Die Another Day (2002)

It’s taken some time to get round to watching the last James Bond film before the Daniel Craig franchise reboot, but the other week we finally sat down and watched Die Another Day again. I’d previously loved this movie. I have to say though, watching it again in context and in sequence with the other Bond movies, that it suffers a bit from overkill, and some of the dialogue seems a bit forced, like Pierce Brosnan and Halle Berry are almost ashamed of the stuff they have to say.

The opening of the movie is just great, and very brave to show Bond as a fallible human being, suffering under torture and looking all shaggy with his long hair and beard. Madonna’s fantastic title tune fits the images perfectly and it’s one of my favourite title sequences of the series. Unfortunately, having set Bond up in a ‘real world’ type scenario where he doesn’t always escape, he comes across a bit too much like a superhero for the rest of the film. I know he’s always miraculously escaped danger before, but in Die Another Day it’s not so much effortless as cocky.

Die Another Day suffers in comparison with the other Brosnan movies from not having enough Judi Dench in it! I enjoyed John Cleese’s new Q though, and Moneypenny as played by Samantha Bond is just great, especially when she uses Q’s virtual reality glasses to imagine a passionate liaison with 007. It’s nice to see Moneypenny finally get a piece of Bond, even if it is just a fantasy. Other than the recurring characters, this being the 20^th official movie and 40^th anniversary of Dr No there are references to past adventures peppered throughout, particularly Q’s debriefing scene, and Jinx’s emergence from the sea á la Honey Rider (Ursula Andress). The plot has echoes of past movies too – the diamond-encrusted laser in space is very Diamonds Are Forever, and Gustav Graves, the baddy, gets sucked out of a plane like Auric Goldfinger. 

There are some very OTT touches to Die Another Day, including the invisible car, Bond surfing off the coast of Iceland, Bond swimming under the ice(!), and a ridiculous fight with the unimaginatively named Mr Kill while deadly lasers swirl about haphazardly. I enjoyed the fencing match (complete with English/American? accented Madonna cameo) and the car chase across the ice and around the ice palace, they’re just adrenaline fuelled fun.

While Die Another Day is not a bad Bond film by any means, it’s certainly not the sum of it parts in the way that The World is Not Enough or Tomorrow Never Dies are. It’s a shame that Pierce Brosnan could not have done more Bond – the 4 movies he did do showcased a shiny, modern 007 and brought him screaming into the 21^st Century in style.

James Bond: The Legacy (John Cork & Bruce Scivally, 2002)

As my adventures watching the James Bond series near an end (just Die Another Day to fit in) I thought I'd pull the massive hardback off the shelf and read about my favourite spy hero. The Legacy is an official history of 007, published with full involvement and cooperation of the team behind the series, and full of glossy photos of the movies, behind the scenes, the actors, and much more. 

The authors take you from Ian Fleming's original novels chronologically through to Die Another Day, along the way detailing the history behind each movie, the creative decisions, the impact of Bond, and how the real world has influenced and been influenced by the most famous secret agent in history. The emphasis on culture makes this a very interesting read, as I learnt how the Bond films changed the British film industry (and not just through the construction of a number of massive soundstages), the blockbuster film industry, and even how the real life MI5 goes about it's business (the first female head of MI5 credits Judi Dench's portrayal as M with helping attain her position). 

The collaborative efforts that Cubby Broccoli and his crew put into every movie shows that these movies were not put together by focus groups - it really comes across in the back stories just how each contributer to the Bond mythos cared passionately about this character and his world. Reading The Legacy (and listening to Bond soundtracks as I did so) has helped me to appreciate the worlds into which each movie was birthed, and it has left me wanting to revisit the series afresh, despite just having watched most of the films! I don't think I've read a more interesting or entertaining history of a TV or film product, and I look forward to starting Bond Girls Are Forever, the companion volume, also co-written by John Cork, very soon.

The World is Not Enough (1999)

Of all the James Bond movies, The World is Not Enough (TWINE) is probably the one I've seen most often, and it's most likely my favourite of them all. I can't remember seeing it at the cinema, but it's definitely one of the first DVDs I ever owned (the other was Sleepy Hollow) and I've revisited it a number of times. The first time I watched it I remember being baffled by the plot and the double-crossing, but now I appreciate that complex story and the multi-layered characters and enjoy the film afresh.

Beginning with an astonishingly exciting pre-credits boat chase along the Thames that ends with Bond rolling down the side of the Millennium Dome, the pace never lets up. But this film isn't just packed with excellent set pieces (though it is), it also finds room for testing character moments and emotional dilemmas, foremost among them being Bond's betrayal by his lover Elektra - Sophie Marceau's Bond girl is one of the most interesting ever encountered, even before she turns into the movie's cold-hearted villainess. She's stunningly beautiful and seductive, and it's easy to see why Bond falls for her charms, for the audience does too. The moment 007 and we realise that she's actually evil is a real shocker not often found in the sometimes safe hands of a Bond movie - it didn't have this impact when 006 proved to be the baddie in GoldenEye. Her death scene is very low key (for Bond) and packs an emotional punch more often reserved for the deaths of 'nice' Bond girls (and Bond's wife).

On the flip side you have Denise Richards' decidedly Lara Croftesque Bond girl (and here 'girl' is very appropriate - Elektra is really a Bond woman), a nice bit of eye candy at first glance, but then she's revealed to be a nuclear scientist. I'm less concerned with how believable Denise Richards is playing a scientist than I am with how, on reflection, she doesn't actually get a great deal to do. She seems to exist to diffuse nuclear bombs, or to tell Bond (and us) how to diffuse nuclear bombs, and then just hangs around looking pretty. I suppose next to a multi-layered character like Elektra, most Bond girls would suffer, so I don't think Richards' does anything wrong. 

Robert Carlyle's Renard, the sub-baddie really, is a bit of a red herring as he turns out to be Elektra's pawn, and so I don't think he has much to do. It's a great performance, but not a particularly memorable one. I don't think it helps that Carlyle looks so puny and weak here - that's not what Bond villains are made of! Rounding out the villains is a weird turn from Goldie as a henchman with gold teeth (actor's own), who plays Robbie Coltrane's lackey. Coltrane reprises his role as Bond's occasional enemy-cum-ally from GoldenEye for (sadly) the last time, and he's an absolute joy. The exhiliration of the helicopter buzz saw attack on Zukovsky's caviar factory is heightened by Coltrane's comic performance throughout. 

In this movie, Judi Dench's M gets in on the action more than previously as she is kidnapped by Elektra and proves to be a resourceful MI6 head. Any Bond movie that features scenes with Judi Dench is great in my book! And Bond also has excellent interplay with Moneypenny this time round. The final scene featuring Desmond Llewelyn's Q is especially poigniant given that this would be his last Bond movie before his untimely death an age 85 in a car accident. It's incredibly moving when Q tells Bond that he should always have an escape plan. John Cleese has a good stab at Q/R in this and Die Another Day, but for my money he plays it a bit broad - certainly too broad for Daniel Craig's era, so I very much doubt he'll be back in the role. 

Pierce Brosnan continues to impress with his suave, although oft vulnerable spy - he's given some wonderful moments to grow Bond as a character here, and he often does so through subtle looks or gestures, for example in an allusion to his wife's death, and in the way he handles Elektra's betrayal. Throw in a cracking Garbage title song and Bond-theme drenched score, and The World is Not Enough proves to be a damned near perfect James Bond movie that excites and moves on every level.

Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

Building on his success in GoldenEye, Pierce Brosnan's second Bond film is a revelation. Although it only came 2 years after the last, it looks and feels much more modern, helped no doubt by the gadgetry and stunts, as well as the fact that Jonathan Pryce's megalomaniacal villain, Elliot Carver, wants to rule the TV, print and generally all media on the planet. There's no gritty desert or jungle set work here - everything has a glossy sheen and a modern edge, which doesn't necessarily make this better for being more techy, but it makes it a movie that can hold it's own up against a comic book blockbuster or the like.

The script for TND is noticeably sharp, especially in the sparkling dialogue it provides for M, Moneypenny and Q - Judi Dench clearly relishes her more expanded role here, as she faces down her sometime As Time Goes By costar, Geoffrey Palmer at the movie's opening. After an exhilirating pre-credits sequence where Bond shows off some fancy aerial acrobatics and prevents a nuclear warhead exploding, Sheryl Crow's wonderfully modern-yet-classic-Bond-sounding title track sets the tone for a very smart adventure. Thankfully, David Arnold provides the music from this film onward, and it's great to hear the James Bond Theme aired with a bit more frequency than previously.

Brosnan imbues a real effortlessness in his portrayal as Bond, which verges on cocky, but manages to stay the right side of likable. He certainly looks like he's enjoying himself in his interactions with Q et al, and especially during the BMW car chase around a German car park, conducted by remote control from the backseat! The action was very exciting this time round, particularly the motorbike chase in Saigon and the climactic battle aboard Carver's 'stealth ship'.

I always thought it was weird that Teri Hatcher was billed 4th in Tomorrow Never Dies, since she doesn't get much screentime, but watching the film again she's in it more than I remember, and Michelle Yeoh doesn't really get much to do until half way through. Having watched 18 Bond movies now, I can see that Hatcher's Bond girl lasts longer than many others have, so it's fair she gets a good billing I suppose. Yeoh's Wai Lin kicks a lot of ass, and is from the same stable as the future Jinx - a 'rival' secret agent who can handle herself and doesn't really need 007's help. I think Tomorrow is one of the best Bond films all round, as it has memorable villains, girls and action, along with a cracking script and a polished feeling that confims that a new, modern Bond has arrived.

GoldenEye (1995)

6 years after Licence to Kill, Timothy Dalton's second and final Bond movie, Pierce Brosnan slipped comfortably into his shoes as Agent 007 in GoldenEye. This movie is the only one of Brosnan's four that I've not rewatched, as I saw the others on video/DVD or at the cinema, and this one somehow passed me by - presumably because I was only 11 when it came out. I really like Brosnan's Bond, and watching GoldenEye in sequence I can see why his portrayal really sticks with me - he's got the sincerity of Dalton, the wry humour of Moore, and the Bond 'look' of Connery (and Lazenby...), all wrapped up in a suave, modern take on the British secret agent.

I'll start with what I didn't like so much about GoldenEye: The music is pretty piss-poor at times, mostly during action scenes, and it's good that 1-time Bond composer Eric Serra was dropped in favour of David Arnold from Tomorrow Never Dies to date. Sean Bean's villain, Alec Trevelyan, is a bit of a wet lettuce and he doesn't make much of an impression - especially not next to Famke Janssen's manic Xenia Onatopp (whose double entendré surname didn't even register with me until this viewing!). Bond girl Natalya Simonova is well portrayed by Izabella Scorupco and she's given a useful role, but again I felt she was a bit overshadowed by the most enigmatic Onatopp. 

The best bits of GoldenEye are: Pierce Brosnan. Judi Dench's debut as a no-nonsense M, one of the highlights of post-Dalton Bond movies in general. Her iconic speech to Bond about his womanising ways and description of him as a Cold War dinosaur are on the money without emasculating and belittling 007 and his past adventures. For a Bond in the 90's not to acknowledge how some of his attributes are a little outdated would be unbelievable - almost as unbelievable as Bond's opening dive into a nose-diving plane... Equally, Samantha Bond's Miss Moneypenny presents a more modern woman than Lois Maxwell's doe-eyed secretary, and whoever portrayed her in Dalton's two films (she made so little impression). That's not to dismiss Maxwell, who had great banter with Connery, Lazenby and Moore, but a modern Bond needs a modern Moneypenny to match wits with, and Samantha Bond (great surname!) is perfect for the part. 

I've already mentioned Xenia Onatopp, and she's worth talking about again - she steals nearly every scene she's in thanks to Janssen's almost-OTT portrayal. A villainess who kills people during sex with her thighs is an extraordinary prospect, and she instills a little vulnerability in Bond. Unfortunately she makes Simonova look a bit less exciting by comparison. Robbie Coltrane has what amounts to an extended cameo in a role that is expanded upon in The World is Not Enough, so it's great to see the link across the two films. I also enjoyed Minnie Driver's actual cameo in the same scene as a (terrible) night club singer! Even funnier when you know Driver can actually sing, and very well too. 

The tank chase sequence around Moscow is another highlight - Andrew finds it a bit prepostrous but I say if Bond can have a chase seen in a moon-buggy (Diamonds Are Forever) or a motorised gondola (Moonraker), then why not in a tank? The downside to that argument is that those other chases were in two of the weakest films in the series, but never mind. Finally, Tina Turner's theme song is just fantastic - it sticks in my head and doesn't leave for days. She's got an ideal voice for a huge Bond tune. GoldenEye has it's faults then, but it's a great introduction to Pierce Brosnan's modern 007. 

Licence to Kill (1989)

I thought that The Living Daylights was excellent and wondered how on earth Licence to Kill match the thrill and adventure of Timothy Dalton's first outing as 007. It turns out that he turned in a movie just as great and modern as the last, albeit with less gags and more bad language, not to mention two of the goriest death scenes in Bond history. 

The entire plot of LTK involves Bond's personal mission to avenge the mauling of his ally Felix Leiter and the murder of his brand-new wife by drug baron Franz Sanchez (Robert Davi). This movie deviates from the traditional Bond formula by making 007 a rogue agent, acting on his own against not a world-conquering megalomanic but a very real Latin American drugs czar. There's still room for a cameo from M - set up in a very devious way to make the audience think that Bond is about to come a cropper from Blofeld - and Moneypenny (the same poor Lois Maxwell imitation from Daylights), with a wonderfully extended part for Desmond Llewellyn's Q.

Carey Lowell plays the top rate Bond girl Pam Bouvier who doesn't scream once, doesn't cause any disasters and can hold her own in any fire fight and fly any plane that's required of her. She really is a Bond girl for the eighties. Her flip side is Talisa Soto's Lupe Lamora, a more traditional damsel-in-distress type who never-the-less helps Bond out and manages not to meet a sticky end - unlike Benicio Del Toro's henchman, who ends up minced alive. Eurgh. 

Dalton plays a very driven 007, and it's fun to watch him tear up Sanchez's drugs operation from the inside. It's a shame that the poor box-office performance of this more serious, more adult Bond curtailed his time playing the secret agent. At least he went out with a bang in a frankly astounding final 20 minutes as oil tankers exploding, filling the screen with flames, as Bond pulls wheelies with tanker cabs and dodges stinger missiles. I think both Dalton and Lazenby were lucky in that they made 3 great movies between them and neither hung around long enough to make any Moonrakers to sully their score cards. And so on to Pierce Brosnan and Dame Judi...

The Living Daylights (1987)

And so we reach Timothy Dalton's first outing as James Bond, and how much better is this than recent fare?! The answer: a hell of a lot. This is one of the most exciting Bonds so far, and the best since For Your Eyes Only. Gone is tired old Roger Moore (and Lois Maxwell, sadly) and in his place is a more serious, although witty, 007 in Dalton. 

Right from the exciting pre-credits sequence, and killer a-ha title track, The Living Daylights hits the ground running and rarely lets up. One minute Bond is sledging down the Austrian Alps on a cello case, the next he's on horse back and riding with the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. First a Russian agent is defecting, then he's not, then he's involved with an American arms dealer, next comes the faked assasination of the 'good' Russian, and suddenly Bond's involved in a trade of diamonds for opium... Maybe I was tired tonight, but I found the double-crossing and the politics of the plot a little tough to follow at times! That's no bad thing though - A View to a Kill stretched a simple plot over 2 hours, and here so much plot, and so many bad guys, are packed in you've got to concentrate to keep up. 

There were a couple of flaws to be found - the new Moneypenny made little impression, as did the new Felix Leiter (he was better in Never Say Never Again!). There was some humour to be found - I know Dalton's accused of being too serious - and after the farcical lows Moore occasionally plumbed it was nice to see a straighter secret agent, after all he's regularly put in some very serious situations. 

Maryam d'Abo's cello-playing Bond girl, Kara Milovy was an improvement on Stacey Sutton and Domino from the last 2 films. Neither completely useless nor an action hero herself, she was as likely to hinder Bond as help him, and she really comes into her own towards the end when she rides to 007's rescue and helps pilot a plane out of Afghanistan. It's refreshing to see Bond calm down with the ladies too - he only beds Kara and, we presume, the woman who's yacht he lands on at the end of the pre-credits sequence. 

There's a lot going on in The Living Daylights, and Bond covers a lot of countries and enemies (it's particularly interesting to watch the Afghanistan scenes today in light of more recent developments there, since the US helped the Mujahideen fight the Soviets in the 1980's) and it's entirely to the filmmakers' credit that it doesn't turn into a jumbled mess. Instead Timothy Dalton's debut proves to be incredibly exciting and modern (compared to A View to a Kill anyway) and an excellent taste of things to come.

Never Say Never Again (1983)

The US DVD of Never Say Never Again, the 'unofficial' James Bond movie released in the same year as Roger Moore's penultimate entry, Octopussy, finally arrived, and we settled down to watch Sean Connery's farewell to 007. Sean Connery and his wigs. 

To be fair to Connery, his physique looked good (there are a few too many scenes with him half-naked), but he was a bit grey and haggard up top - a criticism often lodged at Moore in the later movies. Unfortunately, everything in NSNA feels a bit tired. The action and pace is rather slow, the music (when there is any) is very twangy and 80's and uninspiring, and several days later, there's not much that sticks in my mind about it. 

Kim Basinger was good, but the baddie, Largo was a non-threatening presence. And the least said about the computer game battle sequence the better. The best of the whole thing were Edward Fox's take on M, and Rowan Atkinson's small role as a bumbling company man. The plot replays Thunderball's, although I didn't really notice, perhaps because it's so long since I've seen it. I thought Thunderball had a bit more 'oomph' about it though. There was far too much underwater work in this one - so much so that the final battle between Bond and Largo takes place under the sea, resulting in a slow-moving pantomime due to the lack of dialogue and room for movement. There were a few well placed gags here and there, but overall Never Say Never Again is clearly one of the lesser Bonds, official or otherwise. It's still better than Moonraker though.

A View to a Kill (1985)

I did want to watch Never Say Never Again, the unofficial Bond movie with Sean Connery from 1983, but it turned out that the DVD I had was degraded somehow and failed, and so while we waited for a replacement to arrive we made do with Roger Moore's final 007 entry, A View to a Kill.

I think this movie is unfairly maligned. Yes there are faults - the main one being how generally pathetic and helpless Tanya Roberts' Bond girl, Stacey Sutton proves to be, and after a number of stronger women like Octopussy and Melina Havelock it's a let down to have such a weak heroine - yet I think that the film adds up to more than it's parts and it's a great 2 hours entertainment. 

If anything, I think Roger Moore looked older in Octopussy, despite his being 57 here. He doesn't look as old as Moneypenny, but then Lois Maxwell had played the role since 1962! Although Moore's Bond particularly seems to bed anything in a skirt, I think Stacey Sutton is a bit beneath him. Grace Jones' May Day is a different matter! She's strong and silent, and bonkers as hell, and she's also the villain's henchwoman, until the climax anyway. May Day is a truly imposing figure and a believable heavy, and Christopher Walken's Max Shreck Zorin is a wonderfully restrained creation for the most part (as far as Walken's characters usual are anyway). 

The plot to flood Silicon Valley is a rather different affair from world domination, and has a very 1980's 'greed is good' air about it. I think that the plot is a little too simplistic though, or at least there's not much plot as the first half of the film, with Bond in France at Zorin's horse sale is fun, but it doesn't serve much purpose. It's great to see Patrick McNee helping Bond out, especially since fellow Avengers Diana Rigg, Honor Blackman and Joanna Lumley have all put in appearances in the 007 canon before him. 

I've enjoyed Roger Moore's lighter approach to Bond, although occasionally the humour has been a tad too farcical or parodic. I prefer his delivery and cool style to Connery, and Moore's 007 always looked like he was having fun. Maybe he made the spy game look a bit too easy? The main blot in Moore's copybook is the ridiculous Moonraker, the weakest Bond film by far. But still, at least he's also responsible for The Man With the Golden Gun and For Your Eyes Only.

Octopussy (1983)

From the sublime to the ridiculous... After the more serious For Your Eyes Only, we popped Octopussy in the DVD player tonight. It feels so different to FYEO, but in a good way. It's very funny, without being awful á la Moonraker, and it's never boring. 

Bond only manages to jet between two countries this time round (with the briefest of stops in London to say hello to Moneypenny), namely India and (East & West) Germany. The Indian scenes look beautiful, and feel like something new for the Bond series, after the Mediterranean feel of FYEO, and, um, space... I have to confess to confusing scenes from Octopussy with Indiana Jones' adventures - there's the fight in the market place, the circus-train fight, the distasteful meal, and the general 'Indianness' of it all remind me of Temple of Doom particularly. 

As with some of Bond's earlier adventures, sometimes the plot becomes a bit of a head scratcher - I'm still not a hundred percent sure I know what the fake Fabergé eggs had to do with some people in India and a rogue Soviet general, but I enjoyed it all the same! Naturally, Roger Moore hasn't got any younger since FYEO, and it shows here and there, although perhaps not as obviously as in the previous movie for some reason - I guess wearing clown make up can hide the years well! It was nice to see many strong female characters here, however much Bond (and the camera) ogles their breasts.

One of the delights of Octopussy is that Q (Desmond Llewelyn) is given much more to do than previously, and he's rewarded with a wonderful comic moment when he saves a gaggle of women from attack with his hot air balloon, and then succumbs to their charms. Maud Adams (previously seen in a different role in The Man With the Golden Gun) makes a wonderful Bond girl - well, woman really - it's good to see 007 being with a woman nearer his own age, particularly as that age is early 50's. 

The new M, Robert Brown, has become a more curmudgeonly type, and I like the recurring character of General Gogol, and the fact that the enemies here weren't the Soviets themselves, just a rogue General. Overall I think this is a very enjoyable entry into the series, with a good theme tune (All Time High, sung by Rita Coolidge), and a lot of amusing one-liners. 

For Your Eyes Only (1981)

Another night, another Bond movie. This time, For Your Eyes Only, a major improvement on the last one, this film was everything Moonraker wasn't, and all the better for it. There were no OTT baddies with dreams of world domination, no over-sized villain's lairs, no space suits, and no bloody pigeons, double-taking or otherwise!

FYEO plays more like a drama than the previous science fiction attempt, and there's not too much humour - and certainly no slapstick as found in other Moore movies. I didn't remember much about this Bond going in to watch it for the first time as an 'adult', but when watching I did recall various action sequences - such as 'Blofeld's' curious pre-credits death - although I'd have been hard pressed to say that they came from FYEO. That's not because the film lacks action, drama or memorable moments, but because the plot is a little more low key it's not as easy to call to mind. 

There are a few things to cringe at about this one, mostly how 70's a lot of things are (I know it was released in 1981 but it takes a while for a decade's defining features to disappear, or appear), for example the 70's sounding music (a bit Starsky & Hutch in places), Roger Moore's often terrible wardrobe (when did ski suits ever look classy?), and the fact that Moore looks to be in about his 70's! Seriously, how did he age so much since Moonraker, he was only in his early 50's! At one point, 007 runs up a huge set of steps to catch a villain - I was concerned for the health of poor Moore, he looked like he'd pass out half way up. Having said that, Moore still has the voice and the charm to pull of 007 in his 50's. It's sensible that he turns down young Bibi's advances though, he did look old enough to be her (grand)dad. 

I liked the moment at the very start of the film when Bond visits his wife's grave, showing continuity right back to OHMSS. It was sad that Bernard Lee passed away before this movie, and so it's nice that M is written out of FYEO. Interestingly, Miss Moneypenny is ageing along with Bond, but then that makes sense as she's been the same actress since Dr. No. It's good to have Q on location, even if only for brief seconds in a confessional booth.

For Your Eyes Only could be the Mediterannean Bond as the action takes place in Italy and Greece for the most part. The locations are beautiful and the direction shows off each wonderfully. Bringing Bond back down to Earth works wonders after the overblown finale of Moonraker, and the double-crossing storyline is nicely played. I think that when I've seen FYEO previously I would've been too young to appreciate the subtlties here as Bond is played off between two old friends, one of whom is the villain, and one a friend. It's just not clear which is which until halfway through the movie. Also, it's nice to see Bond exercising some restrain when it comes to the women in this instalment - he turns down 1, beds another, and then has to wait until the end of the mission before he can bed Melina Havelock, who is not just eye candy, she's also a capable and integral cog in the story. In fact, Bond is involved in quite a bit of 'group activity' and doesn't always come across as an impervious solo action hero. He does get some great action scenes though, as he's chased down a snowy mountain on skis by men on motorbikes (in stunts that recall OHMSS' ski sequences) or when he's scaling a huge cliff face at the climax. 

A more realistic Bond, with a believable villain and exciting action adds up to an excellent installment in the franchise. In fact I reckon that the tone and style of For Your Eyes Only (if you forgive some of the 70's trappings and the hugely dated Identigraph machine...) could sit nicely alongside Daniel Craig's latest offerings. 

Moonraker (1979)

It's almost two months to the day since we last watched a Bond movie. The reason? The next one on our list was Moonraker, which I've just had the misfortune of sitting through again. 

Why is Moonraker so bad? Let me count the ways:

1. Jaws comes back. Not just as a deadly foe, no, as 'comic' relief. He becomes a pantomime villain (a bad one) and then eventually, through reasons too vague to mention, turns to the good side and helps James Bond to escape. He's the worst comic relief since Sheriff J.W. Pepper was brought back for a second movie.
   
2. Jaws gets a girlfriend. With blonde pig tails. And when they embrace, cheesy romantic music plays. 
3. James Bond goes into space. While in space, he is dressed in a yellow tracksuit and Converse trainers.
4. I'll say it again: James Bond. Goes. Into. Space. Seriously. Just because Star Wars was doing the same thing around that time, Bond jumped on the bandwagon, and the result is a dated display of inconceivable laser fights between man in space suits, and between space shuttles.
5. Bond not only has a gondola that converts into a hovercraft for dry land, he must drive it through a piaza full of 'comedy' drunks and (oh Christ) a double-taking pigeon. It is at this point that Moonraker (and perhaps the entire Bond franchise!) jumped the shark. 
6. Bond spends the first hour + of the film looking for a stolen shuttle... to find that Drax, the lame villain, stole his own shuttle because... one of his other shuttles was broken and he wanted the other back. 
7. Dr Holly Goodhead has a bad name and no personality. 
8. Hugo Drax just has no personality. 
9. General Gogol cameos in the movie for... what reason exactly? A cheap, sexist gag?
10. The sexism on display from 007 is quite breath-taking, even for him, bedding 3 different women and being completely astounded that Holly Goodhead is a female scientist (just wait until Bond meets Dr. Christmas Jones...)
11. Drax attempts to kill Bond in more ludicrous ways than ever before - via snake attack; Jaws' attack on a moving ski lift; at a pheasant shoot (Bond calmly shoots his would-be assassin out of a tree in front of Drax and neither bats an eyelid); through an elaborate funeral-gondola, with a coffin-bound killer, who is killed by Bond in the blink of an eye; and my favourite: by spinning Bond really, really fast.
12. Drax's evil plan involves releasing a gas that is only poisonous to humans, and not plants or animals. How the hell does that work? Humans *are* animals.
    
13. The revolving space station, owned by Drax, includes an 'Emergency Stop' button. Not only that, but when this button is pressed again, it miraculously becomes an 'Emergency Go' button as everything returns to normal!
    
14. Did I mention the double-taking pigeon?
    

So what is there to like about Moonraker? It's a brief list:

1. Shirley Bassey's opening song.
2. Shirley Bassey's closing song.
3. Q's line: 'I think he's attempting re-entry, sir.'
   

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

We were planning on going to the cinema tonight, but the miserable weather made us think twice. Instead we opted to continue our mission to watch the complete Bond, with Roger Moore's 3rd outing, The Spy Who Loved Me. 

I've seen this one before, yet I couldn't remember anything about it beyond the fact that Jaws was in it. After watching it again, I can see why I didn't remember much. It's not that The Spy Who Loved Me is a bad Bond, it's actually a very solid production, but there's not much that hasn't been done before, more memorably.

The underwater scenes are reminiscent of Thunderball and the stealing-warheads plot was done (in space) in You Only Live Twice. The story itself didn't bring much new to the Bond franchise, but it added some new locations for the action, mainly Cairo. Stromberg, the villian, is perhaps the least interesting/convincing baddie so far - he gets little screen time and has no particular personality, and Bond simply shoots him come the final head-to-head.

Moore continues to impress, offering wisecracks with panache, while also finding room to show Bond's vulnerable side, both physically (in the train cabin fight with Jaws) and emotionally (when Anya brings up James' dead wife [see OHMSS]). Jaws is a memorable villain, if only he'd been restricted to the one movie (but more on that when we've suffered through Moonraker...), although he's a lot more 'super-human' than Bond's foes have been in the past.

Barbara Bach as Agent XXX / Major Anya Amasova mixed things up in the Bond girl stakes. Not merely a blond bimbo or sexual plaything, Amasova is one of those rare Bond girls who can match Bond in espionage and wit. She's cleverly introduced in a scene that is set up to make you believe that the male character in bed is the secret agent, until we learn that Agent XXX is actually a woman, and Russia's top spy. As I understand it, the Spy Who Loved Me refers to the Spy killed by Bond in the teaser, who loved Anya. This gives Anya's character an extra dimension but, for a woman who's love was killed 3 weeks earlier, she falls awfully easily for Bond's charms. That niggle aside, it's good to see Bond kept on his toes by another agent, especially a female agent.

The climactic battle aboard Stromberg's ship where red-boiler suited henchmen engage in a gun battle with US navy-men again echoes the end of You Only Live Twice, however it's an impressive (although long) showdown. My favourite scenes of Spy are those with the Lotus Esprit (it seems a while since Bond got some really good gadgets to play with) that works underwater, especially when our hero drives out of the sea on to a crowded beach and non-chalantly tosses a fish out of his window. And the teaser with Bond's death-defying ski jump off a mountain ledge doesn't fail to impress. The absence of music between the jump and the Union Jack parachute opening works wonderfully, and segues brilliantly into Carly Simon's title song, Nobody Does It Better. A really good Bond, but not a memorable one.

The Man With The Golden Gun (1974)

I have always remembered The Man With The Golden Gun as one of the weakest in the series (along with Moonraker), but having revisited it tonight I'm pleased to find that I was mistaken. This Bond is actually very good, almost reminiscent of OHMSS for how good.

There are weaknesses, which I shall get out of the way first. The main one is the unwelcome return of the 'comic' relief character, Sheriff JW Pepper from Live and Let Die. First you think he's got a shoe-horned cameo, and then he done fall in the water (like Bring On The Wall...). But then he like a bad smell he returns as Bond's 'sidekick' in a car chase sequence. He's obnoxious, unfunny and every so slightly racist and appears to think he's in a much broader comedy than Bond can allow. Thankfully we never see him again. Like OHMSS, occasionally the plot takes some concentration, and there's a habit here of having scenes with M where nothing except exposition is thrown at you to digest and remember for later. 

Actually one of the greatest sets in the seris so far occurs during one of these M expositions - MI5 has a secret base in a half-sunken ship in the waters off Thailand! And due to the fact that the ship is half submerged, it is on a tilt, and all of the sets are at an angle, making for some interesting and quirky scenes. M gets some great lines here, and it's good to have Q back since his hiatus in Live and Let Die (Moneypenny only gets a single brief scene though), although there aren't really any gadgets on display here, unless you count a fake nipple...

Christopher Lee is great as Scaramanga, and I especially like how the movie moves to its climactic showdown between him and 007 through the former's vanity. He may be using the solex agitator (or 'MacGuffin') to make himself rich, but his motivation for wanting to fight Bond is more than just greed - his other sin is pride. It's good to see Bond using his espionage skills here too, rather than just gadgets, although EVERYONE seems to have heard of him in this movie! 

I'd forgotten as well how much Maud Adams is in this movie - she goes on to be the female lead in Octopussy - and she's great. Britt Eckland as Mary Goodnight is perhaps a bit underused, and it's nice to see her initially turn down 007, but she does end up becoming a bit of a stereotype ditzy blond with little depth. She's makes for a few good puns though. 

Roger Moore's punning technique is put to excellent use here. For example: 'I am now aiming precisely at your groin. So speak or forever hold your piece.' And I love the nearly-Bond girl named Chew Mee! The humour is set at just the right level without being OTT (except when Sheriff Pepper turns up...). There aren't as many action sequences here and no real memorable set pieces, except the jump with the car turning 360 degrees - this would have been improved without the comedy sound-effect. I did quite like Scaramanga's shooting range, seen in the pre-credits sequence and at the final showdown - there was something very 'Avengers' about it (and in the skewed sunken ship sets come to think of it), even if it did give away how Bond was going to defeat Scaramanga before Lulu began to warble the title song. 

So in summary, a great Bond all round.

Live and Let Die (1973)

Our journey through the many movies of 007 continued tonight with Roger Moore's debut in Live and Let Die. I think this is one of the more memorable James Bond movies - particularly since this is the one where I can remember every villain and Bond girl, and most of the set pieces, since the first time I saw it, years ago.

Roger Moore seems to be born to play Bond - he's suave, witty and looks good in a suit, but unfortunately Bond has now met the '70's, in particular, '70's fashions... I don't just mean the fashion of the time for blaxploitation, but the awful high-wasted flairs he sports here, along with some dodgy denim-jacket type suit affair. Still, there's worse to come, so I won't dwell on the Bond's wardrobe for long...

There's a lot to like about Live and Let Die. Away from Blofeld's plans for world domination, Kanaga/Mr Big's plans to rule the heroin trade in the USA are more believable and on a more dramatic level. The whole film seems a lot more low-key than previous efforts - Moore doesn't even get the action-hero introduction afforded George Lazenby, rather he's introduced in a nice bit of situation comedy involving M, Moneypenny, and an Italian agent hiding in his wardrobe. While the set pieces, including a bus chase and a motorboat chase on water and land, are great, the villain's comeuppance is rather understated, in the way that being exploded after overinflation can. Although Kanaga explodes with a bang, we don't get the same large-scale villain's lair shootout of You Only Live Twice, or Diamonds Are Forever, and I think that this works. 

The biggest let down with this film is the minor character of Sheriff Pepper, who's unfunny insertion into the boat chase feels like padding, and slow down the action considerably. I can't wait for him to reappear in the next film...

Rosie Carver, Bond's first African-American squeeze, is interesting, particularly when she double-crosses 007 and ends up dead. Solitaire is a little bland, and a bit too quick to fall for Bond's charms, but weak Bond girls are fairly common in early Moore movies, if memory serves. 

Aside from the odious Sheriff Pepper, this is an excellent Bond movie, and a thrilling action movie in its own right. A much better story, more tightly focussed than Diamonds Are Forever, with memorable villains and some excellent laugh-out-loud lines, including one of my favourites: 'Don't worry darling, its just a small hat, belonging to a man of limited means, who lost a fight with a chicken.'

James Bond: Connery & Lazenby

Sometime in the last 2 years my partner and I made the decision to watch all of the James Bond movies in order. About a month after we decided to do this we'd watched 4... and we just started again a couple of weeks ago! So what we didn't finish 2 years ago we're going to stick with now. Which doesn't necessarily mean we'll be watching them all in a week. Here's my thoughts on the series so far, after we've watched all of the (official) Sean Connery movies, and the George Lazenby one too.

Dr. No (1962)
From Russia With Love (1963)
Goldfinger (1964)
Thunderball (1965)
As I noted above, it's some time since we actually watched these four, the movies that started the Bond franchise, and so I can't remember everything about them. Dr. No was a good, solid film, though a bit slow in parts, and didn't really fit the typical 'Bond' template, but it was enjoyable all the same. From Russia With Love upped the action and was a much better film, although the plot took some concentration! And Goldfinger will always be a classic - so many of the elements of the series are put together so well, and the movie seemed to be a bit more relaxed, and funnier with it. What can I remember about Thunderball after many months? It was an underwater one? Anything else is a bit of a blank, so clearly the film made a great impression. 

You Only Live Twice (1967)
I saw the Bond movies many years ago on video, and I remember bits from each, but I always remembered this one as the one where they try to make James Bond into a Japanese samurai...  Despite the dodgy racially stereotyping (and it's not the first or last time Bond could be described as not policitally corrected) and the sometimes boring lead up to get 007 into Blofeld's volcanic lair You Only Live Twice is quite fun.  

On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)
I'm a big fan of this one, and not 'despite' George Lazenby, but perhaps more 'because' of him. I know it's almost sacriligeous, but there's always been something about Sean Connery's Bond I've not warmed too - maybe it's because he's a product of the '60's and his womanising ways that don't sit well with me, but whatever it is I've always preferred (whisper it) Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan. Although Lazenby wouldn't win any awards for his acting in OHMSS I think he is fortunate enough to have an excellent leading lady in Diana Rigg, and an excellent adventure to take part in. The first hour or so is a slow build to all the action in the final hour, but it gives the story chance to breathe, and allows Bond to fall in love with Rigg's Tracy. Bond is a lot less of a cartoon hero in this film, and it feels more 'realistic' - especially since there's a lack of ludicrous gadgets on show. There are some great action sequences, mostly taking place on skis, bob sleds, and any other snowy transportation. Telly Savalas' Blofeld is interesting, but I did wonder why he didn't recognise Bond since the two characters met in You Only Live Twice... What makes the film is *that* ending. The one you don't see coming, just as Bond himself doesn't. In 007's final words, we are provided with the title of Louis Armstrong's excellent theme song, and a lump in the throat as Lazenby cradles his dead wife: 'We have all the time in the world'.

Diamonds Are Forever (1971)
Watching Connery's return to the series 9 days after OHMSS makes for an interesting experience, and it's not a good one. The emotion and general grown up nature of OHMSS feels like it came from a different series altogether next to this over the top misfire. In a later movie, Roger Moore's Bond lays flowers on his wife's grave, showing that although the actor has changed, the events in Bond's life have not been forgotton or disregarded (until the Daniel Craig reboot of course), so to see Connery cracking wise and casually going back to his womanising ways is a real jolt. According to imdb's trivia section, it was originally intended to kill Tracy off in Diamonds, but it was decided to keep the death in OHMSS as it was true to the original book - it's inconceivable to consider how such an emotional punch would have gone down next to Diamonds' gay henchmen and redundant Bambi and Thumper fighting girls. Maybe the film would work better on its own, away from the stronger predecessor, but I doubt it. Connery seemed too cocky in this story, and while I criticised OHMSS for slow plotting in the first hour, this movie throws far too much at you. By the end I was a bit bored - there were no exciting action sequences to rival the previous entries in the series - a chase on a moon buggy was farcical rather than thrilling. The plot itself, when I could pick it out from set piece after set piece, seemed to be a solid one, but it took second fiddle to Connery's smug grin (probably thinking about the pay packet that tempted him back). There were some great displays of the Bondian wit we've come to expect though. My favourite was Bond's comment to Tiffany Case: 'That's quite a nice little nothing you're almost wearing'.