Bond: In Review

I'm just going to stick a note out there: while I usually try to be at least semi-spoiler free (the jury is still out on whether or not I'm successful there), I am not going to maintain that in this post. It is possible that there will be spoilers for all the movies, including Skyfall.

Bonds: Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, Daniel Craig

Ms: Bernard Lee, Robert Brown, Judi Dench, Ralph Fiennes

Qs: Peter Burton, Desmond Llewelyn, John Cleese, Ben Whishaw

Moneypennys: Lois Maxwell, Caroline Bliss, Samantha Bond, Naomie Harris

Directors: Terence Young, Guy Hamilton, Lewis Gilbert, Peter R. Hunt, John Glen, Martin Campbell, Roger Spottiswoode, Michael Apted, Lee Tamahori, Marc Forster, Sam Mendes

Movies: In my opinion, the best Bond film was Casino Royale.  This surprised me largely because I'm not usually a fan of origin stories and reboots, but I like what they did here - it was kind of like the Bond-version of Christian Bale's Batman, minus the exposition explaining the back story.  I don't think I'm going to list off all the movies in order of how much I liked or did not like them, but I will say that my top 5, in order of release, would be Dr. No, From Russia with Love, GoldenEye, Casino Royale, and Skyfall.  My bottom five, also in order of release, would be On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Live and Let Die, Moonraker, The World is Not Enough, and Die Another Day.

Bonds: If you've been paying attention, my favourite Bond was by far Daniel Craig.  Despite the problems of his series, and I will admit that there were many - particularly with Quantum of Solace - I really like the character that he portrayed here most.  In a lot of ways, it's a more rounded and developed person than the previous Bonds.  My second favourite would be Sean Connery, and I would follow that up with Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, Roger Moore, and George Lazenby, in that order.

Ms: Oh, how I love Dame Judi Dench.  She really rocked the M.  My favourite line in the entire series is her characterization of Bond in GoldenEye, and I really love the relationship that she had with her two Bonds.  I did also like Bernard Lee, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what Ralph Fiennes does with the character in the future - I hope they retain him in the as-of-yet titled Bond 24 and Bond 25.  Sorry Robert Brown, you didn't make much of an impact on me.  Thus, in order: Judi Dench, Bernard Lee, Ralph Fiennes, Robert Brown.

Qs:  While I was really happy that they reintroduced Q in Skyfall, I wasn't particularly wowed by Ben Wisham's Q.  He had some good lines and played a significant role, but he didn't wow me. I loved Desmond Llewelyn's Q, and while I really enjoyed John Cleese's role, I think I preferred him as "R" to Q. I kind of feel that Q needs to be a bit more of a straight man than Cleese allowed for.  I don't think Peter Burton left an impact either.  In order: Desmond Llewelyn, John Cleese, Ben Whishaw, Peter Burton.

Moneypennys: The best Moneypenny, by far, is Lois Maxwell's.  She played the roll in 16 films, against three Bonds.  I really love how she balanced the flirtation with Bond against the rejection of Bond.  My second favourite would be Samantha Bond, who really seemed to embrace the early Moneypenny while also going with a bit of a more modern upgrade.  This upgrade was initiated a lot by Caroline Bliss' Moneypenny, but it didn't have the earlier affection - I didn't like her.  As for Naomie Harris... I'm still really on the fence here.  I loved her as a Bond girl, but I hate the idea of Moneypenny being a Bond girl.  I'm really not sure if she crossed that line here, and that bothers me.  Thus, in order: Lois Maxwell, Samantha Bond, Caroline Bliss, and Naomie Harris sits out on the sidelines.

Bond Girls: I'm not going to go into the individual Bond girls, as there are so many of them - with the exception of Quantum of Solace, which only has two, there's always been at least three, and in A View to Kill there were six women identified as Bond girls.  I'm always a bit mixed on the Bond girls in general, they kind of seem to go back and forth between being useful, developed characters, and simply just sex objects.  I think in general I liked the earlier ones more than the later ones simply because they didn't try to force us to believe that they were more than just sex objects - the idea of the Bond girl having to be this strong, independent person really began to be forced on is in the Brosnan movies, but a lot of the girls before then were a lot stronger and really better characters.  One thing, I'm not a huge fan of the Daniel Craig Bond girls, with the exception of Casino Royale's Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) and, in a complicated way, Skyfall's Eve Moneypenny (Naomie Harris).  I thought that both were really strong characters. I really loved Vesper in general and the way that Bond develops feelings for her specifically - in a way it's very reminiscent of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, without the cheese.  I also really liked the relationship that Bond and Eve had, I just didn't like the reveal of her being Moneypenny in the end - Moneypenny is not a Bond girl.

Villains: I really fluctuate on my feelings towards different Bond villains.  Some of them I loved, some of them I hated.  Some of them I thought were great actors and were doing their best with what was given to them, but still fell short.  My favourite villains in general tended to be the ones who either operated as a part of some elaborate fictional organization - SPECTRE or Quantum - or were rogue agents themselves.  I actually kind of find it funny that these movies seem to pair up Bond dealing with a rogue agent with Bond going rogue himself.

Music: You know what might be my favourite part of this series overall?  The music.  I really love most of the themes for this series, and in particular the way that they make reference to the film's title - it doesn't happen in all the films, but definitely enough.  I can kind of divide the themes into two categories; songs that totally have a James Bond theme song sound to them, and ones that don't.  In my opinion, the former category is far better.  These include Adele's "Skyfall," Madonna's "Die Another Day," Tina Turner's "GoldenEye," Sheena Easton's "For Your Eyes Only," and Paul McCartney and the Wings' "Live and Let Die," as well as the Shirley Bassey songs, "Goldfinger" and "Diamonds Are Forever."  Even just in typing the names out, the songs have implanted themselves into my head, resulting in a strange mashup playing out.  Now, that's not to say that other Bond-songs aren't good, just that they don't sound as much like Bond songs  and thus are somehow less iconic.  What is the most iconic of all, of course, is the "Bond Theme Song," which I think perfectly captures the feel of a Bond film.

I'm just going to finish this off with a table listing off the movies and the actors in the major roles.  As usual, links are provided to my reviews of the actual movies themselves.

Movie	Director	Bond	M	Q	Moneypenny	Girl	Villain
Dr. No	Terence Young	Sean Connery	Bernard Lee	N/A	Lois Maxwell	Ursula Andress	Joseph Wiseman
From Russia with Love	Terence Young	Sean Connery	Bernard Lee	N/A	Lois Maxwell	Daniela Bianchi	Lotte Lenya
Goldfinger	Guy Hamilton	Sean Connery	Bernard Lee	Desmond Llewelyn	Lois Maxwell	Honor Blackman	Gert Fröbe
Thunderball	Terence Young	Sean Connery	Bernard Lee	Desmond Llewelyn	Lois Maxwell	Claudine Auger	Adolfo Celi
You Only Live Twice	Lewis Gilbert	Sean Connery	Bernard Lee	Desmond Llewelyn	Lois Maxwell	Akiko Wakabayashi	Donald Pleasence
On Her Majesty's Secret Service	Peter R. Hunter	George Lazenby	Bernard Lee	Desmond Llewelyn	Lois Maxwell	Diana Rigg	Telly Savalas
Diamonds Are Forever	Guy Hamilton	Sean Connery	Bernard Lee	Desmond Llewelyn	Lois Maxwell	Lana Wood	Charles Gray
Live and Let Die	Guy Hamilton	Roger Moore	Bernard Lee	N/A	Lois Maxwell	Jane Seymour	Yaphet Kotto
The Man with the Golden Gun	Guy Hamilton	Roger Moore	Bernard Lee	Desmond Llewelyn	Lois Maxwell	Maud Adams	Christopher Lee
The Spy Who Loved Me	Lewis Gilbert	Roger Moore	Bernard Lee	Desmond Llewelyn	Lois Maxwell	Barbara Bach	Curd Jürgens
Moonraker	Lewis Gilbert	Roger Moore	Bernard Lee	Desmond Llewelyn	Lois Maxwell	Lois Chiles	Michael Lonsdale
For Your Eyes Only	John Glen	Roger Moore	N/A	Desmond Llewelyn	Lois Maxwell	Carole Bouquet	Julian Glover
Octopussy	John Glen	Roger Moore	Robert Brown	Desmond Llewelyn	Lois Maxwell	Maud Adams	Steven Berkoff, Louis Jourdan
A View to Kill	John Glen	Roger Moore	Robert Brown	Desmond Llewelyn	Lois Maxwell	Tanya Roberts	Christopher Walken
The Living Daylights	John Glen	Timothy Dalton	Robert Brown	Desmond Llewelyn	Caroline Bliss	Maryam d'Abo	Jeroen Krabbé
Licence to Kill	John Glen	Timothy Dalton	Robert Brown	Desmond Llewelyn	Caroline Bliss	Carey Lowell	Robert Davi
GoldenEye	Martin Campbell	Pierce Brosnan	Judi Dench	Desmond Llewelyn	Samantha Bond	Izabella Scorupco, Famke Janssen	Sean Bean
Tomorrow Never Dies	Roger Spottiswoode	Pierce Brosnan	Judi Dench	Desmond Llewelyn	Samantha Bond	Michelle Yeoh, Teri Hatcher	Jonathan Pryce
The World is Not Enough	Michael Apted	Pierce Brosnan	Judi Dench	Desmond Llewelyn	Samantha Bond	Denise Richards, Sophie Marceau	Sophie Marceau, Robert Carlyle
Die Another Day	Lee Tamahori	Pierce Brosnan	Judi Dench	John Cleese	Samantha Bond	Halle Berry, Rosamund Pike	Toby Stephens, Rosamund Pike
Casino Royale	Martin Campbell	Daniel Craig	Judi Dench	N/A	N/A	Eva Green	Mads Mikkelsen
Quantum of Solace	Marc Foster	Daniel Craig	Judi Dench	N/A	N/A	Olga Kurylenko, Gemma Arterton	Mathieu Amalric
Skyfall	Sam Mendes	Daniel Craig	Judi Dench, Ralph Fiennes	Ben Whishaw	Naomie Harris	Naomie Harris	Javier Bardem

Die Another Day (2002)

Starring: Pierce Brosnan, Judi Dench, John Cleese, Halle Berry, Toby Stephens, Rick Yune, Rosamund Pike, Will Yun Lee, Michael Madsen, Rachel Grant

Director: Lee Tamahori

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Rating: C

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this movie.  While it does escape from the evil Soviets plot, the twist did surprise me, and I really liked a lot of the references and allusions to previous Bonds, it was also overly complicated, cheesy, and a bit too much.  Roger Moore said of the film "I thought it just went too far – and that’s from me, the first Bond in space! Invisible cars and dodgy CGI footage? Please!"  That's actually pretty much exactly how I feel.  I like Brosnan overall as a Bond, but this movie in general felt like it should have been a Roger Moore one - and in my opinion, that's not a good thing.

The background to this is that Bond (Brosnan) was captured by the North Koreans while on a mission related to illegally traded African conflict diamonds.  After 14 months of captivity Bond is released in exchange for the release of North Korean agent Zao (Yune), whose face had been disfigured by diamond fragments during the struggle with Bond.  Once released, Bond is suspended from active duty because M (Dench) doesn't believe that he hasn't leaked information, so Bond escapes to complete his mission.  In Havana (because that where you go when your mission involves North Korea) Bond meets NSA agent Giacinti 'Jinx' Johnson (Berry), who he follows (along with Zao) to a gene therapy treatment, where more conflict diamonds are discovered, this time with the company crest of British billionaire Gustav Graves (Stephens).  Bond returns to England to continue the investigation, where he meets fellow MI6 agent Miranda Frost (Pike), who is undercover as Graves' assistant.  Points if you guess who's sleeping with who!

There's a lot about this movie that is really classic Bond and in a way, I admire Tamahori for trying to recreate that feel of the series.  The problem is, however, that you really can't go back.  What made movies like Dr. No work only worked because of the time in which they were created.  Outside of the sixties and seventies, classic Bond doesn't work as well; that was one of the problems of the Roger Moore films.  Die Another Day fails even more because in addition to trying to grasp that classic feel it also tries to incorporate new technology, namely CGI.  The result is rather disastrous.  No, the result is horrendous.  Actually, there's more to it than that.  Another part of the problem is that while trying to envoke a lot of the old classic feel Die fails to intentionally invoke the humour and the cheese.  As such, it's a lame and cheesy movie that fails to realize it's as much.  It's okay to be ridiculous, when you know that's what you're doing - that's why Dr. Strangelove is so awesome.  If you take yourself seriously but fail to be serious, you just don't work out in the end.

The World is Not Enough (1999)

Starring: Pierce Brosnan, Judi Dench, Sophie Marceau, Robert Carlyle, Denise Richards

Director: Michael Apted

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Rating: C-

I didn't actually need to watch this movie to know what would happen in it.   A plot twist is always great, and their are some movies (as well as other works of fiction) that handle the twist so adeptly that when it happens you're left flabbergasted.  Others you can figure out easily enough, but the way it happens is still enjoyable so even if you're not surprised it's still great.  The World is Not Enough, however, is so predictable that you can figure out the bulk of the plot, twist included, by the time M's finished her initial brief.  There's no suspense, no surprise, nothing.

A British oil tycoon, who happened to have been M (Judi Dench)'s friend, has been killed and his daughter, Elektra King (Maurceau) has been threatened.  Bond is sent to investigate and protect Elektra, during which he uncovers a plot that involves Soviet terrorist Renard (Carlyle) and nuclear physicist Christmas Jones (Richards).  Renard previously kidnapped Elektra, and it's believed that he's going to make an attack on her again, while Christmas fits in in a weird way.... there's an oil pipeline and a silo and it's needlessly complicated.  If you've started making connections and figuring out who's good and who's bad, and what blows up what you're not alone.  Oh, bonus points as usual if you guess who sleeps with Bond.

I'm really not sure what to say about this movie beyond the fact that it was predictable to the point that I couldn't enjoy it.  It was just... disappointing.  One thing I did like, however, was the introduction of the new Q, or in this case the Q-to-be.  Here he's called R (John Cleese), although jokingly so, and is introduced as the current Q (Desmond Llewelyn)'s assistant.  From what I understand, there weren't actual plans to have Llewelyn retire from the franchise and "R" was just introduced as a bit of a joke gag, and it's done wonderfully so.  Llewelyn's death prevented his return to the franchise in later movies, so in Die Another Day Cleese steps up.  As such, this is Llewelyn's last film in the franchise - after having been in 17 films, and having worked with five different Bonds.

Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

Starring: Pierce Brosnan, Judi Dench, Jonathan Pryce, Michelle Yeoh, Teri Hatcher

Director: Roger Spottiswoode

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Rating: C+

Bond (Brosnan) is back, saving the world from another techno-terrorist.  Media baron Elliot Carver (Pryce) has a plot to provoke a war between China and the United Kingdom, in a manner that would give him the exclusive broadcasting rights to it.

This was not the worst Bond film. I think that might be the extent of the good things that I can say about it.  Actually, that's a lie: I also liked the fact that the bad guys this time round were neither Russians nor Soviets but rather a good ol' British (well, Welsh) mogul, a combination of Robert Maxwell and Rupert Murdoch gone horribly, horribly wrong.  The best thing about this film is the villain, which is always a good sign of a Bond film.  I also do really like Brosnan's Bond.  He's slick and suave.  He's got the confidence and arrogance of previous Bonds, but doesn't push it too far, and is definitely starting to break free of the sexism and racism.  There's definitely a "I've seen this stuff before" feel to the movie overall, but I'm comfortable with the lead, which puts it a bit higher than some of the previous films.

GoldenEye (1995)

Starring: Pierce Brosnan, Judi Dench, Sean Bean, Izabella Scorupco, Famke Janssen

Director: Martin Campbell

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Rating: B

"You don't like me, Bond. You don't like my methods. You think I'm an accountant, a bean counter more interested in my numbers than your instincts." "The thought had occurred to me." "Good, because I think you're a sexist, misogynist dinosaur. A relic of the Cold War, whose boyish charms, though wasted on me, obviously appealed to that young woman I sent out to evaluate you." "Point taken."

How to summarize the plot without spoiling... Nine years after the death of agent 006, Alec Trevelyan (Bean), during an infiltration of a Soviet chemical weapons facility, Bond (Brosnan) is charged with following Xenia Onatopp (Janssen), a member of the Janus crime syndicate.  After killing a Royal Canadian Navy admiral Xenia and a colleague massacre a bunch of people and steal the control disc for the dual GoldenEye satellite weapons, which emits electromagnetic pulses and destroys computers basically.  But, of course, Bond is on the mission, and is aided by the only survivor of the massacre, Natalya Simonov (Scorupco).

My big problem with GoldenEye is that there was a huge set up for the villains to be the Russians.  I got bored with the Soviets as villains in the previous films, I'm not looking forward to it's slightly different but basically the same variation now that the Cold War has ended.  That being said, though, I really like the direction that the movie then decided to go in.  The whole rouge agent plot is awesome, especially if you realize that they did it from the other angel in Licence to Kill, where Bond was the rouge.

My favourite moment in this movie, however, is when M (Dench) called Bond out on his behaviour.  Everything that she said in the line (which I quoted at the top) is exactly what I've been saying for a lot of movies now. Bond is sexist and myogynistic.  He's also a relic of the Cold War simply because so many of these movies have to do with the idea of Soviets/Russians being the villains.  I only hope that by calling him on it M is predicting a change in the movies, a leap forward.  Another thing, weirdly enough, that I liked was that Bond showed no problem with the idea of killing Xenia.  When she was introduced I was kind of worried that they would go the way of May Day (Grace Jones) in A View to Kill, but I was happy that they didn't.  Bond's changing, however slowly.