62 pieces of karma
A broken plastic marionette, coins: 20c, 50c, couple of 10c, a slip of paper where my daughter has written "I love you", Delderfield's A horseman riding by, an old New Scientist with a doodle I made of some sort of hyperspace, a glass with the deep tannic stain of long-gone wine, Nexium, antihistamines (non-drowsy), a pack of cards still glossy, a xchematic for the universe that I wasn't sure enough about to colour in, an appointment that I didn't keep, a corner of a banknote, a hard drive that I swapped out, some screws (tiny), a small clock that keeps good time, a phone number -- I can't remember whose and I'll never ring to find out, a line of what could be poetry but I don't know whether it means anything yet, Teach yourself analytic psychology, something by Camus about assassins that I glanced through, a chatterbox, a plump feather, a photo of my step-granddad, another photo of my dad and middle sister on the sand, some broken glass, a key that doesn't open anything, a ticket for the carpark at Garden City, a docket from Wal-Mart that was in my suitcase, a card from the TSA to tell me they ransacked my case, a strip of ritalin that I've never bothered to take, a brush, a comb, hair gel -- cheap and doesn't hold, deodorant -- nice, cologne -- nice, a piece of tissue with what could be blood or just I don't know, spare glasses in their case, a small empty box, fizzy vitamins that I don't like very much, a book of modern poetry that I got because I wanted some Larkin and Plath and I'd forgotten I have a book of modern poetry that I got because I wanted some Larkin and Plath three years ago too, toothpicks, ibuprofen, paracetamol, some sort of antacid that doesn't feel like it works, a bottle of headache relief now empty that I wish I could buy here, a sock -- clean, I think, a store card that I always think I've lost, a visual guide to the scales,
I Spectre You To Die, Mr Bond
[spoilers follow]
So Spectre has all the stunts, beautiful women, hard men, action, blah blah that you want, yet I still didn't walk away thinking it was a good Bond film. Why?
First, it's just me, I think. I just couldn't connect with the film. I viscerally disliked the reboot of Spectre. I didn't like Blofeld as a character -- Waltz is terrible, chewing the scenery for all he's worth, and the idea that he's Bond's brother, which you suppose is meant to add emotional weight, adds nothing to him as a character or to a film that seems unmoored at best.
The action is excellent, of course, although perhaps it's all a bit stunt heavy. There are lots of callbacks to previous Bond films, including the fight on the train that featured in From Russia With Love. But I think that's part of the problem. This *feels* old, retreading previous ideas, and it just didn't power itself, the plot too lazy and the script underwritten. There's definitely a good film in there but it didn't emerge really. And don't get me started on the guy from Sherlock and whatever the fuck he's up to. It's just trying to say too much politically and doesn't tie in very well with Spectre. Had it posed more *threat* to Bond, it might have worked better. Also, that guy sucks. He can't act for shit and look, camp just doesn't express anything. You can't rely on it to convey sinister or arch or whatever it's meant to be. And very few films are actually improved for featuring a pantomime dame, particularly not Bond, where the strength is to pretend to be serious while actually being preposterous.
Okay, I'ma say C for this. There are many worse but it's not top echelon. The action is good but not innovative -- and watch this space because as I write this I'm watching the cold open of Skyfall and it's amazing -- so it can't lift this to anything higher. Craig is good but he does look worn out. Bring on Idris now, guys.
Skyfail?
[spoilers follow]
So after Quantum of Solace, many people, me included, were asking whether there was any point to the new Bond. Casino Royale had been promising rather than actually good and QoS was a bag of shit (yeah I'm looking forward to that one).
And in advance we knew that Skyfall would take Bond back to his childhood (yawn) and that he'd be an inch from the scrapheap (not very good when the competition is young, thrusting Matt Damon).
But then there's *that* cold open, one of the best if not the best. And the theme music, which says "this film will be epic". And by god, it is. I'd forgotten how good it is. Paced brilliantly, with heartstopping action and explainy bits you can't quite grasp. Great villian who hands out a lesson in creepy camp (the contrast with the Sherlock guy is in itself a masterclass in how to do it and how not). Awesome story. Sexy chicks including a new spin on Moneypenny (wasted in Spectre) and a nerdy new Q (wasted in Spectre as well).
Well, it just kicks arse start to finish. If you don't like Skyfall, you don't like Bond films. And that's okay. But I do and I loved this. Craig even does jokes and does them, well, grumpily but that's okay. I mean, it's fair to say that this film wore out his welcome and he'd never top it. The key is that Bond hates being Bond -- and the villain illuminates that "rat in a trap" feeling that Bond struggles with. It's the one aspect of Bond Craig really nails. You can see the lonely child underneath the sociopath but more importantly, you can see a sociopath who sees himself as exactly what Javier Bardem says he is: a twisted, dark soul keeping himself together with booze, fucking and mindless murder.
All in all, this is top-grade Bond. A/B. A for action, music, stunts, script, performances and just sliding into a B because it's a tad too long and probably takes itself just a bit too seriously. Still, from start to finish, one of the best action films of all time. Fight me if you don't think so but you're wrong
Quantum of Rubbish
[spoilers follow]
Why is it so hard to love Quantum of Solace? Daniel Craig is excellent throughout, there are hot girls, there's tons of action, it's gritty (almost beyond bearing). Surely these ingredients can be boiled into a good film?
Well, the problem is, you notice how good Craig is because of the rubbish he's involved in. The other actors are terribad -- what the hell is that villain? And my god, the Bolivian colonel is a parody of a stereotype -- the very thing I tho
ught the new Bond was trying to avoid. The women actors are unwatchable. Olga Kurylenko is hot, sure, but there's something really unattractive about her and she can't act at all -- the best Bond girls are great actors, as we'll discuss when we get into Pussy Galore 
;) Gemma Arterton is also atrocious. And bad acting is not the whole of it. The story is bad, delivered with a script that for once in a Bond film doesn't have enough words. It's just a trail of cliches banging into each other.
And even the action isn't all that. Look, I love the Greengrass style of frantic jump cutting but it has to be placed in the right context and this isn't it (contrast with the brutal fight in the cold open of Casino Royale, where long cuts are intermixed with closeups of Bond to really create deep action -- *that* is how you do it). From the bewildering cold open through fights that make little or no sense, it's all too frantic and ultimately too boring. Why make Bond into Bourne? And why make him into Bourne with not even the backing of a Bourne-level story (which isn't much)?
Worse, the director doesn't even bother trying to establish any chemistry between Bond and the women (or anyone else -- there's often a sort of homoerotic attraction between the villain and Bond -- Le Chiffre gets Bond naked and indulges in some ball torture; Souza clearly wants Bond to be his boyfriend; Blofeld has some childhood masturbation issues to work through). He barely gets a decent line to drop and they have no character at all. You have to feel a bit sorry for Kurylenko, lumbered with a terrible revenge arc that doesn't make sense as a plot motivator to say the least. Except that she should never had the role. She just isn't an actress the way Eva Green, excellent in Casino Royale, is.
The theme music also sucks, which is usually a bad sign. It's lazy and boring just like most of the White Stripes' output. The sound design on the whole is a bit meh. I remember watching this in the cinema and it didn't have that visceral feel that a good action film brings.
Okay, so this is at best C/D and that's only because Craig is an effective Bond if not necessarily a convincing action star. I'm glad they stepped it up for Skyfall though. I mean, I'm not exaggerating when I say that in its best moments this touches mediocre.
Casino Royal Flush
[spoilers follow]
As a fan of Bond, both books and film, I was quite nervous about the reboot that was to star Daniel Craig. I had my own view of how Bond looked and like most fans, I suppose I saw him as tall, broadchested yet trim, dark and aristocratic. Craig is more like a blond barrel so I was sceptical.
But I was willing to give him a chance and, as all Bond fans know, there had never been a good version of Casino Royale, so there was a possibility that they would be faithful to the book.
The cold open showed that Craig could do brutal and cold blooded. And by god, could he! But how would he fit the famous tuxedo? As it turns out, brilliantly. Craig in Casino Royale is quintessential Bond and the film is a fit setting for him. Faithful to the book (yay), even the upgrade to the more topical poker (hilariously badly presented) could not spoil what for me is the pinnacle of Bond. This is how all Bond films should be: witty, hard, exciting but not action led, brutal, coherent and just this side of taxing.
Craig is aided by what has to be the best Bond girl yet. Eva Green is dynamite as Vesper Lynd. It helps that she gets all the best lines but she doesn't flub them. She's astonishingly good-looking, of course, but not just a pretty face. She's easily Craig's equal as an actor. That's how you do Bond girl (and look, there's no way Olga Kurylenko could match that performance, even if QOS had given her the opportunity).
The action is top rate. There isn't a huge amount and to be honest, most of the better Bonds have been light on the action and made really good use of what they had. It was clever stuff: the defibrillator scene is sharp, the fights are shot to perfection, and the setpiece stunt scenes are thrilling. It absolutely pumps when it has to. And when it's not pumping, you can feel the tension of a film that's biding its time.
Key to a great Bond film is a great villain. It's no surprise that weaker films -- for instance, Sceptre -- suffer from having poorly written and poorly cast villains, and the stronger ones have great campy nutjobs who use just enough subtlety to shade their characters. Mads Mikkelsen is a smirking autist who cries blood (and us aspies make great villain material, obv.) -- and he has an edge of transgression that overflows when for someone reason he tortures Bond by stripping him naked (and pauses to admire his physique) and playing with his balls. You can imagine him masturbating between swings of the rope. You can *feel* the sexual tension. And he isn't all powerful or even particularly clever. He is on the back foot from the start, desperate to get square before he gets killed.
So yeah, the reboot worked. More than that. This is not just probably the best Bond film they have made. It was a genuinely good film. I seem to recall some talk of Oscars. And that would really not have been insane. It's that good. It's the only Bond film I can just say, A is for awesome, and I wouldn't even fight you if you disagreed. I'd just assume you didn't know a thing about films in general, or genre in particular. This is why I for one go to watch every new Bond film in the cinema. Because there's just the chance there'll be another Casino Royale.
Dying On Its Arse Another Day
[spoilers follow]
So for an hour, Die Another Day is just bowling along, a fairly typical Bond film. It has a nice edge of dark about it and Brosnan is even quite watchable. I have no idea what Halle Berry is doing but she's nice enough to look at. Hilariously, throughout the film, Berry's lines are ALL oneliners and wisecracks. She just spits cliches. At least she has the good taste to look fainty bored all the way through.
And this could have continued and we'd be discussing a fairly decent Bond film. But someone turned the needle to WTF and it just went off the hook. And when I say off the hook, I mean, not even in the same fucken room as the hook.
I mean, there's probably -- no not even probably, definitely -- the most lunatic whitewashing of a character you've ever seen. I have no idea why a North Korean becomes white but he does. And his sidekick is a British spy who betrays her country for no good reason whatsoever (Rosamund Pike -- who funnily enough I see as a possible future Jane Bond). There's an invisible car. Bond windsurfs down a CGI glacier and how do I know it's full-on CGI? Because no effort is made to blend Bond into it. He then prances around in a cardboard set that looks nothing at all like Iceland.
There's an ice palace. Which melts. Nearly drowning Berry. And that's relatively sensible. The last half an hour is totally incomprehensible. I literally had no idea not only why things were happening but also how. It didn't just beggar belief. It said fuck belief. It kicked belief out of the door and went. off.
Now I don't mind a film going off. I love Safe, where Statham murders a couple of thousand Chinese, and I'll even buy Expendables-level gunfights, and the stunts in Fast and Furious (my favourite stunt ever is the parachuting SUVs not even kidding). But where this ought to be thrilling, it's just bad. They spent millions on this nonsense but it looks cheap. It has the look of something directed by committee.
Oh wait, nearly forgot. Madonna's theme music. If you've never heard it, give it a try. Ha ha no. Only kidding. Make sure you in no way ever listen to that because it's like staring into the abyss. You'll question your own existence when you realise there are people who thought that was a good idea.
Right. What can we say? I was never a fan of Brosnan and he looks barely interested all the way through. He's better at the start and gets worse as it goes on. Most of the plot is incomprehensible and if you look away for a minute, chances are you'll have no idea what the fuck is going on, and that won't change. I missed a minute and suddenly the main villain had three henchmen I had no idea who they were and it seemed neither did they. There's a death ray. No idea how or why.
So yeah, if it had continued in the tracks it laid in the first hour... no wait, it would still have been shit. Because they invented gene therapy just so the main villain wouldn't be Asian. And he's*still* one of the worst Bond villains I've seen. And there are like three good oneliners in the whole film. Yeah that'd be good for Skyfall -- dark Bond -- and three more than Dalton did in his whole time as Bond, but when I tell you there are approximately seven hundred oneliners in the whole film, you get the idea how bad this is. There is too much action and it's too stunty. And that fucken invisible car. D for drag it outta here. Drag it. Drag. It.
The World Is More Than Enough
[spoilers follow]
Look, I admit, I'm not a Brosnan fan. But I think he earns it. He looks like a man who is thinking about what to have for supper. And that's not the only problem The World Is Not Enough has.
Where to start? The plodding action? Well, at least there's a lot less than there is in Die Another Day, and the film makes sense, even if it's hard to care about. Robert Carlyle's hilariously bad villain? Look. He was Begbie. We can forgive *some* shit. But it's a careerload now. Robbie Coltrane's hilariously awful Russian accent? It was the best bit of his character! That dude is the curse of death to any middling film or TV series, seriously.
Denise Richards? Worst ever? Or worst ever? You decide. Nuclear scientist inexplicably in uber tight shorts? Tits that should be billed separately? I'm not kidding. Those things do all the acting for Denise. And they're ridiculous. But not as ridiculous as her "reading off cards" rendering of her lines. Or her "this is my stern face" acting.
In contrast is Sophie Marceau. I have no idea why her career kind of died after this. She's excellent. She is *so* sexy you can believe she believes she's *so* sexy Bond won't kill her. And what the fuck, he does. Come on man. I mean, for him it's no big deal because he has lined up Denise Richards as his next shagpiece but my god. You don't just kill a villain as good as Sophie. You have to at least regret it.
So there's some balls about a nucular weapon and some other bullshit with M (and although I'll agree that Judi Dench rocks that role from first to last scene, everything she does in this film is nonsense). And cetera. I mean, I defy anyone to give a shit. If the action was a bit spicier... no, there's still that awful fucken scene where Denise Richards says something about unwrapping presents.
C/D. And tbh that's generous. It's mostly just shit. Not terrible awful except... then you start thinking about Goldie. Fucken Goldie.. And yes, it's terrible awful. Drag it out and shoot it.
Tomorrow Dies of Shame
[spoilers follow]
So I'm not a stickler for realism in an action film by any means but there's a point in a gunfight where you just can't care for characters who fire machine guns round corners or literally change hands while still firing their tommy gun.
Not that I cared much anyway. I think this is the biggest failing of Brosnan's Bond. I just don't like him at all. And not in that he's a psycho way you don't like Craig but in a "your'e not moving me at all" way. Tomorrow Never Dies is much better than the other two Brosnan Bonds I watched but I still haven't warmed to him.
My stream was a bit choppy so my interest wavered more than usual but I have absolutely no idea what was going on. Something about the media and something about China. The first was represented by Jonathan Pryce, who completely ignored the idea that he was supposed to act and went full pantomime dame; the second by indiscriminate Chinamen, whom Michelle Yeoh kicked into tomorrow.
I don't actually know what Yeoh was doing in the film bar looking cool in every scene, and I have even less idea what Teri Hatcher was doing. Luckily, neither seemed to make much impact on the movie, except for some sweet kung fu.
The action was all in all pretty good. The cold open is preposterous but fun and the motorbike chase with handcuffed Yeoh was exceptional. This is pretty much peak action Bond so I suppose plot and character take a back seat. And they do. Still, the stunts are decent even if not even close to credible.
We're going to call this a C. You'd maybe rate it higher if you just thought of this as a straight action film, but in that case, there wasn't enough kung fu. Its the golden rule, of course: once you go kung, you must supplly fu.
edit: Oh, oh, almost forgot, that theme song! I'm not an expert on music or anything but Sheryl Crow doesn't sound close to the notes she's aiming at. Have a listen and see what you think. If you can bear it.
Bullseye?
[spoilers follow]
I'll give Pierce Brosnan credit. His Bond does not vary in tone. He's the same suave, slightly wooden guy in Goldeneye as he is in Die Another Day. But the film around him changes.
But not much, really. Goldeneye is still an action movie rather than a spy story and all the worse for it, although at least here the plot does make sense and the script has not quite degenerated into the morass of oneliners and bullshit that later Brosnan is stuck with.
So what goes on here? Well, some bullshit about a helicopter that I wasn't interested enough by to actually pay any mind to, something about 006, masterfully sneered through by Sean Bean and a Russian dupe/villain who appeared to have mislaid his lunch. I mean, I say the plot makes sense but don't ask me to describe it for you. It kind of worked at the time.
The action is okay. It hasn't descended to the level of later Brosnan -- there's a tank, but it's a cool tank iykwim. It's more explodey than fighty, which is a minus, because Bond works better when he fights, preferably against someone who equals him for strength and/or guile.
The female villain is awesome, of course. She probably could have featured more or had more character, since she just smirks in the background a bit more than really works. But the thighcracker effect still works to shrivel a man's nub, believe me.
All in all, I'd say it was forgettable. Quite good. Not bad. Okay. C? C. From the theme music, which I've already forgotten but it was an improvement on Madonna, let's put it that way, to the overall design (looks a bit cheaper than the extravagance of Die Another Day), it all kind of worked. And there was some archness as the Bond girl (whose name I didn't catch) remarks on Bond's ability to make things explode. Which he does.
Licence to Ill
[spoilers follow]
In Brosnan's work, we saw the Bond formula tilt perhaps too much to action, leavened by a cheery, slightly wooden mannequin. But in Licence To Kill, we get something completely different.
This is Bond reimagined as noir. The cartoonish hero of the Brosnan films has become a hard man going his own way. Bond is basically Parker. Dalton nails this Bond -- who is close to the Bond of the books -- or at least nearly so. He's often been criticised for lacking the charm and wit of the other Bonds, but in fact, he only loses form when he's forced to say something witty or charming, which doesn't work.
But here's the problem. Bond *is* charming and Bond *is* witty. Film Bond is not a noir antihero. He can be brutal but he is not afraid to wink and lay out a quip or two. Even Craig can do that dry witticism ("How was your lamb?" "Skewered. One sympathises.")
So this is almost Bond without Bond. Does that work?
Well yes. It's actually a fine film. Taut, violent, complex. It's one of the better noir thrillers you'll see. And if it was outside the Bond series, it -- and crucially, Dalton -- would get the praise it deserves. What's good? The cold open is fun. The dialogue is usually passable if low on fun. Talisa Soto is undercooked but Carey Lowell seethes, pouts and kicks arse. The villain steers well clear of cliche while being just the right amount of narco nasty. The action, though sparing, is well framed and Dalton is credible as the hero. There are no doublehanded machine gun antics, no invisible cars, the Q magic is restrained (and we have to remember that this was something we actually looked forward to back in the day). The settings work too. Bond always seems well suited to the Caribbean. And the pace is relaxed -- thriller not action banger -- so there's time for characters to shine and several (Dalton, Lowell, Davi, Zerbe, even del Toro) do.
I'm going to say this is a solid B if you imagine a main character called Bond James, who is some sort of operative on a mission. If you insist it's a Bond film, well, maybe just a C. I've seen people suggest it's akin to Casino Royale but that has far more action and is much more "Bond".
Barely Alive Daylights
[spoilers follow]
For all that Dalton is often criticised for how he played Bond, in retrospect, there's nothing really special about his Bond in The Living Daylights. He's functional throughout, plodding through an unspectacular Bond film. In contrast with the few we've recently talked about, this one hits the right kind of balance between spy and action. If Dalton dropped a few more jokes, this would probably be just stereotype Bond.
However, one notable factor in Dalton's time was a rejection of the worst excesses of sexism, which manifests in a Bond who is not a borderline rapist like Connery or Moore. He's a gent. And in this film, he seems to acquire a girlfriend, whom he then drags everywhere. Her major contribution seems to be different ways to cry out "James". So, you know, swings and roundabouts on the sexism front. On the one hand, Bond's not a shagger. On the other, his girlfriend is a cardboard cutout of "female sidekick". It doesn't help that Miriam D'Abo is one of the less accomplished female actors in the Bondiverse. She's not Denise Richards bad but she's not good either.
It's all fairly routine stuff. I'd describe Dalton as huffing and puffing through some end of Cold War guff, which rarely gets your blood pumping but is never so slow you want to turn it off either. I'll admit to not giving it my full attention so I'm not 100% sure what happened or why. But I know I didn't miss much. It's a pity that Dalton was wasted in this underfed stuff and more of a pity that he wasn't well directed. He could have done with being urged to be slightly more charming without tipping over into smirking chimp, because again, when he does drop a line, it's as though someone just whispered it to him.
It's all fairlly ungimmicky but I wouldn't say it rises to the level of fun. I'd go for a C again because there's nothing *wrong* with it. There's just nothing much right either.
A View to a Zimmer Frame
[spoilers follow]
At one stage, Tanya Roberts apologises to her grandpa's ashes when she knocks the vase. “Sorry Grandpa,” she says, and you have to double take to be sure she didn't mean Moore.
It's a common complaint about this film but it's fully justified. Moore creaks arthritically through a film that is the phrase "seemed like a good idea at the time" writ large. You can smell the talc and that's not what you want in a sexbomb spy.
You won't want Tanya Roberts either tbh. I hope the pay was good because it's not the kind of work she'll look back on with pride. She is absolutely the female sidekick par excellence. She spends the whole film shrieking and gasping and has close to no agency. And she's supposed to be a world-renowned geologist. Look, we do get it. This is a sexist paradise, where women are eye candy and very little more. But it doesn't take much to provide them with some internal power and agency, as the great Eva Green or Judi Dench show.
So Moore's too old and Roberts just a skirt he drags around. How about the actual film? Does it hold up? Well, no. The plot was written on a napkin and it doesn't even have any good setpieces. The action is lazy, mostly because Moore isn't up to it and the demands that he win stretch credibility. For instance, at the end Bond and Zorin fight it out atop a pipe for some reason. But we all know Chris Walken would kick Moore's ass.
Talking of Walken, he's well rubbish and it's not his fault. The character is awesome, all sneering and arch. But he gets no love from the writers. And he's the apogee of the "why didn't he just shoot him?" Bond villain. Such a waste. Also wasted is Grace Jones, who looks cool but my god how good that character *could* have been.
Moore's strength in Bond was always his ready wit. But here it comes over as creepy. When he comes onto women, it's a bit like the funny uncle at the wedding and it makes no sense that the women don't cringe in disgust and embarrassment. He also spends the whole film in a jacket my own grandad would have worn if he wanted to look "cool".
And I'm not kidding about cringing women. Roberts looks like she had to be paid to get close to Bond and Fiona Fullerton (utterly wasted and looking so good she could star in a Robert Palmer video) actually seems to flinch at one point. Look, as I age, I appreciate that young women can (and should) be interested in older men. I encourage it. But they have to actually be feeling it, right?
Okay, so let me just say to finish up, Roger Moore was Bond when I was a kid. I loved a lot of his work (I didn't have any idea what sexism was and, you know, I'm white and shit, so funny foreigners and stuff were hilarious and different then). But even then I knew something was *off* about this film. What I realise now when I watch it again is that something is *everything*. It's pure balls. D/E. D for drag it out and E for execute it. Top end for Walken/Jones. Bottom end for Roberts. Special Hello milady for Fullerton, still among the very hottest Bond girls and as I said too good for this rubbish.
"Never Again"
[spoilers follow]
It's interesting to contrast Old Sean with Old Roger (and it's a bit odd to realise that Moore was actually a few years older than Connery). Never Say Never Again actually came out in the same year as Octopussy but Connery had not been in a Bond film for more than a decade so he was definitely somewhat aged.
But no worse for it really. He's the same old Connery. And it helps that the film doesn't pretend he's younger, and that he stil blazes with animal sex appeal in a way Moore actually never did and certainly didn't by 1985.
This plays very much as a comedy thriller, which helps, because it allows Connery to be relaxed and quippy, and it gives space for Barbara Carrera to put in a smashing turn as villain Fatima Blush.
In fact, the film pretty much dies on its arse once Carrera is gone. Thunderball -- which it's a remake of -- is one of the more draggy Bond films, and you feel like you've aged yourself by the end of this one. It's more fighty than stunty though, so there's no Brosnan-level overload. Just Connery, winking, shagging and mugging his way through it all.
So the problem is that Connery has enormous fun in this film but the fun's just a tad lacking for us. And really, we're left now pretty glad the producers only had the rights to one book, so there were no more outings for this version of Bond. It's not disgraceful. It's kind of an homage to himself. Wink wink, C-level Bond, totally within the formula and no harm done.
Cocktopussy
[spoilers follow]
So I can't be alone in being disappointed that Maud Adams isn't a woman with eight vaginas?
Oh, I am? Well, it wouldn't have surprised me. After all, this is the film where Roger Moore dresses not just in a gorilla suit, but as a clown. It's enough to give you nightmares.
About Octopussy. I have no real idea what Adams was in the film for, apart from being Bond's shagpiece. She ought to be a villain, but isn't. And she doesn't do anything you'd really miss if she didn't bother. And why is she not Indian? No one is, except for a tennis player and some bad guys. And a couple of them just might have been Cockneys n blackface.
Seriously, is it that racist? Well yes. I don't expect 1980s James Bond to quite come up to the mark judged by our standards but this doesn't even try. The India it's largely set in is a fantasy: all fakirs, snake charmers and colour. The villain is played by someone who very obviously isn't Indian. And at one point Bond throws a grinning minion a wad and tells him that will keep him in curry for a while.
I don't know what's up with Bonds of this period, but the plot seemed fiercely obscure. Something to do with nuclear weapons in Europe and something something Faberge eggs. What that had to do with octopuses, I don't know.
Oh wait, Steven Berkoff. He was a baddie of some sort. Dunno. Couldn't figure out why he was full-on munching the scenery but he set new standards for crazed overacting. And let's face it, Bond is not short of pantomime insanity.
The action's quite good, just the right sort of gimmicky, and I have to say, that's what I remember Moore best for. Well, that and oneliners about shagging. And there's plenty of hamfisted "let's try that laters". The problem of age is improving (the good thing about a reverse marathon!) but it's still real. Moore is just a bit old for swinging from a train. And now I'm older,x I sort of realise why I had a lingering feeling that Moore was rapey. It's not that he forces himself on anyone in this film (he's quite respectful really). It's that he has no chemistry with Adams or anyone else. In three films, he's had no spark with any woman. He's handsome, smooth, debonair even. But he's not phwoarrr. He's got no sex.
Look, it wasn't terrible. It was just bumph in between action scenes. It didn't make much sense and it wasn't very exciting and it was racist as fuck. Oh wait, that makes it sound terrible, doesn't it? And Bond dresses as a clown and anyone who knows me knows I don't tolerate clowns. So, I was going to say C/D but actually, it's a D. I'd never watch it again. There's nothing in it that would make me want to, whereas most of the other films at least have a little something something.
Moon'saBalloonRaker
[spoilers follow]
As we've noted, Bond films often have an element of the pantomime, but at last we've come across a film that is a pantomime start to finish. The baddie is a preposterous queen, who plans to destroy all human life because of course he does. HIs sidekick is Jaws, whom we met in the previous episode (the next for me) and who is bizarre and indestructible.
Meanwhile, we have Aladdin, with his magic watch. Often in pantomimes, a woman will play the lead and pretend to be a man (gender confusion is a staple of the genre) but in the Bondamime, there is absolutely no confusion. Bond is a man. Women are not safe around him. Quite literally in the case of the Rio station woman whom Bond sexually assaults. This is our first incidence of outright assault, and I fear it won't be our last. I want to keep this light but I think it's appropriate to stop and say something.
I'm by no means a social justice warrior, although I do believe there should be justice, and one element of that is that I oppose the patriarchal system we live in. I believe strongly that women should have the right to physical integrity, and should expect to be asked for enthusiastic consent to intrusions on that integrity. The Bond films partly helped build that culture, that system, that I oppose. That does make them problematic. I suppose you can handwave that away but saying, yeah but I am *aware*, I *see* it. But of course that really doesn't change that these are not just documents of a culture but fuel to sustain it. And like many men of my age, I find I am encumbered with a whole suite of concepts and feelings that I have to try to subdue or rid myself of or mitigate, and enjoying these films was a part of the process of acquiring them.
And in fact, watching films like Moonraker today, the sexist framing does tend to poison the viewing experience. But I don't think it's much fun to continue to harp on it, so I won't.
What I will do is say that within Moonraker's narrative structure, going to space is not even weird. *Of course* Bond goes to space. Why wouldn't he? The whole thing is playing straight but is clearly a massive joke. Weirdly the action is a bit flat. There's a scrap on a cable car that works and a guy in a samurai costume that I can't begin to explain but the fight's kinda fun. The space stuff is dull. And so I'm sad to say is Jaws. Once you've ascertained you can't hurt the dude and that he's three times stronger than Bond, there's very little fun to have out of him. Contrast that with some of the hard villains that Connery comes up against.
So is this any good? Well, it's a sort of fun. Whether you rated it would depend on how much disbelief you're willing to suspend. And whether you buy Lois Chiles. For once, it's just about plausible that she likes Bond, and she seems up for a zipless fuck, so all's good there. And I guess she's borderline sparky so I think you could give the movie a pass on the girl side of things. The script is horseshit but Drax is fun -- awesomely deadpan and campy both at the same time. I'm going to say C. It's not close to the worst but it's so silly you can't really get into it. I'd really like not to have watched the last five minutes though. Q doing a shagging pun is not his finest moment.
The Spy Who I Loved
[spoilers follow]
From the amazing cold open to the cheesy joke that ends it, The Spy Who Loved Me is Moore's peak. Oo-er.
When I was a kid, my dad took me to the pictures to watch this and I fell in love with Bond (the film not the dude). Every Christmas they would show one of the Bonds on telly and that was the highlight of my festive season. When I sat and marked what I wanted to watch in the Radio Times, that was alway the first thing I marked.
So I guess I was a bit trepidatious when I came to this one. Would I hate it? Would I drown in cheese? The answer is no. I was reminded all over again why -- apart from a love of genre in general and spy stories in particular -- I love Bond. It's close to perfect. Yes, you can quibble, but come on. The plot is balls in the right way. The script is full of silly jokes that Moore delivers with aplomb. And finally there's a leading lady who actually seems to like him.
And omg Caroline Munro. In a bikini. That'll keep the British end up.
It's campy without tipping over into the high camp that sometimes plagues Bond, the villain is uber creepy and the henchman -- Jaws, this time much less of a clown -- perfect, unbeatable and hard. There's plenty of action, and it's all stunty, not gimmicky, until tlhe end, when lots of things explode. But that's how it should be. Good action films end with a bit of a crescendo (not too much or for too long or you exhaust the viewer). There's a hungry shark. There's a frickin underwater car and it's cool rather than stupid.
Okay, Barbara Bach can't act *at all* but she's nice to look at and the character has a bit of zing, so you can forgive that. Curt Jurgens is of course excellent. And Moore is Moore. This is the Moore Bond par excellence. Nothing ruffles him. Nothing even puts a hair on his head out of place. He's cool, he's hard and he's almost... almost sexy. And when he tries to sexually assault Bach, she knocks him out with a fake cigarette case.
I was never sure why Stromberg kidnapped submarines but who cares? It makes for a fun romp, Bond as it should be. You know, if they'd stopped at four for Bond and let Dalton develop Bond into the character he, and us aficonados, know he can be, well, who knows? As it is, this is peak Moore and peak Bond. A/B. Not quite perfect but not far off. Yeah, it wouldn't rate that well were it not a Bond film. But it is. Oh yes, it is.
Man with the Golden Bum
[spoilers follow]
For the first half an hour and a bit, The Man with the Golden Gun is a noir thriller, all dark shades and man against the world. Then kung fu happens and it becomes a huge fucken mess.
There's no other way to put it. You can't say whether it's a good film because while it's full of good bits, it's full of terribad shit too. What's good? The dark tone of the early bit of the film is excellent. Bond is hard and ugly and I like it (although the scene where he beats a woman to get her to talk is the wrong kind of ugly -- it's quite gratuitous and more proof, if it were needed, that the makers of the film simply hate women). Christopher Lee is an awesome, creepy villain -- the scene where he tells Bond how he got into murdering is genuinely chilling. Some of the action is fun, although it's low on thrills. But the downbeat feel is quite alluring.
However, that brings us to the bad. The jarring "humour". JW, the least funny comic character ever. The midget. The kung fu schoolgirls. The dismissal of Chinese people yet again as just bootfodder. A top villain who didn't do anything of any interest and seemed to exist only for Lee to kill.
And then there's Britt Ekland. Oh my fuck. She is bad. The worst of it is he seduces Maud Adams first when she's actually in his bed (hiding) and then when she's in a wardrobe. Then he tells her her time will come. She should fucken castrate him. But no, she throws herself at him. And Roger Moore just isn't that kind of guy, no matter how you look at it.
Then they kill Scaramanga in the weakest way, as though they couldn't be bothered with a decent end, and in fact, they kind of ruined this for Lee by letting him establish that he was a great character and then not having anything good for him to do.
All in all, it had its fun moments, but it just didn't get there. There's a decent film trying to get out but it just couldn't decide whether it would be that film or whether it would be comedy thriller. In the end it's nothing much. C/D I think and most of that is down to Lee.
Live and Let Fly
[spoilers follow]
So I reach the end of Roger Moore, or the beginning, depending on how you look at it, with some peobple's idea of his best film. Some also criticise it because it's Bond's "blaxploitation" movie, so we can ask whether either thing is true.
First, the black thing. Is it racist? Well, surprisingly, it's probably no worse than any other Moore film. Or any Bond film really. They're inherently racist, in ways that are not always fully obvious even to us today. In Live and Let Die, the blacks are the villains, which is not a bad thing, but they're charismatic and clever, while nearly all the white characters are at least a bit dim, ranging to off the charts dumb in the crackers' case.
But Rosie, Bond's first black shag, is a really poor character and is offed shortly after Bond himself threatens to kill her five minutes after banging her. And worse, Solitaire, Jane Seymour in absolutely stunning form, is white, captured and held against her will by the blacks. Worse, she "protects" her virginity against her black bf by saying she needs it to power her card-divining then gives it up for the first white cock on offer.
So yeah, that's not great. Otherwise, the black characters are not handled too badly. There's not too much jive, not too much "aw shucks lawdy, mister honky". Really, the black villain is urbane and smart. Except he has the worst case of "why don't you just shoot him?" ever. He seems intent on feeding Bond to animals.
The voodoo stuff is quite cool. It gives the whole piece a sort of spooky, lowslung vibe. The plot is just something something heroin something something we'll all be bbbbbbillionaires, but who cares about plot after TMWTGG, which was all over the place. Just having something coherent and tonally strong works for me. The script is quite good -- decent jokes, decent characters, it's like they tried hard to give Moore scope to work. After the calamity of the last new Bond, I suppose they had to pull out all the stops. The action is very low-key. We've really entered the days when Bond films were more thriller, less action, and possibly better for it. There's that famous boat chase and that has some good moments but that fucken sheriff... Okay, look, that shit was all the rage in the 1970s. Cracker sheriffs were 10 a penny, and some redneck going "booooooy" was to laugh at on its own. But it just grinds now. I didn't so much as snigger. IYKWIM aityd.
So Solitaire is a pisspoor character and I didn't get her at all. Or like her. And the whole no-sex slave thing is icky. And she goes from ice cool Tarot queen to, I don't know, girlfriend, and it kind of ruins the film.
So I'm going to say B/C. I'd probably say more C. It was okay, some spicy elements, some nicely suspenseful bits, some quite humourous bits that weren't out of place. Moore was at his best. But that Solitaire character is such a drag and it can be really hard to love a film that just couldn't play today. Although yeah, you could see Tarantino remake it.
Diamonds Are For Never
[spoilers follow]
Diamonds Are Forever is a weird sort of fish. It's like no one could really be bothered. They knew it would make money and bringing back Connery was like putting on a comfy pair of slippers. Add in a villain we know well and boom, 100 million quid, trebles all round.
So Connery does a Connery impression for two hours, there are some fights, some bunkum about diamonds, a guy strokes his pussy, fnaaar. All in all, not much fuss, Bond film delievered.
So it's okay if you like Bond. The girl is an ineffectual dolly bird, Bond is an ageing quip machine (although the quips are just slightly leaden). The action is perfunctory.
I don't really have anything much to say about it. I paid it relatively little mind while it was on. I think Connery had run his course but of course, he's Connery. He's watchable but the film just looks so dated and slightly dull. I'm going to say a C for just being formula Bond. But the series was ready for the change that no one would accept OHMSS was.
On Her Lazenby's Excellent Service
[spoilers follow]
There's a false note in Casino Royale, when Bond tells Vesper that he's sick of his life as a spy. The writers have forgotten that this is a reboot, and Bond has now only completed two missions. And has killed, I think, five people? Which is a lot for you and me, but for Bond, it's an afternoon's work.
In any case, by the end of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Bond has blithely killed hundreds in the films before and in this one. And we know this is not a reboot because of the slightly lame sequence where he finds mementoes in his drawer. And you might, were you inclined, wonder about all the wives he has left widows, the girlriends he has bereaved, and all done with just a quip to mark the passing of the men he's killed.
OHMSS is, it must be said, a weird book. Bond is quite clearly a sociopath yet here he is overwhelmed by emotion, not just at the very end, as he mourns Tracy, but as he falls in love with her. And weirder still, it is meaningless that she dies. Bond was already callous. He doesn't change for the experience. He doesn't become reflective. You're left wondering, why did Fleming kill Tracy?
Well, who knows what Fleming was trying to do, but he did it, and because at this point, the films tended to reflect the books quite closely, it's how the film is too. Which is bizarre, because it creates such a downbeat coda to a beautifully paced film, which builds up to a fine action film as it progresses.
The plot is the usual bollocks but it has an internal consistency and the characters are stronger than we've seen previously (or after, as it really was). There is no one in DAF for instance who is as menacing as Telly Savalas. And we had to wait for Eva Green for a Bond girl who was anything like as powerful as Diana Rigg's Tracy. The amazing thing is, all those women, all those bikinis, all that flesh and yet, the hottest women, the sexiest Bond girls are the smartest and most able. I wanted to marry Tracy as a kid and Vesper is my idea of perfection now.
And he much maligned George Lazenby is, it must be said, a lot better at the tamed ape than he is at the gorilla. Even so, it's a mystery why he was so hated by some. He's adequate in the action since he's at least a big man, and he's much stronger than you imagine Connery or Moore would be at the romance. He seems *real*. This is something Moore and Connery never aimed for. However, Lazenby doesn't hit the quips particularly well (and isn't tough enough for you to feel he ought not, like Dalton or Craig) and I suppose if you wanted to pick holes, the glaring Aussie accent doesn't work. I know Connery has an accent (which Bond certainly did not in the books) but he did Connery as Bond rather than Bond.
The action itself is superb. It's set up a mountain so there's a ski chase, driving on icy roads (including into a stock car derby), a bobsleigh chase, cable car hi jinks, everything really you can think of. There's one of those armed assaults they loved in early Bonds. It's never too much, never dull, and Tracy gets to drive in the best car chase. Twice.
It's beautifully shot, with a care that some later Bonds didn't bother to emulate, despite their glamorous locations. Everything looks delicious.
You've probably guessed by now that I really rate this film, and in fact, when I was a kid I loved it from the intriguing cold open, through the stirring theme, through the Hilary Bray stuff, which I found funny when I was a kid, to the amazing ratcheting tension and violence of the last reel. I even enjoyed the romance, partly because the device they used was to show Bond falling in love to the strains of All the time in the world. And you know what? It turns out I still love it. Okay, there's a couple of bits I wouldn't care for now (does Bond *have to* slap Tracy early in the film?) and a couple I didn't understand and now do (when Tracy tells her father she'll obey her husband just like she has her dad). The best plot, the best action, the best villain, the best Bond girl... okay, not the best Bond, but he's perfectly all right, and this is as good as Bond gets. A for awesome.
You Onry Rive Twice
[spoilers follow]
Apparently, by the time You Only Live Twice was made, Bond films were printing money. So YOLT has the first real special effects and luscious locations. But for us, of course, the films are getting *less* lavish. Sort of.
In fact, YOLT *is* quite lush, and more money has been spent than on OHMSS. Mostly on the villain's volcano lair. Now, I'm a sucker for a lair, don't know about you, so I love that. And I like the ninja attwack. Because who doesn't love ninjas?
If you don't love ninjas, well, how do I know you exactly?
So Bond goes to Japan, gets "married", makes some off colour remarks about his bride before he meets her, and you know, I've seen this film three or four times, and I still don't know why exactly Bond "marries" a Japanese woman. And I certainly don't know who he's supposed to fool with yellowface. I mean, James Bond is as white as white can be and doesn't speak much Japanese.
Still, Bond films don't have to make sense, although there are definitely some with stronger scripts than this one. Nothing seems particularly connected and the characters are weak. I'm sorry to say that the Japanese in particular are awful caricatures. And I nearly spewed when Tiger said, in Japan men come first. And Bond of course loved that.
The girl villain inexplicably varies between wanting to kill Bond and wanting to fuck him. And Blofeld, once he has Bond, refuses to just, you know, shoot him, and lets him escape. Again.
I once wrote a short story in which Fu Manchu has to allow the men sent to kill him to escape -- read it if you want to know why -- but Blofeld actually does want Bond dead. He could probably just have fed him to the piranhas -- the forerunners of Stromberg's shark.
The action's decent and for its time, LIttle Nelly is a lot of fun. Okay, probably it hasn't dated well but nothing has. It's not a patch on OHMSS, which had beautifully realised tone, whereas this just sneers all the way through. Basically, it's saying, we know this is bollocks but you still paid six shillings so here goes.
I really liked this back in the day, particularly because my dad had a single of the theme music and it is awesome. Nancy Sinatra is very much underrated -- who doesn't love her work with Lee Hazlewood? But that's the best of it. The racism, the laziness, the shitty characters -- it all drags it down. I think C is generous but Connery's Connery, I guess. I fell out of love with it though.
Thunderballs
[spoilers follow]
So I think you can understand the Bond ethos by looking at the character of Paula.
Paula is something something in the local station, and acts as Bond's assistant. She's played by the raging hot Martine Beswick, mostly in a bikini. She's the girl who drives the boat for Bond and is left marooned when he goes off with Domino. Then, in a passage I could scarcely credit really happened, Bond is with Paula and some dude. And he's like, this dude is whoever it is. And that's it. Paula's not even worth mentioning. And as they walk away, the guy he met (Leiter I think) says, who's the chick?
Then she's kidnapped and murdered. And Bond, on hearing that, immediately bangs another woman.
Thunderball is quite engaging despite that, but my god is it long. It would probably have felt a lot shorter if a/ it was written tighter or b/ it had a lot less undersea photography. Obviously, they spent money on an underwater camera and were determined to get full value.
So the plot is some bollocks about captured weapons, give us some money, and it's also all about Domino. She's the "girlfriend" (in fact, sex slave) of Largo, the villain. Played by Claudine Auger, she's unbelievably limp for the entire film, right up to some nifty work with a harpoon. Contrasting with her is Fiona Volpe, whose character is inexplicable so I'm not going to try. She's pointlessly killed about four hours in.
The action is just about all fighty. Early Bond isn't massive on anything else. The fights can be quite brutal in a 1960s way but Bond is just about always *coping*.
So I think this is barely a C. I've got to say, although Connery is watchable, I'm not loving him. His quips are often leaden (you can hear the dubbing and Connery does them in a really flat tone), he's boorishly sexist rather than wolfish -- at one point in this film he sexually assaults a woman (and the bigger concern here is that although she resists, she later sleeps with him, and you can draw the obvious conclusion from that). He does have the physicality that makes him a compelling action hero, but he can't act for shit. He just does Connery in every movie. If you're into it, you'll like it. That's true of Thunderball on the whole, I suppose.
Foldginger
[spoilers follow]
Goldfinger is often held up as *the* Bond film. It's where many of the tropes that later films deployed were originated. But before we start on that, let's talk about a couple of other things.
First, in the books, Bond is a sociopath. He kills without compunction and is rarely troubled with the least emotion. OHMSS strikes a queer note because Bond falls in love.
But Bond is no more, no less misogynist or racist than the world around him. And yes, the culture was the way it was, so he reflects that.
Film Bond is a bit different. He varies emotionally. But he's *way* more sexist than the world around him. He's a pig. And it's really unlikely women would respond to him the way they do. Whereas in the books, there's nothing really unnatural. He quips, he's charming, he philanders a bit.
Does Bond reflect the 1960s? Well, obviously, women were not to the fore. They weren't in reality or in the culture. They were often presented as appendages to the men.
But look. In Goldfinger, Bond rapes a lesbian and she likes it. What do you, what can you make of that? My view is that the producers hated women. There's a vein of woman-hating throughout the series and it's driven from the top. Because there are different writers and any one of them could have chosen a slightly different way to present Bond. They present other things differently. He becomes more stunty, more actiony, more aggro, more murdery (in one place in Thunderball, he tells Leiter that "of course I didn't" kill a bad guy. But throughout, he demonstrates hatred of women. Worse in the first few films, where we've noted sexual assaults and women drawn very poorly. Here, we have a "strong woman" and he just rapes her because he's stronger.
For me, this is like a shadow over Goldfinger, which revolutionised the series and opened the door to its longevity. But what else you got? There are some neat scenes: the laser orchidectomy is unforgettable of course, the fight in the barn great up to the point Bond rapes Pussy, and a whole lot of fiddling around and golf. I think it works because Goldfinger himself is such a great character. He's a lot of fun and when he's around, the film is fun.
It's largely what you'd consider standard Bond. But of course it was produced before there even was really a standard Bond. But I really feel its high reputation is slightly overblown. The oneliners are a bit clunky, the script a bit shopworn, the action a bit lacking to be honest .Connery is Connery and I think probably at his best in this film, although that one piece with the ubertight shorts will give me nightmares for some time to come. The settings are a bit ho hum and it was obviously filmed on set. Like many sixties films it's a bit underlit too.
I don't think I can go higher than C. It's fine. But it's not amazing.
From Bond with Love
[spoilers follow]
It so happens that From Russia With Love is my favourite of the Fleming books. It has a beautifully realised and evocative story -- although I'm not sure about the whole gypsy camp thing. The villain is menacing and hard, and there's a real feeling of tension.
And the film brings it all to life beautifully. It reminds you very strongly that the early films really did aim to be adaptations of the Fleming books -- more or less faithful -- and only later evolved into the bangfests they became.
I mean, this is not an action film, not even close. What action there is proves largely uncompelling. Except for the fight on the Orient Express, which before Casino Royale was the single best piece of action in all of Bond, and still holds up. Two men try to hurt each other. That's what it is. A brutal life or death struggle. Robert Shaw is excellent throughout, and he's just one of many fine characters. Tatiana Romanova -- sorry can't remember the actor's name -- is spot on: fragile, vulnerable, gullible. Okay, that sounds like most Bond girls but she is actually like that, rather than a nondescript woman, or worse, a strong woman, who becomes that for Bond. Also, I adored her when I was in short trousers so don't even.
In this film, the woman is no more, no less a pawn than Bond himself. In the scene where they meet, she is served up to him and he is served up to her. Of course, Bond realises that she is only banging him for her country and he doesn't care. He never cares. However, he's not a serial shagger in FRWM (nor was he, really, in the books, although he did bang nearly every woman he met -- he just didn't meet many).
I think realistically you have to compare this with other 1960s spy thrillers, such as The Ipcress File. And it does hold up quite well.There's none of the massive silliness of later films (even the gadgetty briefcase has plausible additions), and the plot is simple, no world domination, no everyone gets nuked, just a code machine and extortion. So I think a B is well deserved, and for once, Bond is just an everyday pig, not his own special kind.
Dr No Future
[spoilers follow]
If Dr No was made today and kept the same plot, roughly speaking, and the same script, perhaps updated, would it succeed?
Should it succeed?
It would obviously fail because it's a not all that strong thriller. The plot is garbage, the action is rudimentary, the characters are either pisspoor or underdeveloped (what is Sylvia Trench even there for?) and it's sooooo slow. It would be worse than that Tinker Tailor with Gary Oldman and that was horrible.
You also couldn't have Henry Cavill tell a Jamaican to "fetch my shoes" unless the Jamaican told him to go fetch them his fucken self or it was some sort of radical commentary.
So I'm saying it's not that good of a film by today's standards. Obviously, it's a cultural icon but it's everything else that makes that, not the film itself.
Having said all that though, I would welcome a new Bond that reworked the franchise as spy thriller rather than action film, and aimed for more of the languid style of the early Bonds. With less racism obviously. And can we finally can the sexist nonsense?
Because look these guys don't just wander up and charm women. They are the guys women want to avoid. If there's a party, they ask "Is Bond coming?" before agreeing to go. It's a male fantasy that you can get women by being a huge cunt so long as you have a broad chest and a cheeky smile.
Women are worth nothing in Bond films. There are three women, I'd say, who amount to "strong". Two die. The third is converted from homosexuality through the means of rape. I have no idea what conclusions we are supposed to draw from any of that. Why did Fleming kill Tracy? It doesn't even feature as a motivator for Bond and he was a sociopath before it happened. Why is Vesper killed? It serves nothing.
Well, lots of things in Bond don't serve anything. They've always lazy collections of stereotypes and stunts, poorly scripted, poorly plotted and ultimately mostly just barely entertaining. In reveiwing all of them, I have rarely even liked the film, let alone thought it was a good movie, and very few would stand up next to the movies I actually do rate.
The same goes for Dr No. It's just a run of the mill 1960s thriller. Connery's charisma made it a hit. And there was an appetite for this nonsense then. I mean, there still is. People queue around the block to watch Marvel films and they're bollocks on the whole. If you care, this is C level. It's okay. You'd watch it on a slow Saturday night. But you could live without Bond. And now I will.
