21 replies to this topic

[PrinceKamalKhan]

http://www.forbes.co...mes-bond-films/

 

I don't completely agree with his list but I found it nice to see my favorite Connery film(TB) and my favorite Moore film(MR) as the author's picks for the 2 most underrated 007 films for each of those actors.

[Pierceuhhh]

Love Thunderball and Moonraker, but judging from the article I'm not sure he and I have seen the same Moonraker! The other three selections are disgraces.

[Turn]

I'd consider it a great list and one I'd agree completely with if, only IF, it didn't include the one Bond film I rate the lowest -- TWINE.

 

Other than that snag this is a well-written piece with some intriguing observations. It's interesting to see OHMSS acknowledged as one of the best films on a non-fan site.

[sharpshooter]

I really agree with the opinion Moonraker, Quantum of Solace and Licence to Kill are underrated. All three are among my favourite Bond movies. However I don't rate TWINE, and I think Thunderball is better than Goldfinger. 

[agentbug]

Good list.

[sharpshooter]

Octopussy is another Bond movie which deserves more love, IMO. I find it as fun as Moonraker. 

[Guy Haines]

Did anyone see the Guardian film critic Peter Bradshaw's film by film rating of the Bonds on one broadsheet page of that newspaper? Some surprises in it - he didn't rate highly either of the Dalton movies but said that TMWTGG was his favourite Moore film - but only because of the inclusion of Christopher Lee in the cast. He also rated AVTAK - a film which in other forums tends to get a bit of a pasting.

But he dropped one clanger - he missed OP off the list completely! From FYEO to NSNA and nothing in between.

Was it a clanger, I wonder - or did OP make such a lasting impression that he genuinely couldn't bring it to mind? I'm going to have a look at the article online to see if any posts to it have pointed out this unaccountable error!

(UPDATE; clanger must have been pointed out - OP is now on the list, though posts underneath the article point out it was added, indicating it wasn't there three days ago! Ah well, so many Bond movies, so little time! ;-) )

[AMC Hornet]

Thunderball and Moonraker were not underrated in their day.

 

Those who underrate TB today because the story drags and the climax is boring need to have their memories wiped of all the action films they'd seen prior to getting around to this one. Over 50 years, expectations change. (In 1943 no one said "Casablanca is so full of hackneyed cliches I've heard before.")

 

The climax to MR may be logical within the context of the film, but once you get out into the daylight you can't help but go "wait a minute...", even if you are a Star Trek/Wars fanboy. Unlike TB, the technology in MR went right from far-fetched to obsolete without ever actually being topical.

 

My list for underrated 007 films would include DAF, TMWTGG and DAD. Go underdogs!

[David_M]

I think with the possible exception of TB, this is more accurately a list of "Bond films most people don't like," and why in fact they should like them. Which basically boils down to, "If you don't love EVERY Bond film, you're just not trying hard enough."

 

And that, at its essence, is the point of 95% of all the threads on this site.  We just all disagree about which ones don't get enough love, and how hard it is to generate any.

[AMC Hornet]

Wot he said.

[Professor Pi]

I see he's got one from each actor.  But is any Connery Bond film really underrated?  The first three were critical and box office smashes, the fourth a box office smash trouncing all future Bonds even when adjusted for inflation (minus Moonraker and Skyfall.)  YOLT and DAF always seem to get passes because Connery is in them, and they were box office successes.  NSNA might be a better choice for underrated, for while it has problems it's not the outlandish comic book stories YOLT and DAF are.

 

I'd go with Octopussy for the underrated Moore film.  I've always liked LTK but it got bad reviews and lousy box office.  QoS maintained box office for Craig, but it's definitely a flawed film.  Yet probably the most artsy (each action scene symbolizing the four elements, etc.)

 

OHMSS definitely qualifies.  While TWINE and DAD are kind of messes, the writers rehashed some of their ideas more successfully in future Bonds (Skyfall.)  While I haven't seen it yet, it seems SPECTRE has nods to underrated Bonds--OHMSS, LTK, LALD, TB and QoS. 

[Guy Haines]

Bond movies go back and forth from overrated to underrated and back again.

Consider OHMSS. Underrated unfairly because of the casting of the leading man and the controversy he attracted at the time. (And I have a DAF programme booklet which pretty much airbrushes out its predecessor.) Now regarded as a classic by many.

TLD - I remember the reviews, certainly here in the UK in 1987. They were glowing about the film in general and Dalton in particular. Now - unfairly in my view - the film routinely gets two stars out of five by the film critic of the Radio Times every time its listed for TV showing, with the comment that Dalton "phoned in his performance".

Views change. We now judge what went before against the standard set by the Craig era in particular - and always, amongst the older film critics and fans by the Connery era which started everything.

[AMC Hornet]

Indeed. Funny how everyone praised Brosnan in the nineties for being a perfect balance of Connery & Moore and not at all like Dalton, and now he's routinely slammed - by the same critics - for not being Craig (as Moore was for not being Connery), while Dalton is heralded as being Craig's Bond before his time.

 

Even Lazenby's estimation has improved, as he's no longer the only b-b-b-bounder to have dared try to pass himself off as the "one, true, original James Bond".

 

I don't think it will matter who EON casts next, or when - he'll turn in a stellar performance and still be found wanting by many, simply for not being he of DanielCraigisnotBond.com's initial vitriol.

[HoneyDiamond]

View to a Kill.  Still don't understand why so many people don't love it. 

[Grard Bond]

Eh... because I find it a very slow, boring, uninspired movie.

[Vauxhall]

View to a Kill. Still don't understand why so many people don't love it.

Still can't get over the age thing, plus how vapid Stacey Sutton is. It's the only Bond film where I find myself willing the villain on.

Never realised that Moore was older in A VIEW TO A KILL than Bernard Lee was as M in DOCTOR NO. That shouldn't happen really.

[AMC Hornet]

AVTAK was an inspired movie - it was inspired by Goldfinger, Superman, Indiana Jones...

[sharpshooter]

View to a Kill.  Still don't understand why so many people don't love it. 

I like AVTAK more than I used to, but I don't love it. I actually think it contains some very good set pieces, and has a good flow up until Bond arriving at Stacey Sutton's house. I find that, the City Hall sequences and the finale rather dull. But I guess with the positive elements the film has it's enough to call it underrated. 

[S K Y F A L L]

Looks like a list I or a Bond fan would make. To the average viewer it would look like this I would guess.

 

FRWL, GF, TSWLM, GE, CR.

[Surrie]

Glad to see TWINE in there. This is Brosnan's best after GE.

[archer1949]

Yeah......I can get behind most of this list. I do think that Octopussy should replace Moonraker in the Moore entry and that OHMSS should be in any and all "underrated Bond movie" list.

[dtuba]

OK list....But TB is "underrated"? Heck it was one of the top ten highest grossing films of all time before Star Wars! And, no I do not agree with TWINE...it is most certainly not full of "excellent action" ...pretty much the opposite in my opinion, and it lives at or near the bottom of my rankings.