TODAY IS THE DAY. Can’t believe it’s been nine years since the last Bond.

— Daniel Benneworth-Gray (@gray) September 30, 2021

I put it at the bottom of the Bonds with Die Another Day. And at least Die Another Day knows it's bad.

CoppellAg93 said:

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jackie childs said:

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i've suggested it before, but i'd love to see them put "james bond" on the shelf for a bit and expand the Double-O section of MI-6. think of all the awesome films you could make without worrying whether someone "can be james bond".

wouldn't it be cool to develop different spy characters to be played by idris elba, dev patel, tom hardy, emily blunt, and whoever else?

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Well, they did something similar when bringing in Jeremy Renner for the one-off Bourne movie, and it seems to be treated as though it never existed.

Building a story with a new 00 agent would be good if they made sure the story went somewhere. I'd be interested in that for sure.

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Good point...because I've never heard of this and didn't know it happened.

TCTTS said:

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TODAY IS THE DAY. Can’t believe it’s been nine years since the last Bond.

— Daniel Benneworth-Gray (@gray) September 30, 2021

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Holy crap. Has it really?

Brian Earl Spilner said:

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Don't get me wrong, Spectre is not great, but bottom of the Bonds? With some of the absoute garbage in there?

Have you seen many Bond movies?

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I'm a massive bond fan. I have seen all multiple times and have soft spots for all of the older movies that you might refer to as 'garbage' when really, they were just movies of the times.

The rewatchability of Spectre just isn't there for me. I hate how they tried to lazily patch everything together from the first three movies and tie it to Spectre just because they finally got over the legal battle with McClory. They would have been better served to sit on it and start the Spectre story fresh with a new Bond IMO. Some of the action was entertaining. The Mr. White 'hurricane' line was great. But there was a massive gap in the expectation (the reintroduction of freaking Spectre) and the execution. And that's why it is near the bottom of my list.

Brian Earl Spilner said:

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Don't get me wrong, Spectre is not great, but bottom of the Bonds? With some of the absoute garbage in there?

Have you seen many Bond movies?

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IMHO, Spectre is much better than Quantum Of Solace.

1. Skyfall
2. Casino Royale




3. Spectre










4. Quantum Of Solace


Only looking at the Craig movies for this of course.

Prime0882 said:

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YouBet said:

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TCTTS said:

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TODAY IS THE DAY. Can’t believe it’s been nine years since the last Bond.

— Daniel Benneworth-Gray (@gray) September 30, 2021

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Holy crap. Has it really?

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Nine years ago was Skyfall.. think they're being tongue-in-cheek and ignoring Spectre.

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Ah. I have zero sense of time so you could have told me it was 20 years ago and I might believe it.

Fairly sure a lot of those were poorly received even at the time. (Moonraker?)

Yeah, 2015 honestly feels like a decade ago. Hell, 2019 feels like a lifetime ago.

I liked Spectre, is it the greatest movie ever, no, but it's good. I still think Casino is the best of the Craig movies. Skyfall is good, but don't have the hard on for it like a lot of people do. Quantum of Solace....I've seen it 2-3 times and I can't tell you anything about it except for Gemma Arterton is in it and there is a hotel or something in the desert that blows up. I'll cut it's some slack after learning in the Being James Bond documentary on AppleTV that they were making a lot of it up on the go due to the writers strike.

There are certainly some bad Bond movies out there. I mean, after being made for longer than many of us were even alive, you're bound to see some stinkers.

Die Another Day
Diamonds Are Forever
Quantum of Solace

These are currently the bad movies as I rank them.

Moonraker is close to being on this list, but it does have a couple of redeeming values: Holly Goodhead, second best female name in the series, and the dialogue that Bond says to Goodhead when they see Jaws in the cable car: His name's Jaws. He kills people.

I can possibly find a redeeming value in Quantum of Solace (Bond flying a C-47 like a freaking fighter, possibly) but the rest of that movie just dragged and did not seem to have much of a purpose.

Spectre could have been better, but it wasn't anywhere near as bad as some seem to suggest. It brought back Blofeld, and for that I give it props, as that has always been the best Bond villain going way back.

Having said that, it's one week plus a few hours until No Time To Die.

Quote:

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Skyfall is good, but don't have the hard on for it like a lot of people do.

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For me it's the following:

1. The cinematography (Roger Deakins ftw)
2. Great villain
3. The awesome theme song

All of those far surpass Casino Royale, imho.

But I do think the third act is a bit weaker than in Casino, so it averages out. They're about even for me.

At the very least I think we can all agree that ranking these things is incredibly subjective and that there are always some bond movies that, while not well received, resonate with some of us more than others (for me it's Man with a Golden Gun).

With that being said, I have my tickets for NTTD next Saturday and can't wait.

Octo*****, A View to a Kill? Moore was really aged and the stories were... All I have to say is Max Zorin and Grace Jones.

License to Kill was not only awful, poor Desmond Llewelyn was cringeworthy. You could literally see him read the cue cards. It was really sad.

Tomorrow the World is Another Die should be expunged for all time.

Just a heads up that Apple has lowered the price for the 24 movie James Bond collection in 4K to $99. Pretty decent deal for all of the movies in 4K.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie-collection/the-james-bond-collection/id1184575018

Also, Bond in Motion (large collection of the vehicles and memorabilia) just opened in LA. Went a few years ago in London and it was outstanding. Had a display of vehicles specifically for NTTD as well as all of the classics (yes, underwater Lotus too) that you can think of. (Side note, I plan most of our vacations based off of Bond locations. Luckily the wife is okay with this.)

I have never understood how License to Kill isn't universally agreed upon as the worst Bond movie. The production value of that movie is like a high school effort compared to most major movies. The bad guys (outside of Wayne Newton) have no charisma at all, the woman who plays his sidekick is awful, and the plot itself is weak by Bond Standards, the locations were almost entirely limited to one small part of the world, while they actually made up a country for parts of the plot, which is very much against Bond canon..

Ironically I think that The Living Daylights is the most under rated. Not the best by any stretch, but I thought it was pretty harshly judged.

And I may be in the minority but I liked Quantum of Solace.

The 3 Brosnan movies not named Goldeneye each have some redeeming qualities...

TND - The motorcyle chase in the China slums
TWINN - The boat chase, Denise Richards' bare midriff
DAD - May have to think on that one actually...

But Pierce Brosnan was a good Bond in them, at least.

I've posted my full list before, it's probably somewhere a few pages back. My bottom 5 is:

A View to a Kill
The World Is Not Enough
The Man With the Golden Gun
Octo*****
Die Another Day (Worst)

Living Daylights and License to Kill are both in my Top 10. I love both of them and wish we would have gotten more Dalton as Bond.

oragator said:

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I have never understood how License to Kill isn't universally agreed upon as the worst Bond movie. The production value of that movie is like a high school effort compared to most major movies. The bad guys (outside of Wayne Newton) have no charisma at all, the woman who plays his sidekick is awful, and the plot itself is weak by Bond Standards, the locations were almost entirely limited to one small part of the world, while they actually made up a country for parts of the plot, which is very much against Bond canon..

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'We gave her a nice honeyyyymoooooon'

I think the Bonds that have been the most reactive to genres like Star Wars (moonraker) and Scar Face (License to Kill) have been some of the ones that have missed the mark the most.

If James Bond hadn't taken down a helicopter with a pistol from 200 yards away in Spectre, I would have liked it way more. I think it's way more watchable than QoS

Hmm...It's been argued (and likely confirmed) that Casino Royale was a reaction to Bourne.

But other than that, I agree.

Some of it too is what you watch them for. I actually care about plot and love the locations, which I think make the franchise. And for all it's last 20 minute faults, Moonraker had all of that in spades, so I liked it. You have London, Rio, Venice, California, the Amazon etc. And then a decent plot to keep you interested. And a good bad guy. I don't watch for chase scenes as much.

The Spy Who Loved me was the high point of the series for me, it had the bad guy, the locations, the action, the over the top open, the over the top finish, and I always liked Roger Moore in the role. Then Moonraker went too far for many and they toned it down there after.

Brian Earl Spilner said:

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Hmm...It's been argued (and likely confirmed) that Casino Royale was a reaction to Bourne.

But other than that, I agree.

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Yea that would be the exception, although I think the other ones affected more of the plot of particular movies while the Bourne movies affected the style and vision of the franchise going forward. But I agree that Casino Royal (my favorite bond movie) as we know it probably doesn't happen if The Bourne franchise never existed.

Brian Earl Spilner said:

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The 3 Brosnan movies not named Goldeneye each have some redeeming qualities...

TND - The motorcyle chase in the China slums
TWINN - The boat chase, Denise Richards' bare midriff
DAD - May have to think on that one actually...

But Pierce Brosnan was a good Bond in them, at least.

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Nothing redeeming about Die Another Die. Agree that Brosnan was a good Bond, unfortunately he was in some of the worst movies in the lineup.

About the Skyfall song, that's another thing I haven't understood. It's good, but not that good.

But that's the good thing about Bond movies, there's enough of them that there is something for everyone.

oragator said:

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Some of it too is what you watch them for. I actually care about plot and love the locations, which I think make the franchise. And for all it's last 20 minute faults, Moonraker had all of that in spades, so I liked it. You have London, Rio, Venice, California, the Amazon etc. And then a decent plot to keep you interested. And a good bad guy. I don't watch for chase scenes as much.

The Soy Who Loved me was the high point of the series for me, it had the bad guy, the locations, the action, the over the top open, the over the top finish, and I always liked Roger Moore in the role. Then Moonraker went too far for many and they toned it down there after.

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I completely agree. Locations absolutely matter. It's so cool to go back and see things like what HK was like in 1973. These movies are like cultural time capsules in a way, and that definitely plays a factor in my rankings as well.