278 replies to this topic

[Pussfeller]

It depends on which segment of the population you're talking about: the indifferent public, casual Bond-watchers, or hardcore fans? People who don't like James Bond tend to believe that Connery was vastly better than everyone else. Among casual fans, Dalton and Lazenby are neglected utterly, and Brosnan is slightly overrated due to the recency effect. (I also have an impression that there's a UK/US split on Brosnan, with Americans more favorable to him.) Among hardcore fans, there's such a variety of opinion that it's difficult to say, but generally we seem to underrate Moore and overrate Dalton and Craig.

As for which films are the most underrated of the various eras...

Connery: Diamonds Are Forever - Both casual viewers and Bond fans are put off by its cheesy aspects, and it suffers by comparison to OHMSS, but it has the tightest script of any Connery film, the performances are solid, the tone is light but not silly, the humor is mean but breezy, and the whole thing is completely unpretentious.

Moore: Moonraker - On a purely aesthetic level, it's the finest of the Moore films. The photography and score are superb. The plot is childishly simple and the dialogue is sparse, which makes the whole film feel very laconic and dreamlike. It's full of little weird moments and unexplained details. The supporting cast is great, the space stuff is well-done and not nearly as silly as everyone remembers.

Brosnan: The World Is Not Enough - This gets a bad rap and I never understand why. It suffers from the standard mid-nineties pretension, and obviously you have to eat around the turd that is Denise Richards, but on the whole it's very watchable, with an innovative villain dynamic and a solid script. Of all the Brosnan films, this is the one that I find myself watching the most. Compared to GE and TND, it's a lot meatier and its horizons are broader.

[SecretAgentFan]

Agreed!

[AMC Hornet]

It's curious how people who probably loved Brosnan in his day take one look at Craig and deny that Brosnan had ever appealed to them. The same thing happened with music in 1980: when it was announced that "Disco's in the Garbage!" legions of would-be Travoltas discarded their sequined dancin' pants and claimed that they'd always hated disco (not that 'New Wave' was significantly different at first).

As one poster pointed out earlier, it seems to be okay to like Connery and Moore, but not Brosnan and Craig.

Tough - I love 'em all.

That said, Overrated (IMCO) are Moonraker and For Your Eyes Only, while underrated are Diamonds are Forever, The Man With the Golden Gun and Die Another Day.

It astounds me that people can rag on DAD, yet in the same breath praise MR as a classic (except for those who call DAD Brosnan's MR). Both were colourful, noisy, had obvious villains with unlikely schemes, but at least DAD had a complicated plot, not just someone trying to kill Bond at every stop during his investigation. And an additional advantage to an invisible car is that animals don't do double-takes at it.

FYEO was heralded as Bond returning to his roots, in the best film of the series since From Russia With Love. Why? Well, it was certainly reminiscent of FRWL, what with Bond chasing after a secret coding device, aided by a charming rogue reminiscent of Kerim Bey. It was also compared favourably to OHMSS (the first time OHMSS was ever recalled fondly). Why? Well, there was all that skiing.... There's reminiscent, and then there's retreading.

Don't get me wrong, there is a lot I like about FYEO - specifically the acting out of Risico in its entirety - but I found the tone uneven (e.g.: old-fashioned espionage methods juxtaposed with high-tech surveillance equipment) and the 'climax' disappointing. Four old dudes duking it out in a monastery? Fine for the end of an episode of The Pursuaders, but not for Bond. Perhaps some tighter, more intense 'countdown' editing and music would have helped.

So DAF isn't the follow-up to OHMSS that new viewers ploughing their way through the UE DVD pack were expecting. Get over it - the tone of cinema changed between 1969 and 1971. If DAF had been a LTK- or QoS-styled revenge fest ("This Time It's Personal!") the series may have sputtered out before Moore ever took over (and yes, there are some who would have preferred that). If you want a gritty, early 70s revenge flick watch Newman's Law and be glad that George Peppard wasn't playing 007. Bond is escapism, and 007 escaped the 60s relatively unscathed.

TMWTGG maintained the tone of LALD - and of DAF (naturally, since they were all written and directed by the same combine) - and I'm good with that. Exotic locations, compelling villain, luscious eye-candy...so what if it's unclear whether the duel or the Solex is the main plot? Following up on what an earlier poster said about complacency on EON's part, it was only at this point that diminishing returns (and the breakup of the Broccoli/Saltzman partnership) spurred Cubby to pull out the stops and make the next film a 'big' event again. Unfortunately the emphasis on mindless spectacle carried over from TSWLM into the overrated MR...

And there I've come full circle, so I will stop.

[Miles Miservy]

The Most Overrated film HAS to be DIE ANOTHER DAY. It simply tries too hard. There is an anecdotal reference to the 19 preceding films just about every 7 to 10 minutes; some as subtle as stealing a grape from a patient's fruit basket - (think TB); and others as blatant as the storage room of props, lying around Q-Branch. It barely masquerades as a virtual remake of DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER, and, though I admit that it's something that has certainly been done before (YOLT/TSWLM... GF/AVTAK), there is NOTHING new or original in this film.
Cubby Broccoli had always said that he liked to put James Bond, not into a world of science-fiction, but of science-fact. Unfortunately every aspect of this movie is beyond ridiculous.

Lee Tamahori's editing; the usage of speeding up the film (during action sequences as well as non-action sequences) is just painful to endure. Sadly predictable and the usage of CGI was WAY beyond the scope for a franchise that prides itself on doing most gags for real.



The Most Underrated film of the series, I feel, is FOR YOUR EYES ONLY. It was right for the producers & director to back away from the "over-the-top" spectacle that the Bond movies were becoming with MOONRAKER. The 11th film was certainly entertaining but I think the megalomaniac, "I'm going to destroy the world!" angle was starting to plateau. The plot, derived from 2 of Fleming's short stories, FOR YOUR EYES ONLY & RISICO was really sharp. Though not as world-ending as say, YOLT or TSWLM, it was still just as deadly, with many cool, well written characters. Julian Glover was a very cool, very elegant but deadly villain. He reminded me of Scaramanga. The same can be said about Topol. Every time a view the film I think of Kerim Bey. In fact, Rene Mathis from CR reminds me of both of them.

I also liked that what drove the film was not so much Bond's mission to retrieve the ATAC (and the subsequent action sequences built around that), but Melina's blind hatred and thirst for revenge for her parents' murders. Even towards the end, when Bond tries to hold her back, he too realized that her will is stronger than his duty. If I were to find one flaw in this film at all, it would have to be the character Bibi Dahl and the waste of screen time she presents. I failed to see any point in her character or her interaction with OO7. Like parsely on a plate, I think she was only put there as a garnish, to look pretty.

Edited by Miles Miservy, 14 May 2012 - 09:42 PM.

[d21089]

I thought the interactions with Bibi Dahl were amusing because it played with the formula having Bond fending off the girl instead of chasing anything in a skirt as per usual. It was also a nice way of lightening the mood at various points through the movie without it affecting the storyline too much

[glidrose]

The Most Overrated film HAS to be DIE ANOTHER DAY. It simply tries too hard. There is an anecdotal reference to the 19 preceding films just about every 7 to 10 minutes; some as subtle as stealing a grape from a patient's fruit basket - (think TB); and others as blatant as the storage room of props, lying around Q-Branch. It barely masquerades as a virtual remake of DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER, and, though I admit that it's something that has certainly been done before (YOLT/TSWLM... GF/AVTAK), there is NOTHING new or original in this film.
Cubby Broccoli had always said that he liked to put James Bond, not into a world of science-fiction, but of science-fact. Unfortunately every aspect of this movie is beyond ridiculous.

Lee Tamahori's editing; the usage of speeding up the film (during action sequences as well as non-action sequences) is just painful to endure. Sadly predictable and the usage of CGI was WAY beyond the scope for a franchise that prides itself on doing most gags for real.

This tells me that you don't understand what "overrated" means. Nobody in their right mind can call DAD overrated since so many don't rate it at all. You might as well say that FRWL and CR are underrated.

[Miles Miservy]

The Most Overrated film HAS to be DIE ANOTHER DAY. It simply tries too hard. There is an anecdotal reference to the 19 preceding films just about every 7 to 10 minutes; some as subtle as stealing a grape from a patient's fruit basket - (think TB); and others as blatant as the storage room of props, lying around Q-Branch. It barely masquerades as a virtual remake of DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER, and, though I admit that it's something that has certainly been done before (YOLT/TSWLM... GF/AVTAK), there is NOTHING new or original in this film.
Cubby Broccoli had always said that he liked to put James Bond, not into a world of science-fiction, but of science-fact. Unfortunately every aspect of this movie is beyond ridiculous.

Lee Tamahori's editing; the usage of speeding up the film (during action sequences as well as non-action sequences) is just painful to endure. Sadly predictable and the usage of CGI was WAY beyond the scope for a franchise that prides itself on doing most gags for real.

This tells me that you don't understand what "overrated" means. Nobody in their right mind can call DAD overrated since so many don't rate it at all. You might as well say that FRWL and CR are underrated.

My definition of the word overrated is, "not worthy of the hype bestowed upon".

[SecretAgentFan]

In that case, do you really think DAD has too much hype bestowed upon it?

[AMC Hornet]

Cubby Broccoli had always said that he liked to put James Bond, not into a world of science-fiction, but of science-fact. Unfortunately every aspect of this movie is beyond ridiculous.

Did you read what I said about Moonraker?

Lee Tamahori's editing; the usage of speeding up the film (during action sequences as well as non-action sequences) is just painful to endure. Sadly predictable and the usage of CGI was WAY beyond the scope for a franchise that prides itself on doing most gags for real.

Lee Tamahori had a directorial/editing style of his own? How dare he! ALL Bond directors should be middle-of-the-road journeymen like John Glen. Am I right? (BTW, I agree with you about the dodgy CGI, but there's a lot more of it in DAD than most people are aware of, because for the most part it worked).

DAD was only hyped and overrated until it had made $432m. Then the underrating started...

[Pussfeller]

DAD was only hyped and overrated until it had made $432m. Then the underrating started...

When people criticize DAD, they aren't denying that it was profitable. (Although it's worth remembering that it was only 10% more profitable than TWINE, so hardly a huge spike on the graph.) Does that say anything about its inherent quality as a Bond film? Live and Let Die was more profitable than any Bond film other than Thunderball and Goldfinger. But it's not "underrating" LALD to say that it wasn't necessarily the third-best film of the series. Profitability says less about a film's quality than it says about the strength of the economy at the time of the film's release, the effectiveness of the marketing, and the strength of the competition.

[Miles Miservy]

Cubby Broccoli had always said that he liked to put James Bond, not into a world of science-fiction, but of science-fact. Unfortunately every aspect of this movie is beyond ridiculous.

Did you read what I said about Moonraker?

Lee Tamahori's editing; the usage of speeding up the film (during action sequences as well as non-action sequences) is just painful to endure. Sadly predictable and the usage of CGI was WAY beyond the scope for a franchise that prides itself on doing most gags for real.

Lee Tamahori had a directorial/editing style of his own? How dare he! ALL Bond directors should be middle-of-the-road journeymen like John Glen. Am I right? (BTW, I agree with you about the dodgy CGI, but there's a lot more of it in DAD than most people are aware of, because for the most part it worked).

DAD was only hyped and overrated until it had made $432m. Then the underrating started...

Just because you disagree with me does not mean that I am wrong (nor you, for that matter). I just thought the film was edited poorly. Tamahori should have stuck to directing 3-minute forgettable music videos.

Also, just because a film is profitable doesn't mean it's a good movie. For example James Cameron made over 9 figures for that blockbuster AVATAR and I thought it stunk. It was a tedious waste of my time; rife with an overabundance of special effects. Take away the weird blue people & all you have is a Vietnam-esque, "hearts & minds" conqueror movie. (...while we're on the subject of overrated films....)

[Conlazmoodalbrocra]

Most overrated: Thunderball
Most underrated: Goldeneye

[glidrose]

My definition of the word overrated is, "not worthy of the hype bestowed upon".

In that case, do you really think DAD has too much hype bestowed upon it?

Thanks SAF, you said it for me. What hype?

...we're waiting...

Just because you disagree with me does not mean that I am wrong (nor you, for that matter). I just thought the film was edited poorly. Tamahori should have stuck to directing 3-minute forgettable music videos.

Also, just because a film is profitable doesn't mean it's a good movie. For example James Cameron made over 9 figures for that blockbuster AVATAR and I thought it stunk. It was a tedious waste of my time; rife with an overabundance of special effects. Take away the weird blue people & all you have is a Vietnam-esque, "hearts & minds" conqueror movie. (...while we're on the subject of overrated films....)

Straw man arguments and red herrings. All of 'em.

[AMC Hornet]

Just because you disagree with me does not mean that I am wrong (nor you, for that matter). I just thought the film was edited poorly. Tamahori should have stuck to directing 3-minute forgettable music videos...
Also, just because a film is profitable doesn't mean it's a good movie.

Never said you were wrong, Miles mein freund - I just can't resist getting the short knives in, especially when it comes to defending my favorite underrated entries.

Still, $432m means that some people enjoyed the film - however much of that take came from repeat viewers like me. I should know - as much as I rag on AVTAK, I did pay to see it 5 times.

Just put me down as a proud defender, who's just as glad as most everyone else that Tamahori turned out to be a one-shot wonder, rather than a repeat offender.

Time for me to turn my wrath attention to someone else. Now, who was that who posted earlier disparaging Martin Campbell's directing?

[SecretAgentFan]

Um, Lee Tamahori did direct ONCE WERE WARRIORS - a fantastic film that I understand caught the attention of EON and deservedly so.

He also did THE EDGE which was quite good IMO. And MULHOLLAND FALLS which was only hampered by studio interference and reshoots.

So... be a little more respectful to this guy. And the directing of DAD itself was fine.

[AMC Hornet]

I only turned against Tamahori when he said in the 'Making of DAD' featurette: "CGI is the future of Bond movies."

He might as well have said "If I get my way, B#21 will look just like Charlie's Angels."

Would fan feedback have tempered his style, had he been kept on to do CR? We'll never know.

I agree, SAF, that Tamahori has directed many fine movies. I even include DAD in that count. On the other hand, so has Martin Campbell - especially two in particular...

Let's just be glad that Joel Schumacher was never offered the helm.

[SecretAgentFan]

Actually, he was right about CGI. No action movie can do without these days. In regard to Bond, Tamahori certainly meant the stunt scenes. CGI is already involved when safety measures are wiped away during post. And isn´t it true that in SKYFALL sometimes the whole background will be filled in - although the actors were filmed in another location?

[Dustin]

Well, in all fairness I suppose Tamahori overestimated the potential of CGI in this particular case here. His approach was to create entire scenes at the computer and just hope the viewers would swallow it whole. The intent was of course also a very laudable one, namely to keep the risks for crew, cast and stuntmen to a minimum. The mistake was to underestimate the necessary work and go for second - or third even - best. But the basic assumption that CGI would be the future, not just of Bond but nearly any film, was a sound one.

[Golden Claw]

Most overrated:
1) The Spy Who Loved Me.

2) From Russia with Love - I mean, is there anybody who has anything negative to say about this one? I've never seen any FRWL-bashing so far.

Most underrated:
1) The Man with the Golden Gun - "purists" are required to abhor it.

2) The World is not Enough - I'm a huge fan of this one, and proud of it!

3) Die Another Day - the first 1/3rd of this one is fantastic.

[Odd Jobbies]

Overated: Thunderball.
A great start, a half decent middle, a dire anti-climax of an ending. Fighting underwater is very un-cinematic; the natural slow-mo means that we see every blow coming several seconds before impact - would you slow-mo a 'dryside' fight at constant half-speed? No, it would make it a little tedious. What i find hilarious is that Never Say Never Again had a chance to put this right, but no, they did it again.... So dull.

And finale fistfight aboard the boat was pretty unrewarding and by-the-numbers.

Underrated: QoS.... There, i said it...!

[SecretAgentFan]

Overrated: Thunderball (considering its HUGE box office returns in contrast to OHMSS which would have deserved that much coin)

Underrated: so many of them, but today I´d say A View To A Kill.

[PPK_19]

Overrated: Like so many have said, Thunderball. Underwater=mind-numbing boredom. Terrible ending, sluggish middle...it all started so well...

Underrated: License to Kill. People just don't understand.

[Odd Jobbies]

Underrated: so many of them, but today I´d say A View To A Kill.

Definitely one of the best villains (a Boys From Brazil inspired Nazi clone, no less), played by IMO one of the best screen-actors of all time. It's genuinely disturbing as he laughs with delight while machine-gunning his own men.

What a shame Walken's Zorin was opposite jowly, very elderly Moore. No offence to Roger, he's aged very well, but even so, he'd probably agree that he was far too old to be playing Bond. I blame Cubby for bottling-it over Brolin on Octopussy.

Sadly, for me at least, this means AVTAK is not underrated in any way (i wouldn't even count it as a Bond movie at all if not for the great Duran theme. I mean, when Moore is teamed up with Macnee it turns into Cacoon 2: A View To A Pension...

Due to old age AVTAK comes in last place for me, even behind pretender Never Say Never Again; at least that film had the classic line, when Barbara Carrera water-skis into Connery:

"Oh, how reckless of me. I made you all wet."
"Yes, but my martini is still dry."

Great stuff...

[The Shark]

For me Moore's old age in AVTAK works to the film's favour. Makes the stakes against Bond even greater.

[tdalton]

For me Moore's old age in AVTAK works to the film's favour. Makes the stakes against Bond even greater.

I like that aspect of the film as well.


Regarding the most underrated films, I'd have to say it's a a close race between Licence to Kill, Quantum of Solace and in a somewhat distant third place, A View to a Kill.

Most overrated, at least for me, is definitely Goldfinger.

[Dustin]

For me Moore's old age in AVTAK works to the film's favour. Makes the stakes against Bond even greater.

I like that aspect of the film as well.

If only the film had used that element more. Jones and Walken give almost a Rock'n Roll couple of psychotic villains, only Bond isn't really confronted with May Day enough. There really should have been a fight Bond/May Day, that would have added to the suspense.

[tdalton]

For me Moore's old age in AVTAK works to the film's favour. Makes the stakes against Bond even greater.

I like that aspect of the film as well.

If only the film had used that element more. Jones and Walken give almost a Rock'n Roll couple of psychotic villains, only Bond isn't really confronted with May Day enough. There really should have been a fight Bond/May Day, that would have added to the suspense.

It's definitely an underused element in the film, which is a shame. I'd love to see EON give Craig a similar setup later on in his tenure, featuring the whole aging Bond concept as well as a formidable villainess like May Day to do battle with.

[PPK_19]

Most overrated, at least for me, is definitely Goldfinger.

Intriguing. Why? I ask because i'm almost in the same camp as you. As much as i think it's a good Bond film with many an iconic moment and a great villain, for some reason i just don't watch it as much as the other Connery films.

[glidrose]

Most overrated:
2) From Russia with Love - I mean, is there anybody who has anything negative to say about this one? I've never seen any FRWL-bashing so far.

Ayn Rand hated it. She writes in her book, "The Romantic Manifesto",

If you think that the producers of mass-media entertainment are motivated primarily by commercial greed, check your premises and observe that the producers of the James Bond movies seem to be intent on undercutting their own success.

Contrary to somebody's strenuously spread assertions, there was nothing "tongue-in-cheek" about the first of these movies, Dr. No. It was a brilliant example of Romantic screen art—in production, direction, writing, photography and, most particularly, in the performance of Sean Connery. His first introduction on the screen was a gem of dramatic technique, elegance, wit and understatement: when, in response to a question about his name, we saw his first closeup and he answered quietly: "Bond. James Bond"—the audience, on the night I saw it, burst into applause.

There wasn't much applause on the night when I saw his second movie, From Russia with Love. Here, Bond was introduced pecking with schoolboy kisses at the face of a vapid-looking girl in a bathing suit. The story was muddled and, at times, unintelligible. The skillfully constructed, dramatic suspense of Fleming's climax was replaced by conventional stuff, such as old-fashioned chases, involving nothing but crude physical danger.

I also seem to recall that John Brosnan's book "James Bond in the Cinema" claimed that during the 1960's, FRWL had no middle ground: people either thought it was the best or the worst (Connery?) Bond film.

Film historian Robin Wood also hated FRWL. His book "Hitchcock's Films" compared FRWL unfavorably to Hitchcock's North by Northwest.

Edited by glidrose, 06 June 2012 - 09:06 PM.

[AMC Hornet]

Definitely one of the best villains (a Boys From Brazil inspired Nazi clone, no less),

Zorin was a clone?

I missed that.

Too bad then that EON passed up the opportunity to bring Christopher Walken back as Zorin's 'brother' in a subsequent movie. It could have gone a long way in establishing that TLD was a continuation and not a subtle reboot, as some (myself included) have come to regard it as being.

Bond could have battled Zorin clones for years - sort of like Jason, Michael Myer or Freddie Kruger. He could even have teamed up with Blofeld (the one with white hair, that is), as I've read in a few places that he (or at least his double) was a clone too.

Funny how you can watch a movie a dozen or more times and still miss such a vital detail...