and they are in order:

1) Craig
2) Connery
3) Brosnan

The other actors just didn't fit the bill with the Bond character. Anyway I look forward to seeing how this lists pans out. I can safely make an educated guess and predict "Goldfinger" as #1.

 

[Ace of Knaves]

^Timothy Dalton's Bond was a very accurate portrayal of Bond from the books.

 

[-Arya-]

Granted. But I just didn't like Dalton. This is what I mean with the phrase in Dalton's case.

 

[Homer J. Fong]

I don't much care for Licence to Kill, but I would definitely have it above the likes of Diamonds Are Forever, Live and Let Die, and The Man with the Golden Gun. But hey, it's not my list.

I certainly agree that the movie's biggest problem is that it just doesn't feel like a Bond Movie the way we'd come to know it. You take out the names James Bond and Q and that classic theme (which is barely used) and it could be any '80s cop-vs.-drug-kingpin thriller. Bond infiltrating Sanchez's operation and manipulating him to basically take down his own business is a clever angle, but it doesn't really work. Quantum of Solace, I think, would better portray a rogue agent Bond - because he was still an agent and what he was doing and pursuing was motivated by, as he said, his duty, and not just avenging Vesper. The idea that Leiter's maiming sends Bond off on his mission doesn't work for me either, and here's why: this may be the second appearance of David Hedison in the role (after Live and Let Die), and I guess he's fine, but there had been six actors as Felix in the series, making it impossible to form any connection with the character.

Acting-wise...well, Desmond Llewelyn was always excellent, but aside from him, I do think there are a few very strong performances in here: Dalton, Robert Davi's Sanchez, and Benicio Del Toro's very menacing Dario. I know Dalton was much much closer to Ian Fleming's creation, but Fleming's Bond, beside being colder and more threatening, still had charisma and humor; Dalton, to me, brought none of that. I do still feel he's quite good in this installment, improved from the last one (Wilson & Maibaum seem to have learned their lesson and give Bond much darker one-liners this time). And Davi is an effective balance between the laid-back megalomaniacs of the franchise and the more down-to-earth Lethal Weapon-like vibe of the rest of the picture. Carey Lowell and Talisa Soto...they're pretty hot, but otherwise I'm indifferent.

It took six years, but thankfully the Bond series rebounded in a big way with 1995's GoldenEye.

 

[StrainedEyes]

Craig looks so different in that promo shot then he does in the films.

 

[Homer J. Fong]

Oh, also, how stupid is it that the title of Licence Revoked was changed to Licence to Kill because it was thought that US audiences wouldn't know what revoked meant?

 

[TruerToTheCore]

Licence To Kill is superior to QoS and CR.

 

[CFE]

Licence To Kill is superior to QoS and CR.

eww, no (IMO)

 

[CFE]

#20

Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

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Directed by ... Roger Spottiswoode
Written by … Bruce Feirstein
Based on the James Bond Character Created by ... Ian Fleming

Pierce Brosnan ... James Bond
Jonathan Pryce ... Elliot Carver
Michelle Yeoh ... Wai Lin
Teri Hatcher ... Paris Carver
Ricky Jay ... Henry Gupta
Götz Otto ... Stamper
Joe Don Baker ... Jack Wade
Vincent Schiavelli ... Dr. Kaufman
Desmond Llewelyn ... Q
Judi Dench ... M
Samantha Bond ... Miss Moneypenny
Colin Salmon ... Charles Robinson
Geoffrey Palmer ... Admiral Roebuck
Julian Fellowes ... Minister of Defence
Terence Rigby ... General Bukharin
Cecilie Thomsen ... Professor Inga Bergstrom
Nina Young ... Tamara Steel
Daphne Deckers ... PR Lady
Colin Stinton ... Dr. Dave Greenwalt

James Bond heads to stop a media mogul's plan to induce war between China and the UK in order to obtain exclusive global media coverage.

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Following “Goldeneye,” it seemed that 007 got a new contemporary lease on life, with Pierce Brosnan at the helm.

But that whole ‘two steps forward, three steps back’ concept rears its head yet again with 1997’s “Tomorrow Never Dies.”

Despite picking up speed with an excellent (if convenient) opening sequence, the film quickly rushes into dismal territory, providing us with one of the most uninspired villains to face Bond and an overwhelming amount of action sequences that are either completely re-hashed from previous films in the series or just plain exhausting.

James Bond (Brosnan) is sent to look into the disappearance of a British Battleship in the seas surrounding South China. Through investigation, Bond discovers the involvement of Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce), the rich press baron head of Carver Media Group Network and husband to Paris Carver (Teri Hatcher), Bond’s ex-lover.

Carver plans to complete his global empire with the acquiring of broadcast rights in China…however, things are proving awfully difficult in dealing with the stubborn Government. So Carver decides to have his revenge by thwarting the Chinese into conflict with Britain. Tracking him down to Hong Kong, James teams up with Wai Lin (Michelle Yeoh), a member of the People's External Security Force of China. But with (and sometimes without) Wai Lin's help, Bond soon starts to uncover a plot that goes all the way back to a mission on the Russian-Kazakh Boarder, and will ignite World War III only to feed the fire of Carver's ego.

“Tomorrow Never Dies” is Pierce Brosnan's second outing as James Bond and while it’s not, in my opinion, the worst film in his tenure…it’s certainly the least memorable.

One of the key aspects of “Tomorrow Never Dies” is that it might be the most fast-paced Bond film…whether that’s a pro or con is up to the individual viewer.

Despite a fairly cut and dry story, director Roger Spottiswoode really doesn't know what to make of the material he's been given. The first half plays more like a downgraded and retrofitted knock off of “Se7en,” with Bond investing far too much time in sneaking under Carver's radar and getting reacquainted with Paris. The latter half is more on par with the expectations of a Bond action/adventure.

Yet, despite an adrenaline pumping motorcycle/copter chase the rest of the film's action sequences only come to life in fits and sparks. And then there is the issue of Lin herself; she's a Bond girl only in definition; meaning she's female and she's working with Bond. But there's no sexual chemistry. Worse, Lin seems to take over for Bond on more than one occasion, leaving one with the question – is this a Kung-Fu flick with Caucasian testosterone thrown in on the side?

Pierce Brosnan is even more comfortable in the role of Bond than before, but whatever interesting quirks the writers may have given him first time round have mostly been airbrushed out, leaving him with little to do except jump, shoot, run and punch. There's an early scene where he confronts Paris Carver and some of the limitless potential for exploring 007's dark side is hinted at, but this element is quickly dispatched along with Paris' life.

After the likes of Ernest Stavro Blofeld and Emilio Largo, Carver’s a lightweight Bond adversary to say the least; All this trouble for TV ratings and headlines? I mean I know it has to take a sick individual to induce war and chaos for profit (George W. Bush) and Bond has had his fair share of psycho villains…but he pales in comparison.
Jonathan Pryce oozes his way amusingly through the role of Carver, and he gets to savor some great moments early on in the film. Sadly, he lacks menace or threat throughout.

Teri Hatcher doesn't really hit the spot in this role; she's not convincing, seductive or very interesting enough to make her predicament very frightening or tense. Michelle Yeoh gets to do a lot more of the two female leads, yet she's not particularly memorable or interesting. Gotz Otto is amusing as the sadistic Stamper, while Vincent Schiavelli (the Organ Grinder from “Batman Returns&#8221 is hilarious as the even more sadistic Dr. Kaufman, a contract killer who gets to enjoy the best scene in the film as he slowly (always a mistake) informs Bond of his imminent demise. The action is pulse pounding, but it’s missing a factor that’s distinguishable for the Bond series…Character. At times this looks and feels just like any other blockbuster, especially in its very average finale, and at one point the dialogue even resembles an overheated Hollywood trailer:

Roebuck: “What does he think he's doing?”
M: “HIS JOB!”

Despite the darker look and style of the film, this is actually a far more lightweight affair than “Goldeneye,” with zero plot and non-stop set pieces as an attempt to compensate. To be fair, for a long stretch of the film, this constant run of excitement works a treat.

It's the moment after the fun motorcycle chase through Saigon that I started to notice that maybe there wasn't a script to refer to during principal photography, because what happens next? Another fight scene! Enough already, how about some story development, some character growth of any kind (no matter how superficial), anything except more action! This non-stop approach does become a bit exhausting, sadly. After this, the scene is set for an anti-climax of an ending, as Bond becomes closer to a video game character than anything else, virtually indestructible and shooting his way through a scenario that didn't even bother to pose any kind of genuine threat or danger.

After the unpopular choice to assign composer Eric Serra to soundtrack duties on “Goldeneye,” there's a new composer in town. David Arnold clearly decides to emulate the grand master of Bond music, John Barry, and the result is a decent score that, despite lacking one single killer theme, is okay enough. Sheryl Crow’s title song is pretty decent, although at times her vocals can seem airy and unfitting…but the chorus is reasonably powerful.

Audiences seemed to lap up this film, and in the last few years it's probably been the most screened Bond film. There's no doubt that this is a suitably and absurdly fun adventure, but this has to be the most routine 007 escapade in a long time…

With an far from worthwhile villain, cardboard love interests and action coming out its ears, “Tomorrow Never Dies” might just distract you long enough to make you forget how ‘not-so-good’ it is…but be cautious.

It’s not-so-good.

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[The Navigator]

Subscribed.

 

[Majik1387]

I honestly didn't find Hatcher unbelievable in her role, I just didn't really care for her character much, she was kind of a boring creation. I sort of liked Wai Lin, but I agree with your assessment of her. I don't think this was Michelle Yeoh's best.

 

[Swordmaster]

The movie does have one of my favorite scenes with the aforementioned Dr. Kaufman.

Kaufman: I'm just a professional doing a job!
Bond: Me too.

Maybe it's the cold detached, yet still angry way Brosnan says the line, I just love it.

 

[Spider-ManHero12]

IMO, Tommorow Never Dies rocked!

 

[Homer J. Fong]

Oh, I'm going to have to disagree big time, I love Tomorrow Never Dies. Yes, it piles on the fight scenes, car chases, etc. but not to excess, IMO. The remote-control BMW chase is on my list of favorite Bond sequences, as is the escape from Carver's headquarters leading into the motorcycle chase. I do think it's a tightly-paced and exciting chapter in the Bond canon.

Pierce Brosnan is excellent in this film. He's grown into the role now, made it his own, and he has a lot of fun with it. Bond feels like a fully-formed individual: beyond his prowess in a fight scene and a game of wits, there are demons in his past - this movie only seeks to touch on them, though, not to delve into a substantially darker side of Bond's self, and I'm not complaining about that. These first couple movies coming after Dalton should have and did seek to entertain the audience first and foremost. And I really dug Michelle Yeoh's Wai Lin; I think she's without a doubt the best of the Brosnan Bond girls, and they have a chemistry together that's a pleasure to watch. As for Teri Hatcher, she doesn't stand out to me either way, but her subplot works well enoug. Now, I know a lot of people (I guess you among them, CFE) don't think Elliot Carver as a villain, but I think it was almost a stroke of genius to bring Bond villains decidedly into the '90s and the age of the mega-mogul. Yes, it's a far-fetched plot, but it's a Bond movie. And I love Jonathan Pryce here, he's clearly having a great time.

(Vincent Schiavelli's scene as Dr. Kaufman is clearly the best in the movie, I definitely agree there.)

Lastly, after what I thought were weak scores for Licence to Kill and GoldenEye, David Arnold's material here is a breath of fresh air, and I feel Sheryl Crow's theme is an underrated one. It almost sounds like I'm gushing now, but the movie does make it into my top 10, I think it holds up quite well.

 

[Franklin Richards]

I'm afraid this list will prolly tick me off. It seems that I'm the only one in existence who likes Roger Moore. His Bond universe is my favorite. Best chicks. Best gadgets. Best Villains.