SPECTRE Review Thread

[StingingVelvet]

Brosnan repeatedly said in the press he wanted to do an R rated back to basics Bond movie. EON at the time didn't want to do that. Then Die Another Day gets a ton of complaints about it being silly and goofy and EON changed their minds. Of course they fired Pierce in the process.

Hollywood is a cruel mistress.

Still, Goldeneye is great and I personally think Tomorrow Never Dies is good. We got a couple good ones out of Pierce before the producers went nutty.

[Rich65]

If Die Another Day had not gone majorly off the rails after the first 45 minutes and kept the serious tone it would have been fine. I felt I was watching 2 different movies. I love the documentary where Pierce starts cracking up when asked about Bond riding the wave. It was pretty silly.

[Infernal King]

Pierce is my favorite Bond (he had everything), Tomorrow Never Dies is my favorite Bond film (it has everything) and Goldeneye is also among my favorites.

Licence to Kill? It has some good stuff and Dalton gives another solid performance but overall... I dunno, I'd need to see it again. It might be the straying too far from the Bond reservation but ultimately falling back on all the tropes anyway bit. It didn't fully commit to anything so ended up feeling like a wasted opportunity. At least it's more entertaining to watch than Quantum of Solace.

I remember feeling a real punch in the gut when I heard Pierce had been fired. The producers really treated him badly. I was even on board with a Quentin Tarantino/Pierce Brosnan Casino Royale, as crazy as that would be.

I heard that originally Die Another Day was written to be much less insane and instead of the Jinx character, they were going to bring back (my personal favorite Bond Girl) Michelle Yeoh instead. I wonder if the original draft(s) were any good?

Definitely agree with my friend StingingVelvet that at least we got two good Brosnan flicks before the producers went nutty.

I'm awaiting the return of the "fully embracing itself as a James Bond movie" days but I might have to keep waiting until Craig's tenure is up before they switch directions again.

[JimDiGriz]

Originally Posted by Rich65

If Die Another Day had not gone majorly off the rails after the first 45 minutes and kept the serious tone it would have been fine. I felt I was watching 2 different movies. I love the documentary where Pierce starts cracking up when asked about Bond riding the wave. It was pretty silly.

Actually youre right there. I seem to remember the first part of the film being quite good, the bad stuff appears later...

[BladeRunner2007]

Originally Posted by JimDiGriz

Actually youre right there. I seem to remember the first part of the film being quite good, the bad stuff appears later...

Yes. The opening is great, the title sequence and the song too. Even the following 20 minutes or so are pretty good. But the second half is so terrible. Such a shame.

[Iron-Fisted Punk]

Originally Posted by Infernal King

I heard that originally Die Another Day was written to be much less insane and instead of the Jinx character, they were going to bring back (my personal favorite Bond Girl) Michelle Yeoh instead. I wonder if the original draft(s) were any good?

Yeah, they really missed an opportunity by not bringing back Yeoh after TND, or even letting her have her own spinoff movie. That would have been pretty great...

Originally Posted by Infernal King

Licence to Kill? It has some good stuff and Dalton gives another solid performance but overall... I dunno, I'd need to see it again. It might be the straying too far from the Bond reservation but ultimately falling back on all the tropes anyway bit. It didn't fully commit to anything so ended up feeling like a wasted opportunity. At least it's more entertaining to watch than Quantum of Solace.

I love LTK. I like the Bond movies that take risks and give us something a little different. OHMSS, LTK, even QOS (YEAH I SAID IT!) rank high with me. Dalton's two movies make an excellent one-two punch.

[Infernal King]

Originally Posted by JimDiGriz

Actually youre right there. I seem to remember the first part of the film being quite good, the bad stuff appears later...

The problem was they didn't deliver on the setup. It could have been the first Bond film with an Asian playing the main villain (instead of coming up with the dumbest possible way of getting another evil white Brit for Bond to go after) and played up the angle of Bond's imprisonment, going rogue, etc. Once the Ice Palace enters the picture it's pretty much just a typical Bond movie only with bad CGI. They squandered the potential. Another big problem is that Die Another Day seems to have been shot almost entirely on either a soundstage or backlot. There are some brief tropical scenes in a location doubling for Cuba but besides that, there's none of the travelogue/exoticism you expect from a Bond movie.

Originally Posted by Iron-Fisted Punk

Yeah, they really missed an opportunity by not bringing back Yeoh after TND, or even letting her have her own spinoff movie. That would have been pretty great...



I love LTK. I like the Bond movies that take risks and give us something a little different. OHMSS, LTK, even QOS (YEAH I SAID IT!) rank high with me. Dalton's two movies make an excellent one-two punch.

Michelle Yeoh is one of the few actresses in a Bond film who both held her own and could have starred in a spinoff. I think the talk of there being a Jinx movie was based entirely around Halle Berry's star power (at the time) because nobody really seemed to like her character that much in Die Another Day.

I respect you appreciating Bond movies that take risks, even if we disagree on how successful they were in their execution.

[Kevin Holly]

Originally Posted by Richard--W

That wasn't Brosnan's fault.

Actors are the hired help. They don't write the scripts or make production decisions. Their job is to put across the story and the character. The Bond films are essentially producer's films. Creative control is in the producer's hands, even when they don't make a point of it. If the producers say you have to put on a clown face and baggy pants, then you point on a clown face and baggy pants. If the producers say you're going to be excoriated, humiliated and degraded then you're going to be excoriated, humiliated and degraded. If they're going to turn your character into a wus and give you a geriatric female lead, then you do your best with it. Brosnan was hired by Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson in 1994 when Barbara took over as controlling producer. She started to impose her agenda on the series with Goldeneye (1995). If anything, her agenda has become more prevalent with each successive film. Fans respond to the action and to the bells & whistles, but they don't look too closely at the underlying meaning of Bab's Bond films, which frankly is getting uglier and uglier.

Brosnan didn't get the best scripts, but he took James Bond seriously and invested the character with dignity and style. He played the scene. He was 41 when he filmed GoldenEye and 42 when it was released, but he looked and acted much younger. He threw himself into the role with enthusiasm and physical grace. He was enormously popular. Audiences enjoyed his Bond more than they liked the films. Bab's agenda undermines the films, but Brosnan managed to walk the tightrope. I think he deserves enormous credit. His three-picture deal completed, Brosnan agreed to do a fourth film that was the serious script he'd been promised, and then he opened the pages to find out it was Die Another Day (2003). He did the film with the understanding that the serious Bond film was next. Brosnan expressed his regret that he never got the straightforward scripts that he was promised, and that "I never felt as if I'd nailed it." His chance to nail it came with Casino Royale, owned by Columbia, when a distribution merger brought the property within range of EON. Brosnan suggested the project and had a clear idea of how he wanted the film to be. After promising him the film, the producers changed their minds, fired him, terminated the personal friendship, and hired Daniel Craig instead. Craig is also the first actor to be allowed creative input, as per SAG's negotiated gains in the recent basic agreement.

So you're agreeing with me?

[V2David]

Originally Posted by Richard--W

I think of Licence to Kill as the last authentic Bond film, flaws and all.

Authentic Bond film? License to Kill does not seem very much like a Bond film to me at all. If you want an "authentic" Bond film, Goldeneye is classic Bond as is Casino Royale which both came after. I am not arguing whether License to Kill is a good movie or not. Dalton was very good in it, and people tend to like the tone. But the problem is the movie is not a very "authentic" Bond film at all. It was like they had a generic Miami Vice episode and just decided to make James Bond the lead character instead of Sonny. Then someone did a FanEdit and replaced the Miami Vice score with James Bond music. Is Licence to Kill a good movie? Yes. Is it a good JAMES BOND movie? No..or at least it certainly should not be considered to be one of the top ones... If License to Kill is your favorite James Bond movie, then you simply are not an "authentic" fan of the James Bond series.

[Todd Tomorrow]

Originally Posted by Iron-Fisted Punk

Yeah, they really missed an opportunity by not bringing back Yeoh after TND, or even letting her have her own spinoff movie. That would have been pretty great...



I love LTK. I like the Bond movies that take risks and give us something a little different. OHMSS, LTK, even QOS (YEAH I SAID IT!) rank high with me. Dalton's two movies make an excellent one-two punch.

I love Michelle Yeoh and was excited when they cast her. Unfortunately they forgot to write her a character in TND. She is "action chick", but nothing more. Of all the main Bond girls she is the one who is the most of a blank. Even some of the really irritating ones like Tanya Roberts, Halle Berry or Britt Ekland got some sort of character to play.

[V2David]

Originally Posted by Iron-Fisted Punk

I love LTK. I like the Bond movies that take risks and give us something a little different. OHMSS, LTK, even QOS (YEAH I SAID IT!) rank high with me. Dalton's two movies make an excellent one-two punch.

That's fine if you like Dalton. He was a very good Bond. That is fine if you like the tone of Licence to Kill. But it simply is not an authentic James Bond experience. The other two you claim are. OHMSS the only thing it has against it is the Connery wasn't Bond. Some people have a hard time getting over that. But OHMSS is pure Bond magic and one of the greatest of the series. QoS has an edgy revenge take like LTK but it is a pure Bond movie. The only thing I can't stand is the shaky cam crap that makes some of the action scenes unwatchable. But it still is classic Bond. While LTK is a good movie, it simply is not classic Bond. It is not an authentic James Bond experience. Dalton's first take as Bond in The Living Daylights is Classic Bond and is a much better JAMES BOND movie.

[V2David]

Originally Posted by Infernal King

Pierce is my favorite Bond (he had everything), Tomorrow Never Dies is my favorite Bond film (it has everything) and Goldeneye is also among my favorites.

I think Goldeneye is the best Brosnan film and one of the best of the series. The problem with the rest of the Brosnan films is the scripts and heavy use of CGI in some of the action scenes. All of the films unfortunately tend to "blend" together and are unmemorable. I loved reading an interview during Die Another Day how Brosnan said they were going to make the films more realistic and edgy and then the film comes out and the second half of the movie turns into a generic CGI crapfest.

Brosnan was a very good Bond. He just didn't have very good material to work with. Casino Royale was an excellent reset and as such, Craig has now gotten quite a bit of praise for his rendition of Bond. Unfortunately the Brosnan years were wasted, but they seem to have gotten back on track. They just need to stay away from the shaky cam in QoS which make the action scenes almost unwatchable.

It is actually pretty amazing how badly they screwed up QoS considering what a big hit Casino Royale was.

[V2David]

Originally Posted by JimDiGriz

Actually youre right there. I seem to remember the first part of the film being quite good, the bad stuff appears later...

Yes it is amazing what happened with Die Another Day. The film started out with such promise. It seemed they had finally gotten it right. But then all hell breaks lose and the film goes from being realistic, classic Bond into a CGI crapfest. But not in a fun way such as Moonraker (which I know some people hate, but it is still a fun, campy movie). Die Another Day becomes pretty much silly and unwatchable. Not sure whoever supervised that script, but they had a great movie they pretty much destroyed and it was the ultimate downfall of Brosnan.

[Infernal King]

Originally Posted by V2David

I think Goldeneye is the best Brosnan film and one of the best of the series. The problem with the rest of the Brosnan films is the scripts and heavy use of CGI in some of the action scenes. All of the films unfortunately tend to "blend" together and are unmemorable. I loved reading an interview during Die Another Day how Brosnan said they were going to make the films more realistic and edgy and then the film comes out and the second half of the movie turns into a generic CGI crapfest.

Brosnan was a very good Bond. He just didn't have very good material to work with. Casino Royale was an excellent reset and as such, Craig has now gotten quite a bit of praise for his rendition of Bond. Unfortunately the Brosnan years were wasted, but they seem to have gotten back on track. They just need to stay away from the shaky cam in QoS which make the action scenes almost unwatchable.

It is actually pretty amazing how badly they screwed up QoS considering what a big hit Casino Royale was.

Originally Posted by V2David

That's fine if you like Dalton. He was a very good Bond. That is fine if you like the tone of Licence to Kill. But it simply is not an authentic James Bond experience. The other two you claim are. OHMSS the only thing it has against it is the Connery wasn't Bond. Some people have a hard time getting over that. But OHMSS is pure Bond magic and one of the greatest of the series. QoS has an edgy revenge take like LTK but it is a pure Bond movie. The only thing I can't stand is the shaky cam crap that makes some of the action scenes unwatchable. But it still is classic Bond. While LTK is a good movie, it simply is not classic Bond. It is not an authentic James Bond experience. Dalton's first take as Bond in The Living Daylights is Classic Bond and is a much better JAMES BOND movie.

Casino Royale is a really good, even great, spy action movie. But it is not a great Bond movie. I've talked about how it is "Bond Begins" and why they chose to strip away many elements that they gradually added throughout the movie until "The name's Bond... James Bond" became the final line. If we're disqualifying Licence to Kill, then Craig's movies will have to go as well.

And Quantum of Solace, in my opinion, is the least Bond-like of them all. Skyfall is the most Bond-like of the Craig films but is still pretty far away from "classic" (at least in the traditional sense, disregarding that term's usage as a 'seal of quality') Bond.

Also, there isn't any heavy use of CGI in Tomorrow Never Dies or The World Is Not Enough. Die Another Day is the culprit there. I disagree with you on the quality of TND but we all have our favorites/least favorites/in-betweens.

[SymbioticFunction]

These are the best Bond films for each actor (obviously only my opinion). Didn't list Lazenby for obvious reasons.

Sean Connery - From Russia With Love
Roger Moore - For Your Eyes Only
Timothy Dalton - Licence To Kill
Pierce Brosnan - Tomorrow Never Dies
Daniel Craig - Casino Royale

[Xenia]

I think Bond 24 has a chance of being a "THIS IS JAMES BOND" movie if they handle it right. Mendes and Craig were moving in the right direction with Skyfall.

As for Brosnan, I like him. GoldenEye is still one of my favorite Bond films. Absolutely love it. Tomorrow Never Dies is great also. It doesn't have any frills or fat - it knows what it's doing and it does it well. I think The World Is Not Enough is trash but I've gone on enough about that.

Die Another Day, for all of its flaws, has a nice energetic pacing to it. I think it's Brosnan's best performance (another reason why it's a shame he never got a 5th) and the first hour (up until after the sword fight, which I love) is really damn good.

People love to hate relentlessly on Die Another Day but I still enjoy it for what it is. It's got massive flaws but it's energetic and Brosnan is really quite good in it.

It's just a shame they didn't run with the first hour of that film's plot and keep Bond going after Zao or whatever. As soon as Bond meets Mr. Kil things start to slip.

1. GOLDENEYE
2. TOMORROW NEVER DIES
3. DIE ANOTHER DAY
4. THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH

Brosnan definitely wasn't the best Bond (at times he feels too much like an actor trying to PLAY Bond instead of BEING Bond). He was a bit too much of a greatest hits actor at times (trying for the ruthlessness of LTK Dalton + Connery's lethality and magnetism + Moore's humor) but all in all I'm a supporter and I think he gets FAR too much hate from die hard Bond fans. He was better than people give him credit for.

[Richard--W]

Originally Posted by Kevin Holly

So you're agreeing with me?

Not exactly. I agree that the films are bad, but Pierce Brosnan saves them. I agree that the character has been deconstructed, but not because of Pierce Brosnan. If anything, Brosnan saves James Bond from Barbara Broccoli's agenda in a way that Daniel Craig doesn't. Brosnan's Bond is still allowed to make out with girls, win a fight and save the day. Barbara Broccoli's agenda comes out of Judi Dench's mouth for the first time in Goldeneye. I really got tired of Judi Dench's schtick long before Casino Royale, but by the time we got to Casino Royale, she'd become unbearable, and in Casino Royale she is positively hideous. A shrill high-pitched male-bashing xenophobic Gorgon of a woman spouting Barbara Broccoli's hatred for men. Your description:

Originally Posted by Kevin Holly

...I suspect that his castrated, bawlderized, worthless Bond was more due to executive meddling than any fault of his own. ...

applies very well to Daniel Craig's Bond more than Brosnan's. Craig seems content to play a castrated, bawlderized, worthless Bond. A Bond who keeps losing his gun, who can't win any fights, who fails to save the women who look to him to defend their lives, and whose best efforts make no difference to the outcome. If that isn't a castrated, bawlderized and worthless man, what is? The agenda becomes fanatical in Casino Royale and the two films that followed it.

We should be having a discussion about the systematic deconstruction of James Bond as a character instead of all these other things.

[Infernal King]

Originally Posted by Xenia

Brosnan definitely wasn't the best Bond (at times he feels too much like an actor trying to PLAY Bond instead of BEING Bond). He was a bit too much of a greatest hits actor at times (trying for the ruthlessness of LTK Dalton + Connery's lethality and magnetism + Moore's humor) but all in all I'm a supporter and I think he gets FAR too much hate from die hard Bond fans. He was better than people give him credit for.

In my opinion, Brosnan comes across as the ultimate James Bond. I know even he would scoff at that compliment but for me, it's true. I don't see him as playing James Bond like I do Dalton (who never seemed entirely comfortable in the role, although that stiffness might have just been his interpretation) or Lazenby (some people like his neophyte qualities but at times he demonstrated how he just didn't have the chops for the role). The "greatest hits" aspect hits all the right notes and is what I love about how he plays the character. I know I mentioned this earlier but Brosnan's Bond combines all the qualities of the actors who came before in a way that I enjoy. In the same vein, I feel Tomorrow Never Dies has something to offer every Bond fan (but I guess some people don't see it that way which makes it underrated) and is a better "greatest hits" film (while still having its own identity and focusing on the issues of the day, i.e. the mass media becoming a force for evil) than Die Another Day or Skyfall.

[Richard--W]

Originally Posted by Xenia

I think Bond 24 has a chance of being a "THIS IS JAMES BOND" movie if they handle it right. Mendes and Craig were moving in the right direction with Skyfall. ...

In what way were Mendes and Craig moving in the right direction? Please explain.

True, Skyfall has less dialogue than Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace combined, and the silences are welcome. But James Bond keeps finding his gun useless. Once he throws it away. Later it gets taken away from him twice. He can't even hold onto his gun. Instead of dodging the first bullet, he steers the crane into it so that he gets shot. When he is wounded by friendly fire, he runs off to a beach and pouts like a baby. He has two chances to retrieve the computer chip listing MI.6 spies, and blows both chances. He can't win the fight on the train. He can't win the fight in the skyscraper. He can't win the fight in the Chinese casino. He promises to protect Severine, and then lets Silva kill her. He springs into action after she's been shot dead. Being captured is what Silva wants, so Bond facilitates that, bringing about the destruction and havoc on MI.6. Then he lets Silva escape in London. In trying to protect M, he unwittingly maneuvers her into position to be murdered. While she hides in the church expecting James Bond to defend her, he's busy not winning a fight in the lake. M faces her murderer alone because Bond isn't there to defend her.

If that's not bad enough, we are asked to cheer as the Aston Martin is shot to pieces to the tune of the James Bond Theme. The James Bond Theme has been withheld from the main action for three films, and when they finally use it, it's to glorify the destruction of an iconic symbol of the series. How fans can praise this scene as one of the great action scenes is beyond me.

Worse still, the opening title design pushes into Bond's bleeding wound until we are inside his guts. Then we are taken through a kaleidoscope of rot and decay, moving past headstones in a graveyard into a hall of mirrors where all Bond sees are reflections of himself as he shoots at vague shadows. In other words Bond is dead inside, the result of his own vanity and ego, a rotting decaying thing who has no relevance or legitimacy.

James Bond is portrayed as a total failure and a loser in Skyfall. Scene after scene is designed to show him as ineffectual. How is all this deconstruction and subversion moving in the right direction?

[StingingVelvet]

Skyfall is very overrated but I think people are just excited it ends with us being "back to the beginning," meaning back to the classic Bond setup. M in his wood panel office, Moneypenny outside the door, Q making fun gadgets, etc. etc.

Skyfall was a very flawed but pretty film IMO, but I am still excited to see how "real Bond" the next film is. Casino Royale was a fun reboot that came at the right time but I am definitely ready for some classic Bond now.