James Bond In Skyfall - Part 3

[Sawyer]

I haven't even seen TND in its entirety.

It was so goddamn boring.

 

[Dark Raven]

It was so goddamn boring.

TWINE is more boring though. Not that TND was great either. I wish Bond had a BMW for his invisible car in DAD. Then at least it would round out that bland era with a bland and efficient car.

 

[Sawyer]

No way was it more boring than TND.

 

[regwec]

Most unwatchable Bond films IMO:

1. Die Another Day
2. Quantum of Solace
3. The Man With The Golden Gun
4. Diamonds Are Forever (but this would be the most watchable of the 4 for me).

I really can't agree with QoS being in there. It's a messy and disappointing movie, but it also has some very good scenes, a lovely Bond girl, and a unusual, dramatic ending. It's also mercifully short.

DAD is awful, but the Cuban section is less awful than the rest.

I really dislike "View to a Kill" and "Never Say Never Again".

 

[Octoberist]

I can't stand TWINE despite its potential. It too was dull.

 

[regwec]

TWINE is carried by sexy Sophie Marceau, for me. But, yeah, it is overblown and generally boring when she isn't on screen.

 

[Gold Samurai]

TWINE- Boring after the Thames Chase

TND- Empty action sequences. The car chase is mildly okay

DAD- After Bond escapes the ship and swims to Hong Kong it all goes down hill

Update #4 in my James Marathond

I don't know if I watched it with very low expectations or people are just exaggerated by nature. I thought Diamonds are Forever wasn't that bad. It was definetely hit and miss, but for the most part it kept me entertained. The Las Vegas chase was actually fun to watch, and this time Bond actually did stuff, the character kept himself in numerous situations, and not just walking around in hotels and bedrooms. I also liked seeing Q trying some of his gadgets in the casino.

Whatever threat Blofeld was, it went out the window when Bond swung him around in Blofeld's capsule.


Then you had Tiffany unable to handle a gun and Connery looking very uninterested in the whole movie


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When For your eyes only came out "Blofeld" or someone that looked like him had become a cartoon character that Bond could mess around with.

Die Another Day has the opposite effect on me. That movie just takes everything and ramps it up to almost mentally ******ed levels. Not a single aspect of that film was a good idea. Not a single idea.

The CGI Bond on a para sail just sunk the whole Brosnan era for me.

The rocket ski car chase was also unnecessary. Bond tries to run away from Graves and his laser beam

Bond then goes BACK a couple minutes later for the car chase sequence on ice.

-_-

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

Robert Carlyle is awesome. Renard was a cool villain I liked the 'feeling no pain' gimmick he had.

But the feeling no pain gimmick when you think about makes little sense. Someone described it to me like this: imagine that your foot is asleep. Now imagine that your whole body is like that. Yeah.

Plus on top of that, like DR said, he was a diminutive wuss who instead of making Brosnan's Bond look like badass by beating him compared to Red Grant, Oddjob, Jaws, and even Necros, it made him look weaker.

 

[DyeLorean]

Update #5!

I think I have a soft spot for Live and Let Die. It embraces the funky blaxploitation from the 70's, and I always liked that. I really enjoyed the soundtrack, and overall it was a fun ride, with great locations and a beautiful Bond girl. The speedboat chase was great, even though they kept cutting to that annoying police officer.
I didn't care much for the voodoo thing, there were some troubling performances in there. But I liked Moore's Bond for what it is. It isn't as serious as Connery, or as smiling and happy as Lazenby.

The Man With the Golden Gun later tonight (rainy day apparently down here).

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

The rainy day is appropriate.

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

Both TND and TWINE squandered their potential. The problem is the TND is too safe, and while TWINE took several swings, almost much all of them are misses.

 

[Dark Raven]

I really can't agree with QoS being in there. It's a messy and disappointing movie, but it also has some very good scenes, a lovely Bond girl, and a unusual, dramatic ending. It's also mercifully short.

DAD is awful, but the Cuban section is less awful than the rest.

I really dislike "View to a Kill" and "Never Say Never Again".

Well, you're not supposed to agree or disagree either way. Those are the Bond movies I personally find most unwatchable, not something that is universally held. I agree that Olga Kurylenko is lovely though. She is one of the most beautiful Bond girls IMO, yet wasted in a dull movie like that.

I don't think the ending was that unusual or dramatic though - not anymore so than other Bond endings. I was actually rather disappointed with the climax (I wonder if any Bond girls say that? ).

But the feeling no pain gimmick when you think about makes little sense. Someone described it to me like this: imagine that your foot is asleep. Now imagine that your whole body is like that. Yeah.


Plus on top of that, like DR said, he was a diminutive wuss who instead of making Brosnan's Bond look like badass by beating him compared to Red Grant, Oddjob, Jaws, and even Necros, it made him look weaker.

The thing about not feeling pain is that it doesn't mean that he is unstoppable. If someone dies in their sleep or if they are quickly taken out by a bullet, they're not likely to feel much pain at all, but they'll still die. Renard might not be able to feel being clobbered over the head by Bond, but that doesn't mean he won't get knocked out. It's not like when Bond punched him, it felt like Renard was made of steel. Yet that's what Brosnan was like against him - as if he would hurt his hand if he even tried to strike his opponent. That's why it was a gimmick which I don't think worked at all. If he had been some big muscled guy even like Stamper in TND who felt no pain, that might be a different matter, but Renard was just a weed. If Sean Connery had been fighting him, he would've brushed him aside with his little finger.

 

[The Englishman]

How was it trying to be a John Woo movie?

Because it was.

Most unwatchable Bond films IMO:

1. Die Another Day
2. Quantum of Solace
3. The Man With The Golden Gun
4. Diamonds Are Forever (but this would be the most watchable of the 4 for me).

I think clumping QOS with those 3 turds is a bit harsh, i can think of at least 6 films that are worse.

Well QOS is probably the best acted out of those 4, and the actors do give good performances. However, the editing is horrendous, everything seems extremely bland (as if they've gone overboard to be "gritty") and there's nothing really iconic or memorable about it at all. There's no style or glamour such as was found in CR, and nothing that really sets it apart as a Bond film. I'm not asking for cliches, but I would like some hallmarks of the series - even the Bond theme or certain slightly bizarre situations he found himself in in the past.

Just the quality of the acting should rank QOS higher.

I really can't agree with QoS being in there. It's a messy and disappointing movie, but it also has some very good scenes, a lovely Bond girl, and a unusual, dramatic ending. It's also mercifully short.

DAD is awful, but the Cuban section is less awful than the rest.

I really dislike "View to a Kill" and "Never Say Never Again".

I agree with your views on QOS here, also the opera scene is one thing thats better then anything in DAF, DAD, MR, TND and AVTAK...

 

[DyeLorean]

Holy ****, the Solitaire Bond girl from LALD is the same milf from Wedding Crashers!

 

[Blue Sugar]

QOS is underrated.

My top five Bond-films looks like this

1. Thunderball
2. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
3. Casino Royale
4. From Russia With Love
5. The Spy Who Loved Me

All fantastic movies in their own ways.

The worst for me are DAD, TND, Live and Let Die and License to Kill.

 

[Blue Sugar]

This scene in Casino Royale is so much Bond magic to me. Stylish, sexy and witty. With the added awesome factor of a Bond girl that matches all of that!

The chemistry between Craig and Green is absolutely sparking in this movie. Made it very emotional for me.

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[Call Me Darkman]

DAF spectacularly fumbled the ball with the main villain, who murdered the one woman Bond actually loved

I hope you guys are aware that most Bond films are standalone. Would it have been nice to see Bond getting revenge? Definitely. But keep in mind that OHMSS wasn't successful at the time. Despite whatever Lazenby claims, the producers and studio didn't want him back. That's why they paid Connery a record-salary to return. Besides, if you really wanted to take your anger out on the issue, then direct it at "For Your Eyes Only" which is the film that actually featured Bond getting his revenge. And they did it in the most cartoonish way possible.

Live and Let Die is a fun movie. Not bad.

The Man With The Golden Gun: Oh, god.

"Live and Let Die" doesn't even feel like a Bond movie. TMWTGG is a bad film as well, but it does have a pretty decent first-half. Roger Moore at the beginning is actually pretty serious and kind of a jackass. When he slaps around Maud Adams it got pretty dark and disturbing. That scene is easily the most unlikeable Bond has been in the entire franchise. So, applaud TMWTGG for taking some risks - even if it was just for half a movie.

 

[The Navigator]

I hope you guys are aware that most Bond films are standalone. Would it have been nice to see Bond getting revenge? Definitely. But keep in mind that OHMSS wasn't successful at the time. Despite whatever Lazenby claims, the producers and studio didn't want him back. That's why they paid Connery a record-salary to return. Besides, if you really wanted to take your anger out on the issue, then direct it at "For Your Eyes Only" which is the film that actually featured Bond getting his revenge. And they did it in the most cartoonish way possible.

Most of them, yes, but the Connery/Lazenby era had a loose continuity with Spectre and the escalating Bond/Blofeld conflicts. Once Blofeld killed his wife, the next chapter in the series should not have relegated Bond's payback to a five minute nothing of him killing a duplicate and then forgetting about that whole "you murdered my wife" thing.

Is FYEO the one where

Spoiler

Blofeld tries to kill Bond in a helicopter and then Bond sends his ass into a smokestack or something? Yeah, another pre-credits nothing sequence.

 

[Doctor Jones]

Holy ****, the Solitaire Bond girl from LALD is the same milf from Wedding Crashers!

It's not surprising considering.

 

[Sebastos]

Rory Kinnear talks about reprising his role as MI6 chief of staff Bill Tanner in "Skyfall"...


http://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/articles/bond_23_nov08_rory_kinnear_interview.php3?t=&s=&id=03009

 

[Call Me Darkman]

the Connery/Lazenby era had a loose continuity with Spectre and the escalating Bond/Blofeld conflicts.

Loose is the keyword. The producers could acknowledge or ignore what they wanted since none of these films were direct-sequels. As I said, OHMSS wasn't a successful movie at the time. So, DAF ignores it because that's what the audience wanted. You can't apply 2011 logic into a movie from 1971. OHMSS, despite being a favorite among fans, is a movie that the mainstream public has forgotten about. And the producers haven't helped since Tracy has only been mentioned 3 times since 1969. And only one of those times she was mentioned by name.

 

[Dark Raven]

Because it was.

I think clumping QOS with those 3 turds is a bit harsh, i can think of at least 6 films that are worse.

Just the quality of the acting should rank QOS higher.

I agree with your views on QOS here, also the opera scene is one thing thats better then anything in DAF, DAD, MR, TND and AVTAK...

It's not harsh at all, because as I said before, it's my list of what I find the most unwatchable, and I find all the others more watchable than those 4. DAD is the most unwatchable for me, followed by QOS, which I disliked even when I saw it in the cinema. TMWTGG I've watched maybe about 3 times at most, with a long break in between, but it's not one I would really want to sit through. DAF isn't great either, but I've watched it a few times.

Acting won't rank QOS any higher for me, because it's not just about the acting. There are many other elements involved. It might be higher for you, but you can't criticise where I rank it, because a) it's my list and my opinion, and b) you're not going to make any of the other films (eg MR, AVTAK, LTK etc) more unwatchable than those 4 for me when I already find them more watchable.

The only others I would add to my list after those are TND, TWINE and LALD, and maybe OHMSS (because of Lazenby's performance), but all of those I've watched more than DAD and QOS.

 

[Rocketman]

Quantum of Solace is absolute crap. I couldn't even tell you what the plot of that movie was. Stuff just happens. It all happens incoherently through lightning fast editing, and then it's over. I was like "Whaaat was that?" If it looks like crap and sounds like crap, it's crap. The opening title song is horrendous, Alicia Keys and Jack White don't even sing in the same key, they're wildly off tone and don't match. The villain was boring, the women were boring, the action felt like someone hit the Forward button on a remote - just an unacceptable experience in the theater. It was probably one of biggest disappointments in my movie-going life.

 

[DyeLorean]

I remember at the time that Quantum of Solace was heavily influenced by the Jason Bourne films, so that might explain the serious editing problems, and the fact that it was a very different Bond from Casino Royale.

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

I tend to put QoS in the same camp as The World is Not Enough. It lacks polish, and where the TWINE had creative problems, QoS had bigger problems technically. It tried to rip off Bourne, and when Bond movies try to rip off others in the past (Moonraker with Star Wars, Octopussy with Indiana Jones, License to Kill with late 80s actions movies, Tomorrow Never Dies with the 90s Martial Arts/Jackie Chan movies), the results are usually adequate to terrible.

Keep in mind guys that QoS production was rushed due to the Writer's strike, so I expect Skyfall to be much better.