28 replies to this topic

[bondfisher007]

It had potential to be a classic bond film. If they removed the ski scene and the final submarine scene and christmas jones then it could have been good. The scene should have ended with bond shooting elektra and then M giving him a life speech and renard should have been arrested instead of the submarine scene. What do you think?

[Simon]

Yeah - agreed.

Indeed they could also have removed most of the boat chase, the walkways scene, Zukovsky, Goldie and more tightly edited the rest.

And then, as a film, it would have made a great Bond short - or an advert.

[Eric Stromberg]

There's a lot to like in TWINE and it's ageing better than I expected, but just when the film does something clever it takes two steps backward. I do like the first half of the film and it's got one of my favorite Bond themes by Garbage.

[Miles Miservy]

It had potential to be a classic bond film. If they removed the ski scene and the final submarine scene and christmas jones then it could have been good. The scene should have ended with bond shooting elektra and then M giving him a life speech and renard should have been arrested instead of the submarine scene. What do you think?

No... no... no... The villain has to die in a violent, grotesque manner and the set has to be completely destroyed.

[tdalton]

I'm not sure that having Renard be arrested at the end of the story would work, although I do like the idea of avoiding the submarine setting for the finale. I don't think arresting Renard would work due to the physical abnormality that they gave him (the inability to feel pain), as I think that Renard would probably, if backed into a corner, force Bond to kill him rather than take him in. Any fight between Bond and Renard is going to find the brunt of the physical punishment directed at Bond as Renard can't feel any of the pain inflicted upon him by Bond. Renard also alludes to the idea that he welcomes death several times throughout the film, so why would he back down in such a situation?

A change that I would have made would have been to find a way to make Bond's shooting of Elektra a shocking moment. Maybe find a way to keep the audience in the dark to the fact that Bond knows she's the villain, or have him realize it himself moments before taking the shot, so that it comes as a truly shocking moment rather than one we see coming from several miles away. I also think that such a moment could have been a great ending for the film, or at least the climactic moment of the film, rather than having to go through all of the nonsense on the submarine.

[Trevelyan 006]

My Second Favorite Brosnan Film (First Being GoldenEye, Naturally ), Seeing As I Loved Carlyle's Renard Portrayal. Plus, Who Didn't Want Dr. Jones For Christamas ?

[dinovelvet]

It had potential to be a classic bond film. If they removed the ski scene and the final submarine scene and christmas jones then it could have been good. The scene should have ended with bond shooting elektra and then M giving him a life speech and renard should have been arrested instead of the submarine scene. What do you think?

Renard arrested? That would be the biggest anticlimax in the entire series. They've (attempted to) build up this guy as a formidable opponent who can't feel pain, so we'd better have Bond have a scrap with him by the end of it.

On paper, the action scenes were interesting and innovative - Bond being chased by buzzsaw-wielding helicopters, a ski pursuit involving parahawks, a fight in an upside down nuclear reactor, etc, but they were blandly executed with no style or panache whatsoever. Only the boat chase comes off as memorable.
I said this in a different thread, but Lee Tamahori should have directed TWINE. The 'drama' would have been no worse, but at least the action would have felt a bit more alive. Because we all know there's no point in living if...oh God.

[Harmsway]

I said this in a different thread, but Lee Tamahori should have directed TWINE.

Not a bad idea.

[Pussfeller]

What's wrong with Zukovsky? (Or is it Zhukovsky?) I always liked his character, though the caviar factory scene was very silly. I like to imagine that Valentin survived the events of TWINE and will reappear someday, when Eon has had its fill of grittiness.

[occhile007]

Funny, I just watched TWINE this past Saturday and I forgot how much I liked the Brosnan era. He had a good outing as Bond, but I would put Goldeneye in front of this one. I always thought of this one as what happens when you put GE and TND together??? You get TWINE. The drama was really good, the action scenes were good, of course the boat chase was classic..."stop, stop it isnt finished..." Besides, when have we ever seen MI6 blown up? We bid Q farewell and were introduced to R/Q2; Tanner was back and Robinson, the Scotland briefing had all the agents together like they did in Thunderball. This film deserves a lot of credit. Was it the best, heck no...could it have been better, maybe, but I dont see how IMO. The bond girls were hot as ever, we got cool gadgets that were not too over the top. I still say this is my 2nd favorite Brosnan film.

Funny, I just watched TWINE this past Saturday and I forgot how much I liked the Brosnan era. He had a good outing as Bond, but I would put Goldeneye in front of this one. I always thought of this one as what happens when you put GE and TND together??? You get TWINE. The drama was really good, the action scenes were good, of course the boat chase was classic..."stop, stop it isnt finished..." Besides, when have we ever seen MI6 blown up? We bid Q farewell and were introduced to R/Q2; Tanner was back and Robinson, the Scotland briefing had all the agents together like they did in Thunderball. This film deserves a lot of credit. Was it the best, heck no...could it have been better, maybe, but I dont see how IMO. The bond girls were hot as ever, we got cool gadgets that were not too over the top. I still say this is my 2nd favorite Brosnan film.

[Fiona Volpe lover]

TWINE get better each time I watch it. I really disliked it at the cinema, but it had grown on me a great deal. I certainly think it's Brosnan's best Bond movie now.

[Marquis]

I think TWINE would be a lot better if they took it out of print and burned all the negatives.

[David_M]

The scene should have ended with bond shooting elektra and then M giving him a life speech and renard should have been arrested instead of the submarine scene. What do you think?

But if you take out the submarine scene, you'll have to come up with another reason for Bond to shoot Elektra. Not that anything you come up with wouldn't be better than what we got. As it is, he shoots her because she yells "dive!" into the walkie-talkie. This of course is wholly unnecessary, as she's unarmed and he could just as easily have leapt forward and knocked it out of her hand, or back-handed her across the kisser. Either way, it's too late to do any good, anyway. I get that this scene is supposed to show how tough and business-like Bond can be, but ultimately it doesn't make him look very manly let alone heroic to shoot dead an unarmed woman just because she ticked him off. I *think* they were going for "I've got a job to do and love doesn't matter" but it comes off more as "this is for making a fool out of me the whole movie," which may make him feel better but it doesn't change the fact that he was a fool.

If they could have found a better justification for killing her -- and a more personal and difficult way to do it -- this could have been a powerful moment and yes a better way to end the film. Certainly better than playing Bugs Bunny versus Yosemite Sam with nuclear cooling rods.

[Miles Miservy]

It had potential to be a classic bond film. If they removed the ski scene and the final submarine scene and christmas jones then it could have been good. The scene should have ended with bond shooting elektra and then M giving him a life speech and renard should have been arrested instead of the submarine scene. What do you think?

What good is a Bond movie unless the lair is destroyed with devastating force and the villain dies in some grotesque manner?

[univex]

I said this in a different thread, but Lee Tamahori should have directed TWINE.

Not a bad idea.

Campbell should have directed TWINE, and DAD.

[Pussfeller]

Terry Gilliam should have directed DAD. That way it would have never made it to theaters.

[Dekard77]

There is no saving grace for TWINE, after having seeing it I lost any regard for the leading ladies and Carlyle. Brosnan comes across as hammy, the scenes are edited without any sense adventure and worst of all the action scenes look forced. DAD is a much better and more Bond spirited movie, at least you can skip the tsunami scene. In this flick it's painfully dull. During the pipeline sequence they kill off the control room staff in a SNL style sketch. I couldn't stop laughing the way all pretended to be dead. LOL. Maybe Arnold/Garbage, Bilbao jump and Cigar girl fared much better. Next to AVTAK this is the worst Bond.

M makes me laugh every time she barks orders at Bond, seriously the dude is the king of cool and you expect him to listen to a whiney boss ? Bernard Lee handled the scenes with a sense of dignity to his character rather than looking like a tool. Renard is like a starving child next to Brosnan. God only knows what sort of none sense Elektra was on about. I still can't understand what the hec 007 was doing with the money ?? Couldn't they have just killed of Sir R King? It's not like he was the president or Bond had anything to do with it?? There was nothing memorable about the sets.

People blame QOS but at least the film is watchable and has some sense of style which you can call a BOND movie.


I did order this movie on Blu since its on sale.

Terry Gilliam should have directed DAD. That way it would have never made it to theaters.

At least the film would've had some sense of style and memorable characters !
TG would be an excellent choice for a Bond movie.

[Pussfeller]

Earlier sarcasm notwithstanding, I agree that a Gilliam-directed Bond would be fantastic in every sense of the word.

[youonlylive2wice]

The pre-credit sequence alone makes this my favorite Brosnan Bond movie. The elements are all in place in this entry, the only thing that lets it down is the melodramatic waffle between Bond and Electra.

Edited by youonlylive2wice, 30 November 2011 - 12:35 PM.

[Pussfeller]

TWINE generates an amazing range of opinions. It's one of the two Brosnan films I can always pop in and watch, along with GoldenEye. Apart from Denise Richards I find it thoroughly watchable. Even the prominence of M doesn't bother me, though I hate how much she's used in the Craig era. I like most of the characters in TWINE, I like the character of Electra, I find the pacing even, the dialogue non-grating, Electra's plot is a nice mixture of mercenary criminality and melodramatic supervillainy. The plot only occasionally veers into utter nonsense, as when the helicopters attack the caviar factory for no reason. The photography is boring, the music is boring, but neither is horrible. The film is obviously nothing outstanding, but it has that elusive quality - watchability. Anyway, that's what I think. Some people really hate it. It's not just that they hate Denise Richards, which I entirely understand. They hate something that they find pervasive in the tone of the film, in the acting and direction and cinematography. I keep my eyes peeled for this ubiquitous suckiness, but I can't see it. All I see is mediocrity, a bit of thin Bond-flavored pablum somewhere on the bland end of palatability, ideal for viewing peripherally while doing something else.

[larrythefatcat]

Let's just get this straight right now... I'm not defending TWINE because I really don't have the time to undertake such a ridiculous task, but I have to point out two very important things:

1) Monica Bellucci's presence in any Bond film would not have made it better

2) Lee Tamahori shouldn't have directed ANY Bond film, but I'm glad it was DAD


...that is all...

[SecretAgentFan]

The scenes are edited without any sense adventure and worst of all the action scenes look forced.

Could you explain what you mean by "edited without any sense of adventure" or "all the action scenes look forced"?

DAD is a much better and more Bond spirited movie, at least you can skip the tsunami scene.

You could skip any scene of TWINE as well, if you are so inclined to do.

During the pipeline sequence they kill off the control room staff in a SNL style sketch.

Really? That Lorne Michaels-segment was not in any print I´ve seen.

M makes me laugh every time she barks orders at Bond, seriously the dude is the king of cool and you expect him to listen to a whiney boss ? Bernard Lee handled the scenes with a sense of dignity to his character rather than looking like a tool.

Be honest: Even Connery was reprimanded and bossed around by M like a schoolboy.

God only knows what sort of none sense Elektra was on about. I still can't understand what the hec 007 was doing with the money ?? Couldn't they have just killed of Sir R King? It's not like he was the president or Bond had anything to do with it??

Um, I think God is not the only one who understood that plot.

[PrinceKamalKhan]

A change that I would have made would have been to find a way to make Bond's shooting of Elektra a shocking moment. Maybe find a way to keep the audience in the dark to the fact that Bond knows she's the villain, or have him realize it himself moments before taking the shot, so that it comes as a truly shocking moment rather than one we see coming from several miles away. I also think that such a moment could have been a great ending for the film, or at least the climactic moment of the film, rather than having to go through all of the nonsense on the submarine.

Interesting idea. However, I think one of the main problems with TWINE is that Bond acts way too sentimental over Elektra considering he barely knows her. It took months of courting Tracy and her helping him escape from Irma But and her fellow SPECTRE thugs before he fell in love with her. Here, Bond falls for Elektra after seeing her cry on a computer screen once? I have a hard time picturing Connery's Bond putting up with Elektra's garbage the way Brosnan's Bond did.

Essentially, TWINE tries to be a combination of an OHMSS style Bond film and an AVTAK style Bond film. The result is an incompatible combination. My opinion was never particularly high of TWINE but it only decreased after CR gave us a far better example of how to make an OHMSS style Bond film for a modern audience.

[SecretAgentFan]

I think that Brosnan´s Bond does not fall in love with Elektra at all. He feels sympathy for her after failing to rescue her father and not realizing that he brings on his death. Also, Bond is hurt physically during that failed mission. So his pain is also a reminder of his failure. He is confronted by the consequences of this, therefore he feels an emotional connection. This is strengthened during the ski chase where Elektra is rescued by Bond but suffers from a claustrophobic attack due to her memory of her capture by Renard. Bond tries to right that wrong during the whole film, he tries to rescue Elektra and to make sure that this time he will not fail. When he has to realize she has played him, this, of course, is affecting him deeply.

Connery´s Bond was not depicted as being this emotional, of course. Neither is Moore´s Bond. Maybe Dalton went into this direction with Kara - he certainly put up with a lot of her stuff ;-)

I also must say that I did not see it coming when Bond shot Elektra. The audiences I saw the film with gasped every time during that scene. Maybe because one did not expect the cinematic Bond to shoot a woman looking her in her eyes. Especially a clearly traumatized woman.

[JB007YH]

Bond Villains dont get arrested- They die very interesting deaths or escape to haunt Bond in a later film. Imagine if bond slapped cuffs on Hugo Drax instead of shooting him and letting him fly out into space. Maybe Im wrong but as I write this the only two Bond villains I remember surviving are Jaws and Blofeld.

[PrinceKamalKhan]

Connery´s Bond was not depicted as being this emotional, of course. Neither is Moore´s Bond. Maybe Dalton went into this direction with Kara - he certainly put up with a lot of her stuff ;-)

I'd add to that list, Craig's Bond with Vesper and Lazenby's Bond with Tracy.

I also must say that I did not see it coming when Bond shot Elektra. The audiences I saw the film with gasped every time during that scene. Maybe because one did not expect the cinematic Bond to shoot a woman looking her in her eyes. Especially a clearly traumatized woman.

When you she said things like "You couldn't kill me, not a woman you loved." and "You can't shoot me James, not in cold blood." I kept thinking to myself of something I heard in a WB Looney Tune cartoon, "She don't know him very well now do she."

[Single-O-Seven]

I regret that they cut the line in M's office, where she references a villain in a hollowed-out volcano filled with big-breasted women, to which Bond replies, "It only takes once." For some reason, I found it amusing, though understandably unnecessary.

Now back to our scheduled programming...

[Dekard77]

The scenes are edited without any sense adventure and worst of all the action scenes look forced.

Could you explain what you mean by "edited without any sense of adventure" or "all the action scenes look forced"?

Sure, the ski scenes, they are poorly constructed and edited. I cringe every time Brosnan tries to protect Electra like she's the love of his life. The villains aren't suppose to kill Bond but at least put some effort.

DAD is a much better and more Bond spirited movie, at least you can skip the tsunami scene.

You could skip any scene of TWINE as well, if you are so inclined to do.

The I would end up watching 15mins of the movie . I guess you could've understood such a simple comment without having to anaylise it.

During the pipeline sequence they kill off the control room staff in a SNL style sketch.

Really? That Lorne Michaels-segment was not in any print I´ve seen.

Kindly watch how the computer operators fall to their deaths then at one point look up and down after being shot. This would be the bald one.

M makes me laugh every time she barks orders at Bond, seriously the dude is the king of cool and you expect him to listen to a whiney boss ? Bernard Lee handled the scenes with a sense of dignity to his character rather than looking like a tool.

Be honest: Even Connery was reprimanded and bossed around by M like a schoolboy.

As mentioned before Bernard Lee handle it with a sense of dignity. I think Moore was the one who clearly made fun of M. Connery simply looks confident. What ever the reason maybe SC and RM both knew how to handle scenes with M in a more interesting light.

God only knows what sort of none sense Elektra was on about. I still can't understand what the hec 007 was doing with the money ?? Couldn't they have just killed of Sir R King? It's not like he was the president or Bond had anything to do with it??

Um, I think God is not the only one who understood that plot.

Well certain things did not make sense to me, other wise it will not be mentioned. In case you didn't get it let me be clear, What the hell was Bond doing with money to buy reports of oil pipeline and later confuse it with Electra ransom when Electra in fact is released? Why is M trying to punish Bond when she is the one who failed to rescue Electra? I honestly can't understand . There is no chemistry between Bond and Electra, it looks like we have to buy the whole relationship for the sake of the plot twist. Even the killing of Electra had no shock value. Electra's speech when torturing Bond was ridiculous. Again we know Bond can't die but that doesn't mean they have to be painfully dull about it either. I actually felt bad when Miranda Frost got stabbed because she was fun to watch. The way a Bond girl should be.
Adrien Biddle was a good DP. Can't understand what went on with the look of the movie, felt like LTK interiors all over again. Glad that Lamont is out of the series.

[SecretAgentFan]

I see. You just did not like the film. Which is fine, of course.