Zardoz (1974)

Starring: Sean Connery, Charlotte Rampling, Sara Kestelman

Director: John Boorman

Genre: Fantasy, Sci-Fi

Rating: D

"The gun is good. The penis is evil. The penis shoots seeds, and makes new life to poison the Earth with a plague of men, as once it was, but the gun shoots death, and purifies the Earth of the filth of brutals. Go forth ... and kill!"

Thus begins the classic cult film Zardoz.  In the year 2293 the Earth is inhabited primarily by a people called the Brutals, who are ruled without realizing it by the Eternals.  As the names might suggest, the Brutals live a life of brutality while the Eternals lived a life of ease - a life that lasted forever.  The Brutals, however, don't actually know about the Eternals.  Instead, they are more directly ruled over by a class known as the Exterminators, who worship the god Zardoz.  Zardoz appears to them in the form of a giant flying, hollow stone head, where the Exterminators deposit grain in exchange for guns.Enter the Exterminator Zed (Connery) hides in the head of Zardoz, where he's brought to the Vortex - the community of the Eternals that is protected from the Brutals by an invisible force-field.  Here Zed meets two Eternals, Consuella (Rampling) and May (Kestelman), and begins to figure out this new world around him.

And the entire time, Sean Connery looks like this.  Except for when he's wearing a wedding dress.  I kid you not.  That bit is possibly the best moment of the entire film, Sean Connery running around the Vortex in a wedding dress.  The other costumes are rather quesitonable too... and when it comes down to it, all I can do is hope that I'm not alive to see the future inspired by 70s fashion.

The plot for this movie is laughable at best.   I spent most of it wondering just what the hell was going on, and even when I had it figured out I still wasn't sure.  The plot overall was a lot like the costume; it's weird, it's confusing, it's disturbing and distressing, and yet for some reason you can't seem to look away.  It's not really good... but I'm not too sure if it's really bad either.  Disturbing.  That's the word I'm going to go with.

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

Diamonds Are Forever (1971)

Starring: Sean Connery, Bernard Lee, Jill St. John, Charles Gray, Lana Wood, Jimmy Dean, Bruce Glover, Bruce Cabot, Putter Smith

Director: Guy Hamilton
Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller
Rating: C

Okay, so this movie literally features a scene when Bond is being attacked – in a violent sense of the word – by two underwear clad women named Bambi (Lola Larson) and Thumper (Trina Parks). In a couple of the reviews so far I’ve said that while the plot devices were cheesy at least they didn’t reach the level seen in Austin Powers. I now have to take that back – this officially hits a point lamer than in Austin Powers. I was definitely disappointed.

Diamonds Are Forever is - surprise, surprise - about diamonds.  After seemingly killing Blofeld and a Blofeld (Gray) look-alike, Bond (Connery) is given the task of uncovering a diamond smuggling ring.  Here he poses as smuggler Peter Franks (Joe Robinson), while killing the real Franks, whose body is then passed off as Bond - Bond faking his own death seems to be a common theme in these movies.  While investigating the whole thing, Bond also sleeps with women, notably diamond smuggler Tiffany Case (St. John).

This movie is ridiculously campy.  While many of the other movies (so far) have had huge elements of camp Diamonds Are Forever takes this to a whole new level - from villains Bambi and Thumper to the dull Bond girl, the portrayal of Blofeld, and the overall plot.  Bond movies are supposed to be sophisticated, classy, and dangerous... this one's just kind of lame.  It's really a rather sad note for Connery to have gone out on, although he will be back for the non-Eon Bond film Never Say Never Again.

You Only Live Twice (1967)

Starring: Sean Connery, Mie Hama, Donald Pleasence, Akiko Wakabayashi

Director: Lewis Gilbert

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Rating: B-

Once again, Bond is back, this time in a movie that is just really weird.  At the start of the film, James Bond (Connery)'s death is faked, enabling him to go undercover in Tokyo, where he investigates whether or not the Japanese are involved in the hijacking of an American spacecraft.  Bond hooks up with another Bond girl, SPECTRE is revealed to be involved, and a lot of things happen that make you wonder just how we haven't succeeded in blowing up the world yet.

I really don't know how I felt about this one.  It was short, or at least it felt that way, and so I didn't get bored - which has happened with other Bond movies - but I didn't really feel enticed either.   I actually found a lot of this movie to be based on racial stereotypes, more so than in previous Bond films.  Once again, a lot of this movie reminded me of Austin Powers (fitting, because it is part of the basis for the parody), and its strengths seemed to lay in the fact that while being similar to the Mike Meyers film it wasn't actually Austin Powers.  This is going to be a rather short review, simply because I don't really know what to say about this movie.  I didn't really enjoy it, but at the same time I didn't really dislike it either.  It's a weird one, sorry.

Thunderball (1965)

Starring: Sean Connery, Claudine Auger, Adolfo Celi, Luciana Paluzzi, Rik Van Nutter, Desmond Llewelyn, Bernard Lee

Director: Terence Young

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Rating: B

I think the problem with going back and watching the James Bond movies is that while some of the tropes that they used in the series weren’t necessarily old and clichéd at the time they certainly are now.  Some of the situations that Bond gets into kind of seem a bit ridiculous and over the top – more fodder for an Austin Powers movie than an actual serious action flick.  There is no single part of Thunderball that really stands out as great, although there are a few that kind of stand out as corny – notably the jetpack, the underwater jet pack, the sharks, and the underwater sex.  I realize that sex is necessary in a Bond film, I’m just saying that this sex was particularly lame.

Thunderball sees the return of SPECTRE.  The terrorist organization has succeeded in apprehending two atomic bonds, for which they are demanding a £100 million ransom – if their demands are not met then a major city in either the United Kingdom or the United States will be destroyed.  Everyone’s favourite MI6 agent, Bond (Connery), takes up the task of finding the bombs without having to pay the ransom.  Bond decides to follow Domino (Auger), the sister of the now dead French NATO pilot who had been responsible for the bombs, and discovers that she is the mistress of SPECTRE No. 2, Emilio Largo (Celi).  It’s only a matter of time before Bond succeeds in seducing Domino and defeating Largo.

Despite the fact that there’s nothing out- standing about this film and the fact that there are more than a few corny bits, I actually kind of enjoyed Thunderball.  It’s lame, but it’s fun, and that’s everything that I expect from an action movie.  They’re not supposed to be deep, introspective films, they’re  supposed to be fun and escapist.  There is nothing about Thunderball that is remotely believable and the special effects are ridiculously lame – although forgivable given that it was filmed in the 60s – but that’s okay.  In my  opinion there are two Sean Connery images that should go down in everyone’s memory as the epitome of good actors making the best of a movie – one is the rather infamous image of him in Zardoz and the other is the image of him in the jet pack in Thunderball.  Seriously – I don’t usually use screenshots, but I had to for this.

 

The film does take a long time to get started, but I’ve kind of been feeling that in general with these movies.  The underwater sequences weren’t the best… but underwater sequences are never the best.  They did have sharks, but at least they didn’t have lasers on their heads.  I think that might actually be the reason why I liked this movie – it wasn’t all that great, but at least it wasn’t Austin Powers.  I’m now going to re-evaluate my enjoyment of Thunderball.

Goldfinger (1964)

Starring: Sean Connery, Gert Fröbe, Honor Blackman, Harold Sakata, Bernard Lee

Director: Guy Hamilton

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Rating: B-

I wasn't really a big fan of this movie.  In fact, I kind of didn't enjoy this instalment of the series.  Sure there were some amazing moments, but a lot of the movie was gimmicky and cheesy.  I mean, really, there was a long heated game of golf.  Serious movies that feature golf are not good.  It's like a rule, or something.

Goldfinger follows Bond (Connery) as he follows bullion dealer Auric Goldfinger (Fröbe) in an attempt to determine how Goldfinger is smuggling gold internationally.  This involves playing golf and cards - played in a manner that really make Bond look like a jackass - screwing women, and the like.  Eventually Bond determines that Goldfinger is planning on robbing Fort Knox and must stop him.  Along the way Bond screws some women and people are killed with a hat.  Yes, a hat.

Okay, so the awesome moments of this movie include when Shirley Eaton is killed by having her body covered in gold - this isn't a huge spoiler because it's basically the poster image for this movie.  The gold chick you see in everything Goldfinger related?  Yeah, that's Shirley Eaton.  There's also the gadgets, which for the most part are pretty cool, and Goldfinger tells Bond that he wants him to die, while pointing a laser at his crotch.  That moment is, in my opinion, probably the single most iconic moment of a James Bond film.  Sure there's "Bond, James Bond" and "Shaken, not stirred" but they're more catch phrases that you hear in most, if not all, of the films.  "I expect you to die" is just so iconic of this film, this series, this genre... it sent chills up my spine when it happened.

Despite that, however, the film was actually rather boring.  It was slow, and despite only running for 2 hours seemed to last forever.  I found that I really just didn't care about this movie.  I spent most of it hoping that it would be over soon and disappointed to see that it wasn't.  Maybe a combination of the heat and school related stress are getting to me, because any reviews that I've read of Goldfinger say that it's a great movie, I just found it uninteresting.  It wasn't a bad movie it just... didn't captivate me.

From Russia with Love (1963)

Starring: Sean Connery, Daniela Bianchi, Lotte Lenya, Robert Shaw, Pedro Armendáriz

Director: Terence Young

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Rating: B+

I enjoyed the second instalment in the James Bond franchise more than the first one. It's still a bit simple, but there's an improvement on the bad guys in general.  It's definitely still misogynist, but the fact that the women in this film are at least semi-villainous as well as sex interests makes the way that they're treated somehow acceptable.  Somehow, Bond (Connery) is less of a dick in this movie, fully embracing the awesomeness that is 007.

Following the death of Dr. No SPECTRE decides that it wants to extract revenge on Bond.   Chief Planning Officer Kronsteen (Vladek Sheybal) devices a plan to steal a Lektor cryptographic device from the Soviets, sell it back to them, and get Bond killed.  Ex-SMERSH operative and current SPECTRE operative Number 3 Rosa Klebb (Lenya) is put in charge of the operation and recruits Red Grant (Shaw) to assassinate Bond and Tatiana Romanova (Bianchi) to lure Bond into the trap.

I think a big part of the reason why I liked From Russia with Love more than Dr. No was because the plot was more readily defined.  Right at the start we were told what was going on and why - we saw Number 1 (voiced by Eric Pohlmann), who from my understanding becomes the great villain of the series.  SPECTRE became something that was real instead of something that seemed like little more than the idea of some lunatic villain.  It all became more defined and real.

My favourite part of this movie, however, had to be the fact that I wasn't able to predict where it would go.  Sure, I knew that Bond was going to survive - it's hard to not know that when you realize that there's another 21 movies left in the series - but I didn't know the how.  I enjoyed the journey that brought me to the how.  I'm not really sure what more to say; it's been a long week so far, and I think my brain might be a little fried.

Dr. No (1962)

Starring: Sean Connery, Joseph Wiseman, Ursula Andress, Jack Lord, John Kitzmiller

Director: Terence Young

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Rating: B

Prior to last night I had never actually watched a single James Bond movie.  I’d seen bits and pieces growing up – my dad was a fan – but I’d never watched an episode from start to finish.  Having now done so I’m not entirely sure what to think.  I wouldn’t say that Dr. No is a bad movie, but it’s definitely not what I expect when I think of an action movie – although a huge part of that would be the result of cultural differences that have developed since the 60s.

Another thing that may be an element of its time is the sheer simplicity of the plot: a British intelligence agent, John Strangeways (Timothy Moxon), is ambushed and killed in Jamaica.  The result is that MI6 agent James Bond (Connery) is tasked with going to Jamaica and investigating the death – and determining whether or not it’s related to a cooperation with the CIA on a case involving the disruption of rocket launches.  While in Jamaica Bond liaises with CIA operative Felix Leiter (Lord) and Strangeway’s employee Quarrel (Kitzmiller) and sleeps with the film’s Bond girls.  He also learns about the reclusive Dr. No (Wiseman), who owns the island of Crab Key – which is reportedly guarded by dragons.

I have to say I enjoyed the simplicity of the plot.  It’s something that you really don’t see a lot of these days, especially in action movies.  There’s always some sort of twist – or at least an attempt at one – as the screenwriters and directors try to keep their audiences guessing.  I did find Dr. No to be a bit predictable, but I’m not entirely sure how much of that is a consequence of my being very familiar with post-Bond action movies – many of which utilize similar tropes that I expect would not have been as over used at the time – and how much of it is simply that the film is predictable.   I really liked how all the things that you associate with a James Bond film were already present in Dr. No, despite it being the first of the series – there’s the “Bond, James Bond,” line, the martinis, the Bond Girls, and the theme song that instantly makes you think of Bond.  I’m sure there were other elements that are very thematic of the series but not necessarily as well known as well, and I’m looking forward to picking up on them as I continue with the series.

I did really enjoy Connery as Bond, although I have to say he wasn’t exactly the most charming of heroic characters.  I’m used to my action heroes going through a girl (or two) a movie, I’m just not used to them being so… well, for lack of a better word, Bond is rather chauvinistic.  You can see a bit of TonyStark in him (or perhaps you can see a bit of Bond in Stark?), but something about the straightforwardness of the character makes it really unappealing.  You can also see this in the fact that his sidekick is a plucky black guy who seems to do as much of the work as Bond – if not more – but neither gets credit nor girl.  The girl was similarly portrayed; she struggled between being a damsel in distress and a distressed damsel, but either way she was there so that Bond could save and woo her.  Really rather one sided – but then, I think the only character that had development in this movie was Bond himself.  It was a fun and simple journey, but I don’t think it was an overly developed one.  Once again, though, that could just be an element of the genre and the time.  Random Bond fact: while Ursula Andress portrays Bond Girl Honey Ryder two other actresses (Nikki van der Zyl and Diana Coupland) voiced her, one for her speaking and the other her singing.  Neither of them were mentioned in the film's credits.  Joseph Wiseman, however, was the only early Bond villain to not have his voice dubbed by another actor.