170 replies to this topic

[plankattack]

 

Yes he did have that one New Zealand film (can't recall/can't be bothered to look it up) that established his auteur credentials, but his resume since has been "hacky" at best. XXX, Nic Cage flicks etc

"Once Were Warriors".

 

Thanks mate! Never saw it myself but it was well received, if my memory serves me correctly.

[Guy Haines]

One redeeming quality for me of DAD - as a fan of the novel "Moonraker" as opposed to the movie, DAD provides the nearest we've seen on screen to the arrogant fake Englishman, Sir Hugo Drax. They even gave Gustav Graves a knighthood and a spectacular arrival at Buckingham Palace to receive it - curiously he chooses not to use it. But Graves is for me a younger version of the Drax of the books, with genetic modification replacing the botched plastic surgery of Drax's face (Which cropped up instead on Alec Trevelyan in GE - who also had Drax's motivation of revenge on England). And the sword fight is an action packed substitute for the bridge game in Moonraker, with Bond getting under Graves' skin - and even being held in The Blades Club.

 

Drax is a villain who was never quite done properly in the film series. (Much could be said about other book villains, Blofeld for example.) Michael Lonsdale's Drax is a fine villain, somewhat out of place given the nature of the film. But he could have played that type of villain under any other character name - I always thought Lonsdale would have made a good Blofeld opposite Moore's Bond, had the rights to SPECTRE been available then. The "revenge" motive was given to an embittered former "00" agent in GE, while Drax the showman became Gustav Graves in DAD - although, oddly, he claims he based his new identity on Bond, which to me didn't quite ring true.

 

Looking at it this way, we ended up with Hugo Drax, in one form or another, on screen three times. I just think it was a pity we didn't get the elements which made up this favourite book villain of mine in one screen character instead.

[Dustin]

Good that you mention it, Guy. The sword fight, for me definitely the best about DAD and even Brosnan's best fight, period. I like the whole idea of it, smashing the place, taking the fight way beyond the original room and the limits of athletic competition. I wish they had kept the idea for Craig.

In general I think that's what's missing a bit from the Craig era since the CR stairwell fight, a bit of the bizarre, surrealist quality. They aimed for that with the rope fight in QOS and the single malt shot had it, up to a point. But the solution comes too quickly and invariably with the sentence of a gun.

[Guy Haines]

The Drax comparison just seemed so obvious to me. In fact I have the book "The Art Of James Bond" which appeared just before CR's release, in which Toby Stephens says Sir Gustav Graves is "somewhat based", on Sir Hugo Drax.

 

As for the "bizarre" - maybe we'll get a bit of that in Spectre and/or Bond 25. I'd love to see a fight to the death between Craig's 007 and , er, a certain villain whom Christoph Waltz insists he isn't playing!

[Harmsway]

Good that you mention it, Guy. The sword fight, for me definitely the best about DAD and even Brosnan's best fight, period. I like the whole idea of it, smashing the place, taking the fight way beyond the original room and the limits of athletic competition. I wish they had kept the idea for Craig.

A Craig-era sword fight? That would really have been something.

I do like the sequence as-is, though. One thing you can say for Die Another Day is that it really strives to capture the colorful, surreal spectacle that has been part of the Bond ethos since Fleming. It isn't executed particularly well, but you can still nevertheless pick out ideas and moments that are genuinely Bondian.

[Dustin]

They certainly aimed for that quality, there's no denying that.

As for Craig, there is that fight Bond vs. Blofeld/ samurai sword vs. bamboo cane that could one day be used.

[Odd Jobbies]

The First  Act of DAD takes risks. Not all succeed, but they all entertain.

They certainly aimed for that quality, there's no denying that.

As for Craig, there is that fight Bond vs. Blofeld/ samurai sword vs. bamboo cane that could one day be used.

I'd be very surprised if part 2 of SPECTRE doesn't focus upon Japan nor involve that sword fight in some form.

Edited by Odd Jobbies, 22 March 2015 - 12:25 PM.

[sharpshooter]

A few more mentions:

 

I think the glass shattering ring is one of the better gadgets in the franchise. 

 

I liked the concept of the virtual reality sequences. We are treated to moments we wouldn't normally see, namely Moneypenny and Robinson killed in action. And it was nice to 'see' Bond in his office. 

 

The Bond/Moneypenny VR sequence serves as a nice farewell to Samantha Bond, too. 

[DaveBond21]

I also think it holds the record for the most number of times in a 007 movie that the word "Bond" is uttered.

 

I counted 33 times!

 

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

[David_M]

 

 

I liked the concept of the virtual reality sequences. We are treated to moments we wouldn't normally see, namely Moneypenny and Robinson killed in action.

I wasn't a fan of Samantha's Moneypenny, but I wouldn't say I enjoyed seeing her killed...

 

 

 

 

The Bond/Moneypenny VR sequence serves as a nice farewell to Samantha Bond, too. 

 

I hated that sequence and all the "VR" in the film, for the same reason I hated the "gene therapy": the writers were totally ignorant of the technology.  "Gene therapy" does not mean going into a spa as an Asian and coming out a couple weeks later as a caucasian, and "virtual reality" does not mean "put these glasses on and they'll generate a computer program based on whatever thought enters your head."

 

Along with the cartoon physics in most of the action scenes, these childish, if not flat out ignorant plot devices convinced me everything P&W knew about life, they learned from watching (bad) movies.

[plankattack]

I'm not a fan of the Moneypenny VR scene myself and yet........I'm not sure because as someone who is not a fan of DAD, the VR is an unfortunately worthy coda of the most of the preceding hour.

But I ask myself, if it had closed a film I'm more affectionate of, would I be less harsh on it? I do think that's the bigger question when analyzing DAD - taken as individual moments, the film has as many standout/redeeming qualities as any other late era Bond-film, but the issue for me is how they're thrown together into one 2hr highlight reel.

After iffy CGI ice-surfing, ice-gliding, ice-melting whatever, the Moneypenny VR sequence is almost a cruel joke - her special effects illusion so much more realistic than the special effects the audience have been bombarded with. Now, in 20 words or less,please define irony.....

[AMC Hornet]

Funny how many who dis DAD for its far-out technology still praise MR as 'science fact' just because Cubby B used the phrase.

 

When gene therapy, VR imagery and polymer camouflage have caught up with the way they're presented in DAD, will people start regarding is as 'visionary', or will it take the embracing of a new actor less intense than Craig to make people re-appreciate Brosnan's tenure?

[David_M]

Exactly. And when an army of wraiths from the netherworld attacks Manhattan, maybe people will finally stop laughing at "Ghostbusters" and see it for the wake up call it is.

[AMC Hornet]

Not sure whether your comment puts us on the same side, Dave...

[David_M]

It does if your tongue was in your cheek, too.

[glidrose]

When gene therapy, VR imagery and polymer camouflage have caught up with the way they're presented in DAD, will people start regarding is as 'visionary', or will it take the embracing of a new actor less intense than Craig to make people re-appreciate Brosnan's tenure?

Funny how many who dis DAD for its far-out technology still praise MR as 'science fact' just because Cubby B used the phrase.

Where do these people exist who praise MR as "science fact"? I've never run across them. I don't even think they exist. I gladly admit that MR is full of bad science but love it all the same.

Just because people criticize DAD's science-fiction elements, doesn't mean they're giving MR a free pass or insinuating that MR is "science fact".

The "science" of DAD doesn't bother me one whit.

How bloated and overloaded the film is, on the other hand, does.

[AMC Hornet]

It does if your tongue was in your cheek, too.

I suspect the potential for pigs to develop the power of independent flight may be a factor in the realization of both our predictions.

[Dustin]

The 'science fact' monicker was only really interesting at roughly around the time of MR's production. Today, most of the lore of the mid-seventies is a forgotten obscurity. But in its day it was actually NASA themselves who published visionary forecasts of mankind in space, all in some way connected to this first-of-its-kind reusable shuttle system and all the stuff they wanted to accomplish with it, space station with artificial gravity by rotation, moonbase, mission to Mars and whatnot. Most of these plans were directly printed on the backside of the annual NASA budget and already obsolete by the time of FYEO...

[David_M]

Even back in 1979 -- when I was just 14 -- I knew the "science fact" label was a load of shine-ola.  It was just an example of the kind of  lovable flim-flam/sideshow patter that marked Cubby as an old school producer/promoter.  Similar pronouncements in this mode included, "Roger is closer to Fleming's conception of Bond" and the always-reliable "this Bond girl is no bimbo; she's more of an equal to Bond."

 

Whether NASA says something might happen in ten years or Gene Roddenberry says it might happen in 300, it's still science FICTION if it doesn't exist, yet.  And in 1979, America didn't have a contingent of Space Marines armed with laser guns, or we'd have heard about it.  Heck, back then in the Carter administration we couldn't even keep our helicopters in the air!

 

The fascinating part of all this is trying to figure out where the audience draws the line, and how much you can get away with.  Why were people okay with a secret base in a hollowed-out volcano and a supertanker that swallows submarines, but not with a privately owned, secretly built space station in Earth orbit?  Why were they willing to accept a sports car crammed with machine guns, ejector seats and about a thousand gallons of water, but NOT another car that can turn invisible?  There is a line there, and the trick is to go right up to it without crossing.  DAD is singularly fascinating as the entry to fail at this balancing act more spectacularly, completely, and regularly, than any other.

[Dustin]

Even back in 1979 -- when I was just 14 -- I knew the "science fact" label was a load of shine-ola. It was just an example of the kind of lovable flim-flam/sideshow patter that marked Cubby as an old school producer/promoter. Similar pronouncements in this mode included, "Roger is closer to Fleming's conception of Bond" and the always-reliable "this Bond girl is no bimbo; she's more of an equal to Bond."

Whether NASA says something might happen in ten years or Gene Roddenberry says it might happen in 300, it's still science FICTION if it doesn't exist, yet. And in 1979, America didn't have a contingent of Space Marines armed with laser guns, or we'd have heard about it. Heck, back then in the Carter administration we couldn't even keep our helicopters in the air!

I think this hole science fact absurdity went even well beyond Bond. I remember Jesco von Puttkamer, prominent NASA scientist and technical advisor to Paramount for Star Trek: the Motion Picture, explaining in a number of publications at great length how the wormhole effect shown in that film was an actual phenomenon, as if astronauts had encountered this since the days of Yeager and Glenn.

The fascinating part of all this is trying to figure out where the audience draws the line, and how much you can get away with. Why were people okay with a secret base in a hollowed-out volcano and a supertanker that swallows submarines, but not with a privately owned, secretly built space station in Earth orbit? Why were they willing to accept a sports car crammed with machine guns, ejector seats and about a thousand gallons of water, but NOT another car that can turn invisible? There is a line there, and the trick is to go right up to it without crossing. DAD is singularly fascinating as the entry to fail at this balancing act more spectacularly, completely, and regularly, than any other.

Indeed, where do we draw that line? For obviously we do draw it, automatically and without giving it much thought. I've been thinking about his for some time now, always coming up clueless. In terms of the fantastical both YOLT and MR range on roughly the level of a Thunderbirds episode. The same could be said of DAD, only by that time Thunderbirds wasn't hot any more and perhaps the attempt to marry the more 'serious', action oriented tone of the first part simply didn't gel well with the latter.

The only theory I have about it is that it wasn't particularly well written, directed and timed, therefore the spectacle did not ensnare as planned.

[hilly]

I watched it last week, for the 1st time in years. It was better than I remembered.

Despite the flaws ( the CGI, Madonna, a waste of Michael Madsen,Toby Stephens being just a touch too young to be a credible villain, the invisible car, John Cleese, the over-long car chase on the ice and in the ice palace), it isn't without it's plus points:

 

The fencing scene

The title sequence ( best viewed with the sound down and minus Madonna's song)

Jinx was a bit more tolerable than I remembered ( and her emergence from the sea is still great)

Miranda Frost being revealed as a baddie

Bond and Mr Kil's punch-up amongst the lasers

The cuban sleeper agent

Zao's escape from the gene therapy clinic

[David_M]

I agree the fencing scene was nicely done (but I'm a Flynn/Fairbanks fan from way back, so I'm prejudiced).  Otherwise, not a fan of most of your list, but for me what worked was:

 

Final interrogation/"firing squad" sequence in N Korea

Bond in Cuba, heading out for action in a vintage car and with a vintage revolver (too bad they didn't make THAT movie)

"I don't need a wheelchair"  "Now you do."

 

...and that's about it.  Also, except for the "prisoner" scenes (which don't count) Brosnan's hair looks nice throughout. :-)  Actually, that raises another point: Bond checks into the Hong Kong hotel looking like the Wild Man from Borneo but quickly recaptures his full grandeur with a bespoke suit and shaves himself (with the wonderful, rechargeable Philips Philishave Sensotec HQ8894 shaver ^{TM) ,} but who cut his hair?  Did he cut his own?  If so, we've found another skill at which 007 excels.  On the downside, we missed a product placement opportunity with the fine makers of the Flowbee^TM)

[Skylla]

I liked all four of the Pierce Brosnan films. That's right, all four. (And don't forget, TWINE gets a fair share of flack too!) DAD is of course the most "fantastical" of the quartet, but I didn't find it quite as far fetched as some films which had preceded it. The technology allowing a vehicle to camouflage so as to seem invisible exists, as of course does gene therapy - all the film did was embellish them a bit. I didn't get the cringe feeling when the Aston Martin disappeared then re-appeared. Maybe because it was set against white snow and ice, with no incredulous and drunken tourists, let alone double taking animals watching the action.

 

Redeeming features -most have been listed above, although I wasn't quite as keen on the CGI as some. But I liked the Bond v Graves sword fight. And John Cleese's Q - if one was expecting a manic Basil Fawlty type in charge of Q branch or the hapless butt of Q's comments in TWINE, not at all. He's more like a sarcastic schoolmaster dealing with a rebellious pupil named Bond. And it was a nice touch at the end - Moneypenny finally gets her man, or rather, not.

 

Jinx has been mentioned but not Miranda Frost - beautiful, with a cut glass English accent, but in the end a treacherous. nasty piece of work. She and Graves reinforced all those Hollywood stereotypes about British accent equals villainy.

 

I think we tend to hone in on one or two flaws and they affect the way we view something. I'm guilty of it when it comes to, say, MR, although aside from the cringe-worthy visual humour the problem I have with that film is that I found it frankly unbelievable, even when suspending disbelief as one almost always does with Bond, that a space station could be built secretly and that a space battle could be fought out in a Bond film with hand held laser pistols. The frequently mentioned flaws of DAD involve CGI, but the main one - parasurfing - is over quickly.

 

This thread made me think of a line from GE - Brosnan's Bond to Robbie Coltrane's Zhukovsky - "The trick wasn't hitting your knee but missing the rest of you.". With DAD, the trick isn't missing the flaws but enjoying the rest of the film.

Not only that I like all four Brosnan films, I think every Bond film has it´s redeeming qualities. It´s Bond, and we are fans! If you start picking on the things they did wrong, you find bad things in almost every part of the franchise. And you take away the adventure, fun and pleasure of liking the most iconic (film and literature) character in the history. I will go so far and say: As a true Bond fan you should never be able to rank the present film lower than in the Top 25 films you liked best in the year it was made.....

[AMC Hornet]

I've never seen 25 films in a year.

 

For me, whatever Bond film comes out in it's year is automatically my top favorite (yes, even AVTAK). The best any other film can expect is #2 position.

[tdalton]

This whole "true Bond fan" stuff is nonsense.  Being a fan of something doesn't mean that you just rubber stamp everything EON does and say that it's great.  With regards to Die Another Day, there are a few redeeming qualities that the film has, but they are extremely fleeting and are overwhelmed by the rest of the film that contains some of the very worst moments in the entire franchise.  I could, rather easily I would think, come up with 25+ films from 2002 that I'd rank ahead of Die Another Day.

 

There are several Bond films that are just absymal films.  Die Another Day is one of them.  There are a handful of others that would qualify for that as well.

[AMC Hornet]

The same thing happens to every thread that's started for the purpose of praising a particular film's merits.

 

Even FRWL and Goldfinger have their detractors.

 

Can't we send all the vitriol over to the 'Everything that's wrong with ___________" threads? (Of course, we defenders are just as intrusive there.)

[SecretAgentFan]

Personally, I don´t think there has been a bad Bond film yet.  I only measure these films in what I prefer or what I do not care for so much.

 

But hey, I´m so mellow...

[David_M]

I always considered myself a "true Bond fan" (as witness the amount of time and money I've put into watching, reading about, writing about and talking about the books and films) but if I'm going to be honest with myself, all the films have their problems and a majority of them have elements cheesy enough, or poorly scripted enough, or badly acted enough, that I sometimes consider the series the world's most expensive "B" movies.  This probably explains my lingering fondness for the Moore era, where the emphasis is unapologetically on spectacle and entertainment, and my relative disinterest in the entries that pretend at psychological depth or artistic import (often while slipping in cartoon-grade stunts, anyway).

 

I agree there's something to like in even the least of the films, just as there's something to detract from even the best.  But that's the nature of anything made by mere mortals.

 

I can rarely decide on a Top 5 list for the Bonds, much less rank the lot of them in best-to-worst order.  But I will say that whenever I list my favorite five *movies* of all time, Bond is lucky to make the list at all.  

[Skylla]

This whole "true Bond fan" stuff is nonsense.  Being a fan of something doesn't mean that you just rubber stamp everything EON does and say that it's great.  With regards to Die Another Day, there are a few redeeming qualities that the film has, but they are extremely fleeting and are overwhelmed by the rest of the film that contains some of the very worst moments in the entire franchise.  I could, rather easily I would think, come up with 25+ films from 2002 that I'd rank ahead of Die Another Day.

 

There are several Bond films that are just absymal films.  Die Another Day is one of them.  There are a handful of others that would qualify for that as well.

I´m really interested now what these 25+ films are....and in the handful of other Bond films as abysmal as DAD as well.....

I've never seen 25 films in a year.

 

For me, whatever Bond film comes out in it's year is automatically my top favorite (yes, even AVTAK). The best any other film can expect is #2 position.

Is that you, Michael G. Wilson?

[glidrose]

I've never seen 25 films in a year.

 

For me, whatever Bond film comes out in it's year is automatically my top favorite (yes, even AVTAK). The best any other film can expect is #2 position.

 

Ah, but what about 1967 and 1983?