5 Worst James Bond Films
Alright, with the release of the new Bond film, Skyfall, I
have hopped back into the bad reviews and ready to critic some of the films
from my favourite franchise. Bond, James Bond.
Now it’s been a few years since I have watch some of the most appalling
of the lot, so I bringing back some of the darker moments of my life. I was
going to pick the worst, but, in fact there is some appallingness from many
films that would be very wrong of me to miss. So, here are my worst 5 James
Bonds films, no particular order, they have their own reasons for being there.
For anyone not familiar with the history of Bond in film
check out Wiki
A View to a Kill – 1985
Preview:
This was the last of Roger Moore’s films before handing it over
to Timothy Dalton. After Sean Connery had retired the 007 status in 1971, Bond
writers had wanted someone who could keep up with the legend that was Connery.
They found it in Moore, a semi famous English actor at the time. He went on to
do several fantastic Bond films, including Live and Let Die, Man with the
Golden Gun and The Spy Who Loved Me. More humorous and light hearted than
Connery he was well received... .until this film.
Filmed in the US it pits James Bond up against a microchip
manufacturer hell bent on destroying the Silicon Valley. Now, the best part of
this film is that the villain is Max Zorin, played by a young looking
Christopher Walken and his velvet voice. Now, being 1985 we should be expecting
a film which is on par with Die Heard (1987) or Lethal Weapon (1988), but its
not. This feels like a 1960s film.
Firstly, Bond looks OLD. Really OLD. Moore was almost 60 at
the time and his face and hair look it. Moore runs around tired and exhausted
until his stunt double takes over. Most of his scenes he doesn’t DO anything.
Lots of staring, slight hair turning and raising eyebrows.
The next thing is that for a Bond to be good you need some
wicked action scenes. Think Craig Daniel’s Parkour running, Brosnan’s Soviet
Dam scene or Connery’s “No, I expect you to die!”. This has nothing. The best
is some weird horse riding scene where Zorin changes the show jumps heights to
get rid of Bond or where a fat US cop is chasing Bond in a firetruck or the
worst where Grace Jones as one of Zoran’s henchmen fly fishes one of Bond’s
informant in the face.... to Moore’s responce “There is a fly in his soup!”
BOOOOOOO!!!!!!
The last thing is Grace Jones. Now, for those who don’t know
her she was a singer in the 80’s from Studio 54. Tall, dark and well a hair
style that was well... cartoonish. While she maybe a singer, she clearly can’t
act. She stumbles through most of her lines and clearly looks out of place. The
one interesting thing about this was that at the time she was going out with
Dolph Lundgren another B Grade actor at the time. He ended up doing a small
part in the films, his first part ever.
Oh, and the clip was done by Duran Duran, which basically
sums up film.
Licence to Kill - 1989
Preview:
This 1989 film was the 2nd and last Bond for Timothy
Dalton. This was the film that put to rest the bond series for a 6 year siesta.
Now, I remember this as being a pretty pitiful film, but in hind sight it’s not
actually as bad as I remember. But, it does have some definite pitifullness
which keeps it on the list.
The films basic premise is that Bond is on a revenge mission
after his friend and CIA Felix Leiter is seriously injured and Leiters wife
murdered while on their honeymoon. The revenge mission is no sanction by M15
and acts as a rouge agent for the story.
Now to start. Dalton is a terrible Bond. Just putting it out
there. He sits on the bottom of many people’s list as the worst. He is just a
little weak and not much fun. The point about Bond is that you want to be him,
you want to be as cool as him. This man is a little well.... meh. All the other
Bonds have a fun streak and had a bit of a reputation as a cool actor before
doing Bond. Dalton was a Shakespeare and period drama actor. There is nothing
wrong with that, but the thing is you don’t want to grow up to be him. He wanders
through a bit out of place, like if Kenneth Branagh was in Die Hard.
The first thing I noticed about this film that I remember
from my original watching is that it is violent. Really violent. There is
nothing subtle about someone being decompressed and exploding or a henchmen
being cut up through a shredder (The henchmen is a young Benicio Del Toro,
playing is 2nd on screen role). I remember this as a kid, feeling
kinda awkward, this was not like the older Bonds. This is probably tame
compared to today’s movies, but even today’s Bonds don’t have this kind of gore
level. It’s not needed, I want to have fun, not be grossed out.
The other stark this is the weird one liners. In Bond movies
they are very commonplace puns, with a fun but subtle expectation that they
happen. In Licence to Kill, it feels like they forgot to write them in and the
re-filmed the puns months later and placed them in. One example is the someone
running a forklift into a wall. Dalton on the other side of the wall, says “Must
of run into a dead end” almost like an eternity later, like he woke up later that
night and thought of something cool to say. It wasn’t even a good line.
The last thing is that main bad guy doesn’t die well. He
just gets shot. How boring, not underwater drill to the face (Tomorrow never
dies) or golden pistol duel in mirrored mansion (Man with the Golden Gun).
YAWN!
Die Another Day - 2002
Preview:
Similar to Licence To Kill, this movie was so bad it sent
the Bond series into a hiatus. This time 4 years and a swap to Daniel Craig.
This was the last of the Peirce Bronson’s 4 movies, which peaked at Goldeneye
and had gone downhill since.
The premise to this film is stupid. Just stupid. Starts off
a some North Korean infiltration, then some weird torture scene, then Richard
Branson lookalike bad guy, diamond face guy... Halle Berry.... more stupid then
a satelittle whatever. I hate it. This is probably my most hated film, it’s
stupid and makes me angry. The thing that makes me so angry was that it was my
first film that I got to see when it first came out, I was finally old enough
to see an M-Rated Film and I left feeling dirty. Really dirty. Why?
Well firstly it doesn’t make any sense. The film was done as
a tribute to the previous 20 EON films’ taking much of the classic last 20
years, tributes include a laser satellite from Goldeneye, jet pack from You
Only Live Twice, C130 from The Living Daylights and the laser table from
Goldfinger. These were crudely cuts them and make a montage and mockery of
everything this I love. The lack of plot is the dispersed with really poor CGI,
crappy action shots and feral early 2000s dance music.
The casting in this is also terrible. Apart from M, there is
a serious lack of decent roles in this. The bad guy is (spoilers) is played by
two actors who changes his looks half way through. The second half is Gustav
Graves (Toby Stephens, son of Maggie Smith) a billionaire playboy with more
toys that well ... a toy store. He is a really poxy, kind of whiny pom who is
really kind of weak. Halle Berry as Jinx is also really awful. After Denise
Richards in The World is Not Enough they should have learnt to not have
Americans in it. There is a weird unsubtlety about both these actors. Most of
Berry’s lines are corny one liner and by the last “I have got the THRUST of it”
you want to give in.
This was also the first Bond movie to use CGI. This may let
you forgive it for looking bad because the technology was so new. But, this was
out AFTER the Matrix, but looks like an early B Grade film. The ski scenes look
really awful. In conjunction with the awful sets anything half decent to come
of the film is quickly forgotten. The invisible car chase scene, with it John
Woo fast forward scenes, is particularly terrible.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w6FV8P7HXg
The last thing. Madonna is in it. She sings and “acts”. That
is all.
Moonraker - 1979
Preview:
The first Bond in space. Now, I’ll admit that this is
terrible. Really terrible. But, I REALLY love this film. This is classic Bond,
but done so ridiculously that it is basically terrible. If this starred Mick
Myers rather than Roger Moore we would laugh through it.
This movie was an original Ian Fleming novel. The book
written in 1954 is intended to be a film even before the movies were started.
It was held off to be movie until 1979 basically due to the Star Wars films
being so popular. This film lasted as one of the highest grossing Bond films
for near 30 years, basically until Goldeneye came out.
The premise is that a philanthropist Hugo Drax starts a
space race, builds a space station and wants to rid the world of ‘normal’
humans and start a super human race, all completely unknown to the rest of the
world. Now, does this sound ridiculous? It only gets better.
Lets list a few, the girl in this film is called something hideously
misogynist... Holly Goodhead TICK. A gondola
that turns into a hovercraft TICK. Pigeons that do double takes TICK. Bond wrestling a snake TICK. Mass space fight
between US Marines Astronauts verses rebel Drax Astronauts TICK.
Finally... the ultimate henchman
JAWS.... TICK.
Lets start with Jaws. First seen in The Spy Who Loved Me. He
was meant to have died in that but changed because he was so popular. He is
probably the most famous of henchmen behind Odd Job (Goldfinger, he throws a
hat) and Nick Nack (Man with a Golden Gun). This giant man teeth have been
replaced by metal which means he can bite through anything. In the original he
was a monstrous unstoppable force. This is similar, but here is the ridiculous
bit. He falls in love with a pigtailed blonde call Dolly. This redeems him,
making him Bonds ally, helping him leave the space station. Pure brilliance.
One really good thing about this is Hugo Drax. His bad guy
is fantastic. Evil, scary and bearded. His pure race involves sexy woman and it
looks like he has banned bras. He has some great lines, “I will leave you in
your own private crematorium”. The ridiculous part is he does the pure bad guy
thing. Captures Bond, shows him his base, tells him his plans then, in his
wisdom leave Bond in a highly escapable situation without checking if his dead.
Never Say Never Again - 1983
Preview:
The last on my list is an odd one. Never Say Never Again is
not really considered a Bond film. Due to some legal wrangling, a man named
Kevin McClory held the rights to the Thunderball story. This was because he
helped Ian Fleming write the original story. After the original Thunderball
movie was written in 1965 he was contracted to not write another Thunderball
movie for ten years. But, in 1975 when the contract was up he wrote another
calling it Never Say Never Again. This is not sanctioned by EON productions, so
not really considered a Bond film, but because it has the Bond character, Sean Connery
is in it and it is awful, so I am considering it.
The reason it is awful is because of the above mentioned.
Firstly, because the book didn’t have certain rights, a few things are left out
of the movie, including Q (known in this movie as Alfy), the gun barrel scene,
the opening music scene, “shaken not stirred” and the traditional Bond theme. The other main bit is that Sean Connery was
used. Now this sounds offensive, buts it true.
Before this Sean Connery’s last Bond film was Diamonds Are
Forever in 1971, during which he was 41. Bordering on old for a secret agent.
In Never Say Never Again he was 53. Really pushing it. He had sworn never to do
a Bond film again, but was persuaded with a $3 million paycheck plus a slice of
the profits. In interviews he stated that he wanted to use the money to fund a
school program in Scotland. This was a huge amount of money for a role at the
time, but it paid off making a killing even though it was released in the same
year as Octopussy.
Now, the film. Well, its forgettably bland. Little happens
in it that doesn’t happen in Thunderball. It doesn’t really stand up well
against the original, just looks older. Connerry looks old and tired of it all,
his toupee or wig is dreadful. Rowan Atkinson’s cameo is pretty awful. The awkward
sex scene with Kim Bassanger at the end is really awkward. She also does some
weird swimming scene which is criminally wrong.
Notable Crappy –
While these are the worst, there are a two more, which
I would tell people not to bother with.
Die Another Day – Denise Richards as Christmas Jones is truly
bad
The Living Daylights – More Dalton
