which is the best James Bond movie?

if only North by Northwest hadn't got there first

They're all good in a way. I don't remember if I've said that before in this thread, but I'll watch any of them, even Diamonds are Forever, at any time if someone asks me.

A View to a Kill is irritating in that the actors and premise have a lot of potential and it ends up with a boring underground explosion plot where they're just punching in a nondescript cave and a fistfight on a blimp

AVtoK seems to be the consensus worst of the series, and as I only remember the very last scene of the film, perhaps I should re-watch it and then amend my statement about the non-varying quality of Bond films accordingly.

Ok, AVtoK is indeed pretty bad. Moore way beyond retirement age for the character at this point, and his sex scene with Grace Jones has to be the ickiest in the entire series. Plus, Walken squandered on an uninteresting character. Like, if ever there was an actor born to play a megalomaniacal Bond villain, it's Walken, but he has exactly zero interesting lines/moments/quirks in the film. Also, the movie is just way to jokey and clowny. When the Beach Boys tune came on during the opening scene, I seriously thought I was watching "Top Secret."

yeah I hated that one.

Should I roll the dice on one of the Brosnans at MoMA? Which is 'darkest'?

Doesn't answer your question, i know, but The World Is Not Enough is my fave Brosnan.

someone threw DAD (lol) a vote for lols, right? I mean, isn't that the one w/ the invisible car & Pierce Brosnan surfing on a broken slab of ice WHILE firing a machine gun?

that's the one w/ J Pryce yeah? xp

either goldeneye or twine (haha) -- goldeneye if you want a cartoony take on postsoviet uncertainty feat. judi dench calling bond a "dinosaur" and the world is not enough if you want the millennium dome + bond in an "antique torture chair" + john cleese

pryce is in tomorrow never dies which i can't remember anything about except him.

this review of the 50 box set prefers Goldeneye:

http://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/review/bond-50/2447

i do too

someone threw DAD (lol) a vote for lols, right? I mean, isn't that the one w/ the invisible car & Pierce Brosnan surfing on a broken slab of ice WHILE firing a machine gun?

the only thing i remember from DAD is the completely tension-free ice chase scene. iirc his car gets shot like a billion times and blown up like a hundred times but it's cool, nothing can stop the magic indestructible invisible car.

Goldeneye the only solid Brosnan, but I don't think any of them are particularly dark. They were clearly trying to get away from the harder-edged Dalton stuff, but quickly overcompensated with Moore-esque ridiculousness.

Tomorrow Never Dies has a good chase scene and Michelle Yeoh is good, but the finale is pretty blah and Pryce isn't a very good villain. World is Not Enough has Denise Richards and unmemorable action scenes. I don't think Carlyle is terrible, but submarine stuff is sort of a snooze and bullet-in-the-brain "i can't feel pain" is kind of pointless. Die Another Day is best avoided unless you really want to see Madonna turning up in a fencing kit.

CASINO ROYALE tbh

I watched The Living Daylights for the first time since a cable rerun in 1990, and it holds up! Two crippling mistakes:

1. No villain. Joe Don Baker's war buff isn't given enough to do. The blond mail Annie Lennox-esque master of disguise comes close.
2. The cellist is perhaps the most insipid Bond girl, which is saying a lot.
3. Timothy Dalton is game but given no memorable quips and is directed to act like he's in Othello.

as far as Dalton goes, Benicio Del Toro in a meat grinder >>> sliding around the snow on a cello case.

*THREE crippling mistakes rather

Daylights was my last one til the Craig Royale. I should try Licence to Kill, I guess.

actually only recently saw A View to a Kill. just horrifically bland, besides delightful Walken delivery in this scene:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCmgle7Q5eU

xp you might wanna avoid Licence Morbs, unless you really, really like generic B-action. it's the closest to a Stallone/Norris movie that Bond ever came

everybody has different opinions! I hate that.

I dunno. What's the diff b/w Bond and Norris -- tuxes and martinis? This is why I'm not a Bond fan.

Invasion U.S.A. is a more entertaining movie than all but like 5 or 6 Bonds so I really do not know

RAVES coming in for Skyfall.

License To Kill is a good 80s action movie.

Never Say Never Again surprised me! I expected a smug Sean Connery but his quiet weariness is exactly right for the part -- one of his subtler performances. The shark sequence (which I remembered watching on cable as a kid at a friend's house) is quite well shot.

A thousand curses on Kim Basinger. Is there a role she didn't scream for help through?

love her in Nadine actually

she didn't deserve Jeff Bridges.

I remember seeing Connery on Johnny Carson when NSNA came out, talking about putting his hairpiece on to play Bond again.

I liked it more than Thunderball for sure

!

shorter, less waterlogged + Max von Sydow

It's 2-hours-plus and drags after Brandauer walks away though.

One of the more disappointing truths of my adulthood has been learning that Thunderball pretty much sucks.

this shit is relative, Thunderball is weak but outweighs 20-odd years of bollocks that comes after it

cd argue the same about the books, Fleming slid downhill from Casino Royale on but they're all better than say Lee Childs

sonofagun, it seemed shorter... also forgot Brandauer was in it!

I had the Thunderball game.

http://jamesbondboardgames.grrgh.com/2010/10/25/thunderball/

Thunderball second worst of the EON Connery Bonds. Diamonds are Forever obviously the worst.

still love Diamonds above Thunderball, which is leaden as fuck.

the two henchman dudes in Diamonds were a portent of things to come.

taking your point but there's nothing in the worst non-Roger Moore movie that's more offensive than Live and Let Die

I just rewatched For Your Eyes Only, and was surprised how lean and stripped-down it was for a Moore Bond. (Though unlike many others, I do love a lot of the Moore era comedy stuff, especially in Octopussy.) There's no grandiose world-conquering schemes for the villain, and the ending is satisfyingly non-black & white ("that's detente, comrade: you don't have it, I don't have it"). It also features what is probably the nastiest scene Moore's Bond ever had (besides him practically raping Solitaire in Live and Let Die), when he pushes the car with the henchman inside down the cliff. And the rock-climbing finale was still a really exciting set piece, with little of the rear-projection corniness that mars many of the Moore era action scenes.

Also, Melina Havelock is possibly the most capable female lead in any Bond movie (and Carole Bouquet manages to convince the viewer she really is that tough): there's no real damsel-in-distress moments for her, and she ends up saving Bond more often than he saves her. I can't recall any Bond girl, not even in the 90s and 00s movies (I haven't seen Skyfall yet), being this skillful, which is a bit sad considering FYEO is 30 years old.

Basically, the only flaws in the movie are the totally unnecessary super-young-iceskater-has-the-hots-for-Bond sideplot (which would've been okay in some of the less serious Bonds, as Moore is quite funny when he's rejecting her advances, but it doesn't really fit here), and the fact that the romance is even more tacked-on than usually: there's literally no romantic scenes at all between Bond and Havelock before the final scene, where they just making out. I guess the idea was that a Bond movie has to end this way, but they could've at least tried to forehadow it in some way. Without those elements I'd say FYEO would easily be among the top 5 Bonds.

Here's my ranking of all the Bond movies:

The breakdown basically goes like this: 1-5 are essential. 6-11 are very good, but with some (increasingly significant as the rank decreases) flaws. 12-15 are stupid, but fun. 16 is only that high because of Christopher Lee. 17-22 are generally terrible but still worth watching because, you know, Bond. 23 is Quantum of Solace.

1. Casino Royale
2. From Russia with Love
3. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
4. Goldfinger
5. The Spy Who Loved Me
6. Goldeneye
7. The Living Daylights
8. Dr. No
9. Skyfall
10. Thunderball
11. For Your Eyes Only
12. Tomorrow Never Dies
13. Licence to Kill
14. Die Another Day
15. Octopussy
16. The Man with the Golden Gun
17. Moonraker
18. You Only Live Twice
19. Diamonds Are Forever
20. Live and Let Die
21. The World Is Not Enough
22. A View to a Kill
23. Quantum of Solace

Quantum really seems to be consensus worst, huh? Personally I found it bland enough that I barely remember it now, but View still strikes me as more screechingly bad.

Any movie with Walken and Grace Jones automatically is more exciting than the blandfest that was Quantum.

no Never Say Never Again? Best Bond performance of the eighties (guess why).

I don't really count Never Say Never Again as canon; if it was a better movie, maybe I would care more, but it isn't so I don't.

View to a Kill is really awful – even Roger Moore was like "I think I'm too old for this, guys" before they started shooting. That said, I can actually stand to look at View to a Kill for more than two consecutive minutes without having to look away, Unlike Quantum. Also, Bond doesn't make a fairly inoffensive villain drink gasoline in View to a Kill.

"I think I'm too old for this, guys" was Moore's M.O. since the seventies, no?