141 replies to this topic

[Qwerty]

To me, the general consensus on the CBn forums is that when it comes to Pierce Brosnan Bond films, The World Is Not Enough and Die Another Day are the two biggest offenders.

Which is the lesser James Bond film to you and why?

I'll be adding in my own thoughts soon.

[The Dove]

Good idea for a debate Qwerty.. Hmmm tough choice.. Both films have their weekenesses but I will give Die Another Day a slight edge over The World is Not Enough as being the worst Brosnan film.

The biggest irritation about DAD for me is the last third of the movie, where the dialogue just completely falls to pieces (some of the corniest lines came from when Jinx was about to be dissected by the laser), we have the horrendous CGI ending on the crashing plane and the iceberg surfing. By the time Jinx and Bond are fighting their separate battles with Frost and Graves, the movie had turned into an over exhausting fight sequence (i.e. any Steven Segal, Stallone or Schwarzenegger movie will suffice! lol). The gadgets such as the invisible Aston Martin were a bit too over the top (even for a Bond movie!!) but I did love the ice chase with Zao's jaguar. Other than that I did enjoy Die Another Day (hey its a Bond movie after all!! I'm also a Star Wars fan and like the prequels too, despite many people complain about them!)..Oh how can I also forget to mention Madonna's awful theme song for Die Another Day? Sure it works in the context of the movie, but its still at the bottom of my favorite Bond themes list.

As for The World is Not Enough, my main gripes were that I was really dissapointed that Renard's character was terribly underused (like Darth Maul in the Phantom Menace). Sure there was great acting from Sophie Marceau as Elektra King and Robert Carlyle, but I was really wanting his character to be much more developed and dominating. I was also let down by Denise Richards' Christmas Jones. For one thing I don't really much care for her as an actress (about as much as I like Tania Roberts in A View to a Kill, WORST BOND GIRL EVER!) Denise looked way too young to be matched up with Brosnan (he was what 46 and she's about 20 years younger, sort of like Roger and Lynn Holly Johnson in FYEO). Plus she look way too young for someone to have a PHD in Nuclear Physics, sure its possible but it just wasn't believable for me. My only other complaint is the ending on the submarine and Bond killing off Renard, just felt very anti-climatic to me. But despite these flaws, I did like The World is Not Enough a lot more than Die Another Day. Loved the whole pre-title sequence in TWINE and the funny bits with Q and R and Bond.

So my final grades for both films on a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being best):

TWINE: 7
DAD: 5

[The Richmond Spy]

I probably overrate Brosnan's films because they're the ones I was initially exposed to. But as time passes and I see the movies again and again, the more I dislike Die Another Day.

2 main reasons why it is worse than The World Is Not Enough, IMO:

1) DAD spends wayyyyyy too much time in Iceland. This probably wouldn't be so bad if it was somewhere else with diverse, but a boring snowy setting? Yawn.

2) The way Zao was killed was rather...err....it left a lot to be desired. Bond was out for this guy the whole movie in a personal "I'm going to get my revenge" sort of way and it ends with a car chase/invisibility trick. I can't believe I'm about to say this, but maybe they should've taken something from Licence To Kill here and made it a more personal Sanchez-like ending.

[K1Bond007]

Die Another Day by far. It starts off good and it has a good premise, but just about the time Bond gets his invisible car, it just goes to crap. Even worse when Bond and Jinx go to N. Korea.

It's plagued by horrible CG, something that shouldn't be used in excess with Bond. It's hurt by poor acting, piss-poor dialogue, and ____ scenes for the sake of ____ scenes (e.g., sex - Jinx meets Bond, what the was that about? I know Bond is ultra smooth, but "they call me Jinx" - "they call me James Bond" <sex ensues> WTF. That happened so fast.. did he pay her.. )

The World Is Not Enough is not my favorite Bond film, but I don't really have that many problems with it. It is one of the worse in my opinion, but I can't spend days criticising it like I can with Die Another Day. Die Another Day was made for MST3K. I'd love to see it on that

[Santa]

DAD, no question. Truly awful.

[freemo]

Well they're 19th and 20th for me, but as for which is worse, I'll simply compare the lines that are most representative of each film:

DAD: "yo mama" - Big, loud and stupid. Lazy and unimaginative.

TWINE: "This is a game I can't afford to play" - Grating, pretenious and meaningless, pretending to be something with substance.


TWINE is worse

[Tarl_Cabot]

DAD: The stupidest movie of the 00s. TWINE was flawed but not so bad...I can tolerate TWINE. I can't stomach DAD.

Fremo has a great point...

TWINE: He should have said: This is a game I don't have the balls to play.

[Lounge Lizard]

Stupidest movie of the 00s, Tarl? We're now half-way through the decade, and there's some serious competition: Battlefield Earth, Dungeons and Dragons, Scary Movie 1-4, Daredevil, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, The Butterfly Effect, Van Helsing, to name a few. And let's not forget bloated prestige projects like Pearl Harbor, Soderbergh's Solaris, Spielberg's The Terminal and the two Matrix sequels.

But to the question: this is difficult. In my opinion, both films suffer from the same problems: an unsure tone, repetitive action sequences and set-pieces, witless dialogue, too many underdeveloped characters, and phoned-in performances. I suppose the problems of DAD tend to stick out more, both in terms of screenplay and execution, because that film takes its fantastic elements much further (not to mention certain CGI bits that have been mentioned before). But the HongKong, Cuba and Londen scenes in that one were enjoyable at least, and that's something that cannot be said for the long, long run of TWINE. I really have to strain myself to think of even one 'fun' moment in TWINE. There's nothing distinctive about the action- it's all BMWs, great balls of fire and sub-machine guns. I suppose the film has lofty ambitions, though I can't really pinpoint what they are- something to do with 'feeling alive'. Watching TWINE, it is difficult enough to stay awake, let alone 'feel alive'. Because of its misguided desire to 'push the boundaries', TWINE takes itself way too seriously- which would be fine if it were only half plausible. The picture is drab, boring, and judging from the framing and colours, it was probably shot in someone's backyard. Underground Soviet bunkers and Black Sea caviar plants may be exotic, but it's not the sort of exotism that makes one want to go out and explore the mysteries of the globe. And all this drabness sits very uneasy with 007's jolly one-liners, which make the two previous (and superior) Brosnan Bond pictures seem like Oscar Wilde.

So I say TWINE- though come tomorrow, I might just as well feel biased towards DAD. Burn it! Burn them both!

[Vanish]

After posting my thoughts on DAD and TWINE the "most underrated Brosnan Bond Film" thread, I decided to watch the films back to back, having not seen them in quite some time.

Ultimately, my opinion completely flipflopped. DAD is the 2nd worst Bond film ever produced, in my opinion, which is a shame considering that it had so much potential during its first 3rd. Its negatives have been endlessly discussed, so I won't go there - Suffice to say, it deserves the scorn that it gets. Grade: D-

TWINE, on the other hand, is perhaps the most "different" film of the Brosnan era - There's a very subtle retro vibe here that's absent from his other films, as the film takes its time to weave its narrative very well before it flies off the rails completely towards the end.

All in all, I enjoyed the film a great deal more than I used to - Brosnan's performance is top notch, the locations are terrific, and Sophie Marceau registers as one of the very best villainesses in the series. I now give the TWINE a solid B, and I revoke my past hyperbolic statements regarding the film.


Basically, to answer the question: DAD is worse. By far.

[Mr Malcolm]

I actually like both, but TWINE, just because it isn't as much FUN as DAD. Not a terribly deep answer, but I prefer to just enjoy my Bond for what it is!

[Tarl_Cabot]

Stupidest movie of the 00s, Tarl? We're now half-way through the decade, and there's some serious competition: Battlefield Earth, Dungeons and Dragons, Scary Movie 1-4, Daredevil, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, The Butterfly Effect, Van Helsing, to name a few. And let's not forget bloated prestige projects like Pearl Harbor, Soderbergh's Solaris, Spielberg's The Terminal and the two Matrix sequels.

But to the question: this is difficult. In my opinion, both films suffer from the same problems: an unsure tone, repetitive action sequences and set-pieces, witless dialogue, too many underdeveloped characters, and phoned-in performances. I suppose the problems of DAD tend to stick out more, both in terms of screenplay and execution, because that film takes its fantastic elements much further (not to mention certain CGI bits that have been mentioned before). But the HongKong, Cuba and Londen scenes in that one were enjoyable at least, and that's something that cannot be said for the long, long run of TWINE. I really have to strain myself to think of even one 'fun' moment in TWINE. There's nothing distinctive about the action- it's all BMWs, great balls of fire and sub-machine guns. I suppose the film has lofty ambitions, though I can't really pinpoint what they are- something to do with 'feeling alive'. Watching TWINE, it is difficult enough to stay awake, let alone 'feel alive'. Because of its misguided desire to 'push the boundaries', TWINE takes itself way too seriously- which would be fine if it were only half plausible. The picture is drab, boring, and judging from the framing and colours, it was probably shot in someone's backyard. Underground Soviet bunkers and Black Sea caviar plants may be exotic, but it's not the sort of exotism that makes one want to go out and explore the mysteries of the globe. And all this drabness sits very uneasy with 007's jolly one-liners, which make the two previous (and superior) Brosnan Bond pictures seem like Oscar Wilde.

So I say TWINE- though come tomorrow, I might just as well feel biased towards DAD. Burn it! Burn them both!

Great post. I reserve the 'stupid' label not just for bad films but specifically for movies that have no respect for physics, economics, politics, history or physiology....etc or it's audience's IQ.

[killkenny kid]

For me, I would say DAD. What happened to this movie is, after Bond go to Iceland is unforgivable. Every thing about the last hour of this movie is sad. The story fell apart and the cgi was deplorable. But, I still love Halle.

[Loomis]

TWINE is much worse, because it seems to have all sorts of preposterous airs and graces about being A Quality Film, while totally failing in every department and being very, very dull indeed. By a considerable margin, it's the very worst of all the James Bond films (and the only one I personally dislike).

DAD is best thought of as a very clever, nay brilliant, pastiche of the modern Bond flick, SPINAL TAP-style, that's obviously crap yet at the same time actually quite superb. Now, I doubt that that was its makers' intention, but my advice would be to take the film that way, 'cause then it'll be, like, excellent.

[killkenny kid]

I see your point, Loomis. I guess you can say. "There's no point living, if you can't feel alive."

[Daddy Bond]

Hmmm? That's a tough one. You know, I really don't HATE either film, and both films have parts that I really like - and I always enjoyed Brosnan as Bond.

Both films start well IMO. TWINE is excellent up through the funeral, especially the PTS. DAD is quite good until Iceland (with some bumps along the way). In fact, some of DAD's early moments are some of my favorite, and (with a few exceptions, could have proven to be one of the best Bond's if it had stayed the course).

But both films seem to just fall apart and lose their way after that. TWINE just falls flat and DAD morphs into an overthetop pointless action flic (although I do indeed like the car chase across the ice - sans the invisible car stuff).

I guess I'll have to pick TWINE as my least favorite of the two because I fall asleep while watching it - though the end of DAD is irritating - to say the least.

Regards

[Harmsway]

TWINE is much worse, because it seems to have all sorts of preposterous airs and graces about being A Quality Film, while totally failing in every department and being very, very dull indeed. By a considerable margin, it's the very worst of all the James Bond films (and the only one I personally dislike).

DAD is best thought of as a very clever, nay brilliant, pastiche of the modern Bond flick, SPINAL TAP-style, that's obviously crap yet at the same time actually quite superb. Now, I doubt that that was its makers' intention, but my advice would be to take the film that way, 'cause then it'll be, like, excellent.

Quite well said. I take DIE ANOTHER DAY as a sort of 40th anniversary riff on the Bondian cliches - not so much a film in itself, but more of a 2 hour homage and send-up of the Bond series. It's not a good film if you're trying to take it as a *real* Bond film, but if you look at the right way, it's good fun.

[neversaynever]

I think DAD is the worse film. I have rewatched TWINE a couple of times, but don't think I'll watch it again. I have started rewatching DAD, but then when I got to the scene where Jinx is introduced I just had to stop - it is just too awful. That scene to me embodies the problems with DAD - awful dialogue, characters that it would be flattery to call one-dimensional, performances that make you cringe, and a story that just doesn't make sense - even for a Bond film!

DAD is the only Bond film that I have seen only once, and will never watch again.

[Emma]

TWINE for me.

First Sophie Marceau was awful and innapropriate as a femme fetal.
Second, it was boring as hell.
Third- The romance was awful. Brosnan and Marceau had no chemistry and the thought that he was supposed to have fallen under her spell was absurd. I really wanted him to kill her.
Denise Richards-I think this is self explanatory.

The only thing I like in TWINE was Pierce. I often watch the opening scene over and over again.

Edited by Emma, 07 June 2006 - 01:35 AM.

[DaveBond21]

I think the question should be which is best. Not which is worst. Which is worst IMO is a very negative way of looking at anything, and it is also the format for shows like Pop Idol and American Idol, getting rid of who is the worst singer each week.

Anyway, that is just my "the glass is half full" way of looking at life!!

Back to the topic -

DAD is worse as far as I am concerned. It starts off well and I love the PTS, Cuba scenes and the swordfight. Once we reach Iceland it is awful. If you turn on halfway through it looks like a Star Wars movie.

TWINE starts off well too, and the PTS is my favourite of all the Bond films, I just love the Thames boat chase - amazing!! I also love the scene in Bilbao.

Other than that, I like the Parahawk sequence, Zukovsky's return and the scene with Q and Q's assistant.

[ThunderhearT]

Die another Day,

the plot was good...i was just annoyed with the directing :-/

[FelixLeiterCIA]

Ummmm...Is this a serious "debate?" DAD is atrocious, whereas TWINE has some of the finest "Bond" moments since "The Living Daylights."

Brosnan's interrogation and dispatching of the Swiss banker and co-horts in the pre-title sequence is pure Fleming and perhaps Brosnan's finest moment as James Bond.

Brosnan's / Bond's killing of Elektra ("I never miss") is also pure Fleming.

TWINE is not perfect by any means (The ending on the sub is waaaaaaaaaay too long), but given its good points, and DAD's irredeemability, this is not even a question.

[Harmsway]

Ummmm...Is this a serious "debate?" DAD is atrocious, whereas TWINE has some of the finest "Bond" moments since "The Living Daylights."

I beg to differ.

Brosnan's interrogation and dispatching of the Swiss banker and co-horts in the pre-title sequence is pure Fleming and perhaps Brosnan's finest moment as James Bond.

Nah. The pre-title sequence is fine, to be sure, and the best part of the film, but Brosnan trying to be intimidating is somewhat laughable because he's really trying so hard and not quite succeeding.

Brosnan's / Bond's killing of Elektra ("I never miss") is also pure Fleming.

Hardly. I don't think Fleming's Bond would get so shaken up by killing Elektra after knowing she played him for a fool the whole way through, or bother to caress her body afterwards. There would be nothing but disgust there.

[FelixLeiterCIA]

"Hardly. I don't think Fleming's Bond would get so shaken up by killing Elektra after knowing she played him for a fool the whole way through, or bother to caress her body afterwards. There would be nothing but disgust there."

How can you say that (with all due respect)? In later Fleming novels (OHMSS)he still has a soft spot for VL, despite what she does (I am trying to avoid spoilers)...You misunderstand the duality of Bond -- the professional killer who does what he does for Queen and country and the man who hates killing.

Brosnan's reaction to killing Elektra is perfectly consistent with Fleming's Bond.

Edited by FelixLeiterCIA, 07 June 2006 - 03:06 AM.

[Judo chop]

This is an easy, easy answer for me. TWINE is NOT fun. DAD is fun in some parts. I give the sword-fight scene with Graves the honorable rank of 3rd best Bond fight in the series. I enjoy the moments of 007 tribute scattered throughout the film. The pre-titles are good-to-great.

TWINE has nothing to offer over a B-rate action flick but a plastic face hovering above some nice hooters, which we fail to see in all of their glory, even while viewed through a wetted, white t-shirt.

[Harmsway]

"Hardly. I don't think Fleming's Bond would get so shaken up by killing Elektra after knowing she played him for a fool the whole way through, or bother to caress her body afterwards. There would be nothing but disgust there."

How can you say that (with all due respect)? In later Fleming novels (OHMSS)he still has a soft spot for VL, despite what she does (I am trying to avoid spoilers)...You misunderstand the duality of Bond -- the professional killer who does what he does for Queen and country and the man who hates killing.

Brosnan's reaction to killing Elektra is perfectly consistent with Fleming's Bond.

Nah. Vesper Lynd was entirely different from Elektra. Firstly, with Vesper, he'd known her for a long time and had a deep and touching relationship - unlike with TWINE where he's only had his one-night stand and then that's it. Secondly, Vesper Lynd actually loved Bond and committed suicide out of guilt for what she did - her betrayal was nowhere on the level where Elektra just played him the whole time without any compunction about it.

It's *not* consistent with Fleming's Bond.

[JimmyBond]

I never bought Bond and Elektra's relationship. Oh I'm sure he cared for her, just about how he cared for each and every other Bond girl. There was nothing shown to imply that he fell for her.

As for the topic, I love DAD, yes it's cheesy in some parts, but it's fun. It also doesnt try to be anything other than what it is, a fun Bond film. So I guess that means I thin TWINE is the worse of the two.

[Simon]

I relented and relented, but this thread hasn't gone away yet, so here we are again.

If TWINE was edited into a music video for the song of the same name, then maybe, just maybe, it would sustain the interest over the four minutes. That it goes on intermineably for over two hours, casting its pretentious spell over every sleepy moment makes it, to my mind, the worse of the two.

DAD, despite its well documented flaws, did, like Moonraker, go down its route with gay abandon. At the very least, it should be congratulated for that. Whether it was to everyone's taste is down to the person, but I can applaud the consistency of route. Whereas, by comparison, TWINE's route took on the characteristics of David Blunkett's eyes, balls in a pinball machine.

[Santa]

I could live with the "gay abandon" of DAD were Roger Moore at the helm, but PB just doesn't have the style to carry it off.

[Skudor]

I actually find both movies bearable... but I guess DAD has that first half whereas TWINE was just bad - in particular the really really bad script and an awful 'henchman' in the form of oooooh-I'm-so-scary Robert Carlyle (who, by the way, was not scary at all in that movie). But I do find it hard to forgive DAD for how far out there it went... I'd leave it at a draw to be honest.

[Tarl_Cabot]

DAD is best thought of as a very clever, nay brilliant, pastiche of the modern Bond flick, SPINAL TAP-style, that's obviously crap yet at the same time actually quite superb.

LOL! That's quite funny...it would have great if DAD was a pure OTT comedy Bond like Moonraker on laughing gas...have 007 captured and held captive on an island of beautiful amazon terrorists(The return of Octopussy's daughter?) for a year and have his seed exhausted as his 'torture'. Just have a blast and forget about trying to be 'gritty'...I think DAD could have been fun if it was consistent in it's first or second half's tone throughout.