A few years back, as some of you may recall, I set about watching every James Bond film and posting my thoughts in an almost weekly feature. I included films outside of the officially recognized franchise, which is why my count is slightly higher. Be sure to check out the previous installments of this feature as well as my latest review below:
Daniel Craig returns for his second outing as James Bond, and the first explicitly direct sequel in the franchise. Other films in the series have brought back elements from past installments, from Bond's slain bride to recurring foe Ernst Stavro Blofeld, but this sequel literally takes place an hour after Casino Royale left off, with Bond seeking revenge on Mr. White for the death of Vesper Lynd. The film doesn't waste any time throwing us into a deadly car chase, before Bond and M(Judi Dench) are questioning White, a session that doesn't last long before we're thrown into another chase not quite on par with the parkour sequence of the previous movie.
It's a fast-paced film, the shortest in the series, and just as it slows down for exposition, something blows up or someone is shooting. Some critics and fans have likened it to the Bourne franchise, which is both a fair comparison and hardly a criticism, at least not in my book. It may be the most “realistic” of the series as well. Apart from futuristic touchscreen technology at MI6 that's not that far off from present interfaces, there are no gimmicks or gadgets, no magnetic watches that deflect bullets or cars that shoot jets of oil, although oil does play a significant role near the end of the film. The plot is fairly straightforward. Bond's relentless pursuit of White, which he continually denies isn't personal, leads him to Greene, a businessman with a hidden agenda in the desert and a deceptive smile. Greene's girlfriend Camille is with him to get close to one of his contacts, a general responsible for the death of her family when she was a little girl. Bond and Camille soon realize their goals are the same, as Greene can lead both of them to those who've taken important people from their lives. The film's title has a double meaning, as quantum both refers to the small amount of solace brought by revenge as well as Quantum, the evil and mysterious organization served by the likes of White and Greene.
While the film dispenses with the now cliché Hollywood portrayal of secret agents with gadgets and mustache-twirling cat petting villains in oversized lairs, it does retain signature elements of Bond, from the theme heard at the film's end to the opening graphics. I enjoyed the graphics, which races Bond through a desert environment eventually revealed to be the topography of the female form, and the new opening song by Jack White and Alicia Keys certainly felt like your classic Bond song, although to my tastes lean more toward Chris Cornell's You Know My Name. And the movie does work in one beautiful and disturbing homage to Goldfinger that makes one villain's comeuppance satisfyingly appropriate.
Quantum of Solace is a very exciting and enjoyable ride, a strong action movie during a time of year when that sort of fare is hard to find in the theater. It falls very slightly short of Casino Royale, in that it focuses more on the action and less on the character development of Bond. That isn't to say that character development is totally absent, and Bond does reach some measure of progress by film's end. But Casino Royale spent a little more time in establishing Craig as the new Bond and, since that wasn't needed here, he's often a mystery. We can guess what he's feeling by his actions and the commentary of those around him, most particularly M who seems to have the greatest trust and understanding of her agent. The movie feels very much like the bridging chapter of a trilogy, and definitely leaves me anticipating another sequel.
When I began my reviews(with spoilers) of the various James Bond films, I intended it to be a single post. After reviewing three films, I realized such an undertaking could not be accomplished in a single evening, and broke it up into an almost weekly feature. Now we are at the eighth installment, the final for now, at least until the next new film. I hope you have enjoyed my Words About Bond.
Some things work in The World is Not Enough, while others do not. The opening sequence is amazing. After an explosion in MI6 headquarters takes out Elektra King's father, Bond pursues the Cigar Girl who triggered the detonation, grabbing a prototype speedboat and launching out into the river. The chase sequence is one of the finest in the series, save for an unlikely shortcut across land, and ends with the assassin in a hot air balloon which she explodes rather than face capture.
The villain Renard also has an interesting concept. After being shot by another 00 agent, he has a bullet lodged in his brain that is slowly killing him, but also cuts off his ability to feel pain. There's a very cool sequence in which Renard's condition is shown to Bond via a sophisticated holographic display, almost too futuristic. I half expected Mon Mothma to point out Renard's weak spot in the display.
The film also has something of a changing of the guard as Q introduces a new assistant, R, played by John Cleese. Given an almost father-son moment between Bond and Q, as well as the arrival of a new gadget master, it seems like the filmmakers were preparing for this to be Desmond Llewelyn's last film, after a record of portraying Q in 17 of the 19 films thus far. Tragically, the 85-year-old perished following a head-on car collision shortly after the movie was released.
After Renard kills Elektra King's father, it falls to Bond to protect her. Unfortunately, while a captive of Renard's Elektra had fallen for him, and was involved in her father's death. In one of the elements of the film that doesn't work, Bond teams with a nuclear physicist played beautifully by the ridiculously hot Denise Richards. Note that I said “beautifully” and not “well”. Her performance as a scientist is as convincing as Tara Reid's in Alone in the Dark. The Bond series has had convincing actresses in intellectual roles, such as Holly Goodhead in Moonraker, but Denise Richards is unfortunately not one. She's basically there for the inevitable pun at the end about her name, “Christmas”.
Elektra and Renard plan to use a nuclear submarine to contaminate an oil shipping route, leaving only her father's pipelines and making her rich. Bond is tortured by King but kills her after the intervention of Valentin Zukovsky(Robbie Coltrane). He frees M, who had been friends with Elektra's father and taken prisoner after Bond and Christmas faked their deaths. 007 then proceeds to the submarine to save Christmas and battle Renard, wrestling in the sinking vessel and ultimately impaling the villain on a plutonium rod.
Brosnan's final outing as Bond, and possibly the last film in a continuity followed since 1962, is a fitting end to the series. After a battle with and pursuit of an arms dealer in North Korea, his quarry apparently goes over a cliff and perishes, leaving Bond the prisoner of the dead man's father. Throughout the opening credit sequence, in a deviation from past films, we see Bond tortured throughout his captivity to the tune of a repetitive theme song by Madonna, who has a cameo in the film as a fencing instructor.
We pick up several months later, where the now bearded agent is freed in a trade for a North Korean prisoner, Zao, whose face was embedded with diamonds during an explosion caused by Bond at the beginning of the flm. While under quarantine he escapes, and begins his own investigation of Zao. He teams with Halle Berry's Jinx, an NSA agent who emerges from the sea in an entrance that parallel's Honey Rider's in the first Bond film, Dr. No.
John Cleese reprises his role, now using the “Q” designation and referring to Llewelyn's character as his predecessor. Once M tracks down Bond and his investigation becomes official, Q meets Bond at a lab hidden in a subway station. The place is something of a Bond museum, and I spotted the crocodile submarine from Octopussy as well as the jet pack from Thunderball, among other nostalgic items. Q supplies Bond with his most sophisticated car yet.
Bond and Jinx eventually learn that Zao is being helped by the wealthy Gustav Graves, unaware that Graves is in fact the supposedly deceased corrupt son of the Korean general, and faked his death. Through genetic manipulation he changed his appearance, and from a fortress of ice planned to use satellite mirrors powered by diamonds as a super weapon, masquerading it as a source of light. As a side effect from the treatment that changed his appearance he can no longer sleep, and needs to use a dream-inducing machine to preserve his sanity. There's a great chase sequence across the ice as Zao's car has concealed weapons and Graves uses the laser. Bond's car turns invisible though, so he has the advantage.
Perhaps Die Another Day went too far in its use of technology. Besides the car's cloaking device, the audience is fooled not once but twice by a virtual reality device. The first time, MI6 headquarters seems compromised and many of Bond's allies, including Moneypenny, are killed. Bond comes upon an assassin holding M hostage. He shoots through her to get the bad guy, and as the simulation ends he explains he made sure her wound wasn't fatal. The second time, Bond returns late to the office and engages in his usual flirting with Miss Moneypenny. This time, it seems the pair might finally get past the tension and consummate their attraction, but as they make out on the floor, Q walks in to find Moneypenny wearing the VR helmet. It's a cheesy plot device, and not nice to mess with fans. Where else could the series go after this installment?
After Die Another Day, the only logical way to revive the series would be a reboot a la Batman Begins. Because Casino Royale is so new, I won't be as liberal with spoilers as I was with the other movies I've reviewed. I will say it accomplishes what Batman Begins did, taking a character back to his roots while updating it at the same time.
I think people with doubts about Daniel Craig may have missed his performance in Layer Cake. Back when they were casting a new Bond, Alexis Denisof would have been my choice. As the rumored list was narrowed down, Goran Visnjic was among those I didn't think would work. When I heard Craig got the part, I thought that might be the right move.
In a gritty, black-and-white opening reminiscent of Sin City, we find out how Bond first attained his 00 status. At first, I wasn't too impressed by the opening credit graphics, a bit too heavy in the playing card imagery and lacking the artistic female forms of its predecessors. The Chris Cornell theme song, “You Know My Name,” is awesome though, and I hope no one noticed me bopping my head and tapping my foot in the back of the dark theater.
Though set in the present day, with Judi Dench reprising her role as M, it's a true origin story. During a conversation with the lovely Vesper Lynd, we even get hints to Bond's past as she speculates that he was an orphan and went to a private school, a poor child picked on by the other kids for his origins. The scene made me realize how much of a mystery the character has been throughout the series.
There are no fancy gadgets, no invisible cars, and no holograms. It's back to basics, and the feel of the early Connery films is pervasive. It's as if Craig were the first Bond patterned after the original, since Dalton. Brosnan was more of a hybrid of Connery and Moore. Craig is pure, the emotionally detached “blunt instrument” who remains invulnerable until he meets a woman he truly cares for beyond doing his duty.
Bond chases a suspect through a construction site early in the film in a breathless parkour segment. The filmmakers have learned from modern action heroes like Jack Bauer or Jason Bourne. Yet for all the action, the film works during the quiet moments as well. Somehow, people sitting around playing cards is interesting, and the tension as to whether or not the villain is bluffing as the stakes get higher held my attention as well as any chase or fight.
There's one section near the end of the film that falls a little too slow, my sole complaint. It's obvious that the extended denouement is a false one, and the final threat has yet to be neutralized, but they take a little too long getting to the payoff. When they do, especially when the last line of the film is delivered, it's totally worth it. While this Bond is deadly serious, the dry humor is there and he delivers 2 or 3 great quips, good ones and just the right amount to balance out the darker elements of the film. This Bond will return, and I for one cannot wait.
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As of this writing, my favorite Bond films are, in chronological order:
Craig was so good in the role, he's now my favorite after Connery. While Moore was my favorite as a kid, having only seen a few films, after watching the entire series in order he's fallen to the bottom of the list.
When I saw Licence to Kill on television many years ago when I was still in college, I liked it. When I watched it again on DVD about a month ago, in context with the rest of the series, I loved it. One of the characters in particular had more significance, Bond's friend and American CIA counterpart Felix Leiter. Originally played by Jack Lord in Dr. No, Felix has been portrayed by a different actor in every subsequent film, with the exception of Licence to Kill. David Hedison played Felix in Live and Let Die, another of my favorites, and reprised his role on a more personal note.
The film opens as Felix, now a DEA agent, is about to get married. On a somewhat lighter note, after Bond and Leiter run a mission to apprehend the drug lord Sanchez, they parachute down in time for the wedding. Afterwards, the happy couple present the best man, James, with a gift, a lighter with their names inscribed on it. Leiter's wife asks her new husband why James is so somber as he walks off, and Felix simply explains, “He was married once,” a reference to the tragic events of On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Meanwhile, Sanchez escapes custody and seeks revenge. Sanchez's top henchman Dario, played by a young Benicio del Toro, attacks the newlyweds along with the rest of his gang. Felix' wife is raped and killed, while he is taken prisoner and lowered in to a shark tank. Bond finds their bloody bodies in their honeymoon suite, and Felix is barely alive. His best friend losing his wife as well is too much for 007, and he flies off in a rage, sending the rogue agent who helped Sanchez escape into the shark tank. M revokes Bond's licence to kill and takes him into custody for acting outside his jurisdiction. James escapes and goes rogue, infiltrating Sanchez' organization with help from another CIA agent, Pam Bouvier. While on the move he also gets help from Q, who independently supplies Bond with equipment unbeknownst to their superiors.
The film has an amazing climax in which Bond tries to stop an illegal drug shipment and reveals his duplicity. Sanchez leaves him on a conveyor belt to be ground up by massive blades used to crush cocaine. Bouvier shows up to save him and after a struggle with Dario, it is Dario that meets a bloody end in the grinder. James pursues Sanchez, moving the cocaine in a gasoline tanker to conceal it. In the ensuing fight a gasoline soaked Sanchez gets the better of Bond and beats him to a pulp. As he clutches the British agent, 007 has one final card to play. As Sanchez condemns him for his betrayal, Bond shouts, “Don't you want to know why?” and shows him the inscribed lighter, moments before setting his foe on fire. The defeat of Sanchez is the most personal since that of Blofeld, and though I think Davi's portrayal of a drug lord is cliché at times, I liked him as a catalyst for a revenge story, a nice change of pace from the series' formula.
When Dalton opted to get out of his contract and not play Bond a third time, the producers turned to another person long in consideration for the role, and the former star of Remington Steele. Brosnan was a bit of a pretty boy as Bond, but with six years between Licence to Kill and GoldenEye, it was good that someone was taking up the mantle. The film features not one but two X-men stars, in far less respectable roles. Alan Cumming plays a comic relief computer whiz, Grishenko, who helps a rogue Russian general take over a space-based satellite weapon. Famke Janssen plays the deadly Xenia Onatopp, who kills her victims by crushing them between her thighs. Bond survives her deadly sex attack twice, the second time finishing her off by shooting down a helicopter she had rappelled down from. The chopper crashes, pulling her off Bond and crushing her between the limbs of a tree.
With help from Coltrane's Zukovsky, Bond eventually learns who is behind the rogue Russian general. Years ago on a mission, Sean Bean's 006 faked his death at the hands of that general. He didn't escape unscathed, because to cover their escape Bond had set the timer on an explosive for less time than 006 expected. The rogue agent blamed Bond for his scarring. Bond teams up with Simonova, another programmer who survived Grishenko's betrayal and the destruction of the facility where they both worked. With her aid, Bond stops the firing of a second satellite blast that would destroy London. He struggles with 006 on a radio telescope, and sends the traitor to the dish below, where he ridiculously survives the massive fall. Moments later when the antenna detonates, the falling debris complete the job. Grishenko meets an equally, albeit intentionally, comic fate when in the midst of cheering “I am invincible!”, he is frozen in place when vats of liquid nitrogen bursts behind him.
This film also marked the first appearances of a new, tough female M, played by Judy Dench, and a feistier Moneypenny, played by Samantha Bond(no relation). Joe Don Baker, last seen as a villain in The Living Daylights, now plays Jack Wade, Bond's CIA contact for this and the subsequent film. Overall, Brosnan's first outing proved entertaining and offered a balance between lighter moments and the darker tones from the Dalton era, but it's not one of the better films in the series.
Tomorrow Never Dies has one of the worst motivations for a villain. Pryce's Carver is a powerful media mogul who decides to create disasters so he can be the first to report them. Samantha Bond rounds out her Moneypenny in this film, proving a match for 007. When she calls him to report back to base while he's in the midst of making love to a language tutor, she quips that he's a “cunning linguist”. Bond finishes his “lesson” and reports in, where he is asked to use his connection to Carver's wife, played by Teri Hatcher, to get him close to the Carver and discover his plans. Paris Carver slaps her former lover for leaving years earlier, but they end up in bed together. For her betrayal, Carver's wife is murdered by one of his sadistic doctors, played by the late, great Vincent Schiavelli. After finding her body, Bond gets the better of the doctor and shoots him in the head at point blank range.
Despite the laughable plot, the film does have some high points. Yeoh plays Wai Lin, an undercover Chinese agent working to prevent a war between China and England due to Carver's manipulations. There's an amazing chase sequence in which Bond and Wai Lin are handcuffed and evade their pursuers on a motorcycle. The choreography is truly impressive in this scene. Eventually, the duo make their way onboard Carver's floating base, and Bond positions Carver in front of a drill used to sink a British vessel in Chinese waters earlier in the film. “You forgot the first rule of mass media, Elliot!” shouts Bond, “GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT!” He then steps aside as Pryce laughably throws up his hands and screams, rather than also move out of the way.
The first film made after the demise of longtime producer Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, Tomorrow Never Dies proved even more disappointing to me than GoldenEye. Perhaps it was because, at the time, I only knew Pryce from automobile commercials and was not yet familiar with his legitimate roles, especially Brazil. I hated that the villain was a spokesman with a stupid plan. I think I was also disappointed that Teri Hatcher, whom I'd suffered withdrawal from since the cancellation of Lois and Clark, gave such a rigid performance for the ten minutes or so she was actually in the movie. Ten years later, I didn't enjoy the movie any more, even seeing it in context of the rest of the series or knowing Pryce's resume. Would the Brosnan films get any better? In many ways, they would...
Never Say Never Again isn't a bad movie so much as it was an unnecessary movie. In 1983, Connery agreed to reprise the role that made him famous, working for a rival of EON Productions. Not part of the official series, the film was a modernized version of Thunderball, with an aging Bond. Connery was not only playing the same character, but in a remake. What was he thinking? It would be like Harrison Ford remaking one of his Indiana Jones films and calling it Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold or something equally silly.
Because the filmmakers had the rights to the name Blofeld, when Bond finally defeats his nemesis in For Your Eyes Only, the character goes unnamed in his final appearance in the official series. Blofeld plays a marginally more prominent role in Never Say Never Again, actually appearing on screen, portrayed by Max Von Sydow, whose talents are otherwise wasted. Basinger is young and beautiful, but still learning as she portrays Domino, and the credibility of Connery sweeping her off her feet is strained, though neither the first nor last time he'd woo a much younger leading lady. Barbara Carrera gives such an over-the-top performance as Fatima Blush, that I wondered if Famke Janssen drew inspiration when it was time for her to portray a Bond Villainess over ten years later. The plot is nearly identical to Thunderball, so I don't need to rehash it, though when Bond is sent to the health clinic he genuinely seems to need it.
Blink and you'll miss a young Rowan Atkinson as comic relief. His bumbling rookie agent appears twice in the film, and tries to retrieve Bond at the end of the film, when the agent has retired to a hot tub with Domino. Connery refuses to return, and winks to the camera, indicating that his time as Bond is over, even though most people could have told him that sooner.
Roger Moore's final appearance as 007 had a lot going for it. I hadn't realized Walken once portrayed a Bond villain, and had high expectations when I finally saw it, perhaps too high. Tanya Roberts is beautiful, but one of the least capable of the Bond girls, falling into the stereotypical damsel-in-distress role at every turn. Once again Bond faces a female henchman, and Grace Jones is truly scary, up until she has a change of heart and sacrifices herself to help Bond and prevent an underground explosion that would leave part of California under the sea. Patrick Macnee backs up Bond, and the former Avenger is one of the film's highlights. His Avengers co-star Diana Rigg had played arguable the most important Bond girl, Bond's doomed wife Tracy in On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
Walken plays Max Zorin, and his plan starts out small, fixing horse races using microchips to release a stimulant. In Bond tradition, the scheme that unfolds is much larger, as we learn he's a former KGB agent who was trained by Nazi's as a child, and left somewhat unhinged. After Grace Jones' May Day prevents the destruction of Silicon Valley, Bond pursues Zorin, who is escaping in a dirigible with Tanya Roberts as his hostage. The final battle takes place over the Golden Gate Bridge, which Bond ties the blimp to. Bond keeps the girl from falling, sends Walken to a watery grave, and survives the destruction of the blimp when a surviving henchman tries to throw an explosive at them and fails. The only other information of note is the theme song, a Duran Duran tune I'd heard many times before seeing the film, and still hear often today, in my gym's rotation of songs among other places.
The fourth actor to portray 007 in the official series, Timothy Dalton is one of the more underrated, and in many ways surpassed Moore. When he was younger, he turned down an opportunity to replace Connery because he felt he wasn't old enough. In his two outings as Bond, Dalton saved the character from the comedic tangent he'd slipped down in the Moore era, and gave us a much darker hero. The Living Daylights opens with him surviving an assassin's intervention in a training exercise while two other 00 agents are killed. His skills as a sniper are later put to the test, but when a potential assassin is the beautiful cellist Kara Milovy, played by d'Abo, he opts to shoot her weapon rather than take her life, to the chagrin of a fellow agent. As he investigates further, he learns that she's an innocent, misled by her boyfriend General Koskov, a Russian working with a rogue U.S. General, Brad Whitaker, to smuggle drugs to afford arms. They frame another Russian, General Pushkin, played by the incomparable John Rhys-Davies, but Bond soon sorts out the real scheme and foils the bad guys, in the film's climax driving a jeep out the back of a flying transport stocked with opium before it crashes.
Though darker, the film does maintain some of the lighter elements from the previous installments. At one point Bond and Milovy flee down an icy slope on her cello case. In the beginning of the movie, after Bond defeats the assassin who killed his fellow agents by forcing his truck over a cliff, he parachutes on to a boat occupied by a single, impressed woman. It's also interesting to note how different world politics were at the time. I recently saw Rambo III, in which the Afghan Mujahideen help the main character against the Russians. The film is even dedicated to the “gallant” warriors. Similarly, in The Living Daylights, Bond ends up freeing an Afghan warrior and teaming with his Mujahideen to stop the drug trade of the Russians.
The Living Daylights is the first time Miss Moneypenny is played by someone other than Lois Maxwell, as Caroline Bliss takes over the role. Desmond Llewelyn meanwhile continued his historical streak as Q, supplying gadgets to a fourth Bond, including one of the more technologically advanced and well-armed automobiles.
The first time I saw Moonraker as a kid, I thought it was a spoof of the Bond films, though it would be years before I saw an actual parody. In capitalizing on the popularity of Star Wars®, producer Albert R. Broccoli and his team strayed from the spirit of their series. Bond teams up with the beautiful Dr. Goodhead, in fact an undercover CIA agent, to stop the wealthy Hugo Drax and his mad scheme. Drax plans to eliminate the world's population using nerve gas, while relocating to an orbiting space station with perfect pairs of human specimens to create a people under his rule.
Adding to the ridiculousness of the film, Jaws returns, having survived the events of The Spy Who Loved Me. He's treated as comic relief in this film, and after a struggle with Bond and Goodhead on a cable car, he plummets to the ground, surviving a fall from a ridiculous height not for the first time, and meeting a love interest in the process. Later, Jaws turns on Drax when Bond points out that the giant and his petite girlfriend don't meet the standards of Drax' other perfect humans, and would be eliminated once Drax founded his new society.
The film includes troops in space battling with lasers, impressive technology for both sides in the late ‘70s. It would be impressive today. Bond kicks Drax out an airlock, commandeers a shuttle, and destroys the pods of nerve gas before they breach the atmosphere. Jaws and his girlfriend remain on the space station as it plummets, and he toasts her with a bottle of champagne opened with his teeth. Later, a radio broadcast mentions the pair surviving after hitting a small island. Repeating the gag from the end of the previous movie, Bond's superiors once more discover him in a compromising position with the film's leading lady. Q establishes a connection with the shuttle, where the weightless couple are entangled, and notes without looking up at the video feed that Bond is “attempting reentry”. It's fitting that in elementary school I maintained conversations with my friends based on a Cracked comics lampoon; the actual film wasn't all that different.
After Moonraker, the series returned to basics, even if it recycled concepts from many of the previous films. In For Your Eyes Only, Bond must recover a device from a sunken ship which would allow villains to control and launch nuclear missiles from submarines. He teams with the beautiful crossbow-wielding Melina Havelock after her parents are murdered, and she joins him on a failed diving expedition to retrieve the device.
Bond gets a tip from Kristatos that Milos Columbo is the smuggler responsible for the sinking of the ship and theft of the device, while fending off the advances of Kristatos' too-young skating protégé Bibi Dahl. As it turns out, Columbo is innocent and Kristatos is the real villain. Bond and Columbo team up, and pursue Kristatos' men, including the assassin Locque, responsible for the murder of the Havelocks among others. Fleeing, Locque loses control of his car and winds up teetering on the edge of a cliff. Bond catches up, tosses Locque a dove pin, the assassin's calling card, then kicks the car over the cliff in one of the hero's darker moments.
The climax of the film takes place at Kristatos' mountain hideaway. Bond scales a cliff to reach it, tossing another would-be killer to his death along the way and momentarily scaring Havelock, Columbo, and the rest of his Greek allies who fear it is James who has fallen. Bond and the Greeks make it to the top and retrieve the stolen device, and Columbo kills Kristatos. When British and Russian forces arrive, Bond tosses the device over the cliff so neither side has it.
Perhaps the most historically significant portion of this film occurs before the credits, however. Bond visits the grave of his wife, murdered in On Her Majesty's Secret Service by Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Bond is called away but in transit, his helicopter pilot is electrocuted and a bald man in a wheelchair takes over by remote control. We never see his face, but his signature white cat and general appearance and mannerisms indicate that Blofeld, after escaping justice yet again in Diamonds are Forever, has returned to take out Bond once and for all. Bond climbs outside and into the cockpit, and manages to fiddle with some wires and gain control. The cat flees as Bond hooks the wheelchair under the skids, and he drops his wife's killer down a smokestack, settling the score once and for all.
Giggle-inducing title aside, Octopussy is actually one of the better Moore films. After agent 009, undercover as a clown, is murdered by a pair of knife-throwers, the faberge egg in his possession is the only clue to a larger smuggling operation. Bond travels to India and quickly agitates Khan and his muscular henchman Gobinda after besting him at a local game in which he is cheating. Khan seems to be working with Octopussy to smuggle jewels, but is in fact helping the soviet General Orlov smuggle a nuclear bomb in order to start a war. Bond allies with Octopussy, and is seemingly devoured by a crocodile, in fact a disguised personal submarine created by Q. 007 makes his way to a train carrying the bomb and beats the knife throwers Mischka and Grischka. Orlov is gunned down by a border patrol in his pursuit of the train to stop Bond.
At a circus in West Germany, disguised as a clown, Bond catches up to and diffuses the bomb with seconds to spare. Octopussy is relieved that James is alive, and her forces storm Khan's home in the film's final battle while Bond and Q arrive in a hot air balloon. Bond winds up battling Gobinda on the wings of a small plane after Khan takes Octopussy hostage, and he succeeds in besting the henchman and saving the girl as the villain is left to crash into a mountain. All in all, not a bad film, and the exotic locales of India gave it a different look from the previous installments. Also of note, if Maud Adams, the title character, seemed familiar, it was because she'd been seen previously playing a different role in The Man with the Golden Gun, as the mistress of the villain Scaramanga.
Roger Moore's first outing as the British secret agent remains one of my favorites in the series, and one of my most watched thanks to receiving it as a gift from an aunt and uncle one Christmas. It also made me appreciate the beauty of a young Jane Seymour in her role as the tarot reading psychic Solitaire, and a recent rental of Somewhere in Time reminded me how beautiful she was(which isn't to say that she hasn't aged well, either). Live and Let Die is also memorable for the McCartney theme song, even if I had heard the Guns N' Roses version first.
Bond takes on a drug lord and dictator, facing dangers ranging from crocodiles to voodoo assassins. The film includes a climactic showdown with a henchman on a train, like From Russia With Love, though more formidable given his mechanical arm. Later Moore films would be campier, almost parodies of the early movies, but this was more serious for the most part. Deviations include a stereotypical Southern sheriff played by Clifton James, who plays a prominent role in an impressive speedboat chase scene. The only film to lack a Q, it doesn't lack Bond's trademark gadgets, including a magnetic watch. Despite dangers both natural and supernatural, there's little to fear when Bond is around, although the final image of the voodoo Baron Samedi laughing maniacally is a bit scary.
Long before he was a Sith lord, Christopher Lee was the title villain in Moore's second Bond film. Prior announcing the planes on Fantasy Island, Hervé Villechaize was his henchman. Lee, step-cousin to Bond author Ian Fleming, played a different adversary than previously seen in the series. While most Bond villains were bent on world domination, with large forces at their command, Lee's three-nippled Scaramanga was an assassin, albeit a high paid one at one million dollars per hit. One thing he had in common with other Bond foes was an impressive lair, and on the collection of islands he called home he had an impressive training facility, one that included a wax replica of Bond, his next target.
Both beauty and comic relief are provided by Mary Goodnight, a fellow agent whom Bond flirts with even as he also seduces Andrea Anders, Scaramanga's mistress. Anders had sent a golden bullet with “007” etched in it to Bond to enlist his help. After Scaramanga kills her at a boxing match and confronts Bond in the audience, stealing an important piece of technology, he escapes while Goodnight secretly hides in his trunk. Bond gives chase, teaming up with a vacationing Sheriff J.W. Pepper, Clifton James reprising his role from Live and Let Die in an unlikely and campy turn of events. Even after performing an amazing jump, Bond fails to catch Scaramanga when he converts his car to a plane and flies off. Bond must track him to his island lair for a final showdown, mano a mano, and prevent him from using the stolen part to activate a giant solar cannon, and even larger golden gun. Scaramanga's golden gun, often disguised as a cigarette lighter, case, cufflink, and pen, proves no match for Bond, who uses Scaramanga's own training facility to outwit him.
Stromberg is a Bond villain with an impressive nautical base. Stealing both Russian and British submarines attracts the attention of both governments, and their best respective agents, XXX and Bond, are dispatched. The film opens with Bond skiing down a mountain as he did in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, this time evading Russian agents and killing one in the process. He eventually teams with the lovely XXX in their mutual investigation, facing off against the steel-toothed inhumanly strong Jaws. XXX is also searching for her lover's killer, and it turns out he was the Russian agent Bond killed.
After a showdown at Stromberg's base, Bond manages to dump Jaws in a shark tank which Stromberg previously used to kill a woman who betrayed him. Jaws defeats the shark, and swims off to return in Moonraker, the only henchman to survive and return in a sequel. Bond and XXX escape the base's destruction in a small pod, and with their mission complete she can now exact her revenge. She draws her gun but Bond's charm saves the day; over the course of the film she's fallen in love with him, and thus cannot kill him. The pod is retrieved by the allied Russian and British forces, and upon its opening their superiors are stunned to find the agents in a compromising position together. When Bond explains to his superiors that he's only “keeping the British end up”, Nobody Does it Better, the Carly Simon theme song for the film, heralds the end of the film and the start of the Moore trend of campier situations and endings...
In 1967, a spoof of the official Bond series was released, bearing the same name as the first Bond novel, as well as the television adaptation. The film had five different directors, and the stark changes throughout the film from one director's segment to another's is obvious. Niven's Bond is drawn out of retirement and becomes head of the spy agency, where he meets Moneypenny's daughter(Bouchet) and decrees that all agents be known as 007 James Bond to confuse their enemies. The same applies to viewers, and by the time Peter Sellers walks out on the movie, splicing in an outtake and other footage to explain his departure is par for the course. Notably, the first Bond girl Ursula Andress plays a prominent role, and there are a few funny moments. I particularly liked Woody Allen as Bond's nephew, explaining to a firing squad that he was allergic to bullets. Any one of the five segments, including Sellers and Welles in the only scenes taken from the source material, would have worked fine on their own, fleshed out to a full movie. I think Joanna Pettet as Mata Bond, the illegitimate daughter of James Bond and Mata Hari, was a character and a concept that definitely had merit on its own. I got an Alias vibe from her story, at least until she's abducted via flying saucer. Then I checked both how many minutes were left, and whether or not Ed Wood's name was in the credits.
On Her Majesty's Secret Service is one of my favorite films in the series, and one that caught me by surprise. I'd heard the name Lazenby in passing, and knew he had only one Bond film to his credit, and thus I'd discounted the movie without seeing it or knowing much else. As Timothy Dalton would prove nearly two decades later.
With Connery leaving the role, casting for the sixth official film proved to be a challenge. Dalton, only 21 at the time, was among those considered, as was Adam West. Dalton's wise decision that he was too young paved the way for him to return when he was more seasoned, while West deciding an American was not right for the role spared us all the sight of Burt Ward as a Bond Girl. Holy bullet dodging! The part was also offered to Roger Moore, still committed to The Saint, and so it was not yet his time to be Bond.
After the opening sequence of the film, after Lazenby rescues a woman from drowning herself and is subsequently accosted by her bodyguards, who have the wrong idea, he quips, “This never happened to the other fella!” Just as the Casino Royale spoof featured many agents using “James Bond” as a code name, so do some fans use this in-joke line as a basis for a similar theory. If every actor playing Bond is not in fact the same character, it explains how he stays roughly the same age while his allies get older and the world progresses. The filmmaker's official stance is that this is not the case, but it's a fun theory nonetheless.
The woman Bond saves, Teresa di Vincenzo, Tracy to her friends, is the daughter of a wealthy European crime lord. Bond falls in love with her throughout his mission to take down Savalas' Blofeld. There are other girls along the way at the mountain headquarters of the villain, but his involvement with them is strictly to maintain his cover, and maintain one of cinema's greatest fantasy jobs.
The film includes a breathtaking chase down a mountain on skis, a setting that would be revisited in future films with variations. For the most part, it's an average Bond story, right up until the end. Bond and Tracy wed at the end, as Moneypenny cries. Driving off, they pull over to remove some of the flowers from their car. At this point, Blofeld and his henchwoman drive by and fire on the pair. Bond ducks behind the car, then leaps into action as the villains flee. He jumps inside, asking Tracy to follow them, and discovering a horrible truth along with the viewers. Cradling her as a police officer pulls up, he tells her lifeless body, "We have all the time in the world."
If you're a casual viewer and Bond's wife or hatred of Blofeld were mentioned in any of the films you've seen, this is the origin of that. It's a powerful event, and after seeing it I wondered how much it influenced Knight Rider's unofficial series finale. Lazenby may only have played Bond once, but it was one of the most significant chapters in the series.
With Bond's wife murdered, there's only one thing to do: bring back the original star and send him on a rampage. Before the opening credits to Connery's final official outing, he shakes down one lackey after another until he finally finds Blofeld and gets his revenge, drowning him in a boiling pool of mud. With that loose end taken care of, he's free to get back to work and uncover a diamond smuggling operation. He goes undercover as a smuggler himself, and is nearly incinerated at a funeral home by the (possibly homosexual) duo of assassins, Wint & Kidd. Bond fares better than others in the chain to encounter the pair, and eventually traces the diamond plot back to Blofeld, who faked his death by surgically altering someone else to look like him. Replacing a reclusive millionaire, he used his resources to procure the diamonds for a giant laser. Bond rescues the real millionaire, fighting a pair of acrobatic women known as “Bambi” and “Thumper” and defeating them in a pool. He stops Blofeld's plot and ends up with former diamond smuggler Tiffany Case, enjoying a quiet meal on a cruise, when Wint and Kidd show up, posing as waiters. Connery defeats them in short order, sending them and their concealed bomb overboard, leaving him with the girl for one last time.
Arguably one of the more famous of the Connery films, Goldfinger was the first film in the series that I saw. I don't recall seeing it through initially; though it aired on broadcast television, it ran well past my bedtime and my mom decided the subject matter was inappropriate for a child. The film contains a great many images that even the casual viewer might associate with the character. Bond sheds a wetsuit in the opening sequence, clad in a perfectly dry white tuxedo. After defeating an assailant by tossing him in a bathtub along with a lamp, he quips, “Shocking.” When he first crosses paths with the film's title adversary, he seduces Goldfinger's girlfriend, Jill Masterson. He's subsequently knocked unconscious by Oddjob, Goldfinger's large Asian bodyguard, known for tossing a deadly bowler hat with a razor sharp steel brim. Bond awakens to find Masterson dead, covered head to toe in gold paint. As a personal aside, this was the point I was sent to bed the first time I watched the movie.
007's investigation of the criminal now takes a personal turn, and it should be noted that Jill is the first Bond girl to perish in the series. Eventually, he makes his way to Goldfinger's lair, where he is captured and restrained. In the most memorable scene, once lampooned on The Simpsons, Bond is tied to a table as a laser makes it's way toward him. “Do you expect me to talk?” he asks, slightly unnerved as the bisecting beam nears his crotch. “No Mr. Bond! I expect you to DIE!”
Of course, he talks his way out of this predicament, and soon meets Goldfinger's pilot, Pussy Galore. “I must be dreaming...” is Bond's wry response to meeting the girl with the most risqué name in the franchise. Eventually, he foils Goldfinger's attempt to irradiate all the gold in Fort Knox, in a final showdown with Oddjob. When the henchman tosses his hat and tries to pry it loose from the metal bars it wedges in, Bond dives and touches a high voltage cable to the metal, once more electrocuting someone. Of course, in charming Galore he got her to betray Goldfinger, and when he returns for revenge on the both of them, a struggle on a small plane results in Goldfinger being sucked out the window, and Bond ending up on an island with the girl.
Connery's fourth outing as the British secret agent finds him once again utilizing cutting edge technology, escaping his enemies in the beginning of the film with a jetpack, the ‘60s' Bell Rocket Belt, similar to one seen on an episode of Gilligan's Island. These never caught on in practical military applications, as the duration of the flight was only a few seconds and the backpack got dangerously hot. Years later, the stuntman who executed the actual flight in the film laughs when watching Connery land and toss the thing in his trunk, pointing out how hot it would be at that point. The jetpack, along with other famous gadgets from the series, shows up in Die Another Day, 16 movies and 4 official Bonds later.
Bond is sent by M to recuperate at a spa following his initial mission. While in a stretching device, a villain cranks up the pressure to eliminate him, because he saw something suspicious. He passes out, and is saved by a nurse who previously rejected his advances. He uses her concern over what she thinks was her mistake as a bargaining chip: his silence in exchange for her submission. In most cases, the fantasy that is James Bond entails women swooning and coming to his bed willingly. This particular scene seems to be a darker aspect of the character, and one I'm glad was eventually discarded.
With Bond distracted, a man who had facial reconstruction performed at the clinic successfully escapes to impersonate a NATO agent, and steal a plane carrying two nuclear warheads. The man he replaced is found dead in the clinic by Bond, and turns out to be the brother of the main villain's female companion. Bond meets up with the pair in a casino, a recurring setting in the films. The villain, Emilio Largo, is in fact the second-in-command of the SPECTRE organization headed by Ernst Stavro Blofeld, who has yet to appear as more than a pair of hands or a lap with a white cat, but will play a larger role as the series progresses. Just as Doctor Evil in the Austen Powers movies spoofs Blofeld, so does Number 2 spoof Largo, complete with his eyepatch.
One scene finds Bond in Largo's pool, which connects to a second, shark-filled pool. Earlier in the film Largo had eliminated a lackey for his failure by tossing him to the sharks. With Bond in the water, trapped by a grating, he lifts the gate and lets the sharks in. Connery was never supposed to be exposed to the actual sharks, with a trainer in the second pool at all times, but one slipped past the trainer. In the scene where Bond's eyes widen as a shark swims past him in the tunnel connecting the two pools, the fear we see is real.
Both Bond and Connery escape the sharks, of course, and Bond defeats Largo's assassin Fiona Volpe when, while dancing with her, he turns so her own agents shoot her instead of Bond. He sets her down at a nearby table, telling the people that “She's just dead.” It’s not his best pun. Bond tells Largo's woman, Domino, the truth about her brother, and the film's climax features a major underwater battle between SPECTRE and U.S. Navy seals sent by Bond's U.S. ally Felix Leiter. Largo's boat splits in two, and he escapes on the front half with one of the warheads. Bond pursues, and during their struggle it is Domino who fires a harpoon, killing Largo. As the Navy retrieves them from the ocean, Bond once again gets the girl.
The fifth in the official series would finally introduce viewers and Bond to Blofeld, and would be Connery's last consecutive time playing Bond. Bond appears to die early in the film, in the bed of a Chinese consort. When she leaves, the bed flips up into the wall as assassins rush in and spray machine gun fire. Later, Bond is given a burial at sea, where his body is retrieved and he is revealed to be alive and well with a breathing device.
This may be the weakest of the Connery Bond films. While Thunderball was average in comparison to its predecessors, elements of You Only Live Twice strain credibility. In agitating the cold war between the U.S. and Russia, SPECTRE uses a rocket that literally swallows other rockets in space, so each country believes the other responsible for the loss of their men and ships. Bond's death is faked to allow him freedom in investigating this situation, and calls for him to travel to Japan and change his appearance to Japanese. Connery's eyes are taped back as he's fitted with a black wig, and he gets some ninja training as well. I'm not sure how politically correct that was in 1967, but my main concern is the plausibility. Of course, trademark accent and all, later in his career Connery would portray a Russian submarine commander, so it wouldn't be the last time belief had to be sustained.
Eventually, after a fake wedding and some other trivial events, Bond infiltrates a SPECTRE base concealed inside a volcano. It's one of the more impressive lairs in the series and one of the better points of the film. Inside, he comes face to scarred face with Blofeld for the first time. The villain wastes time sharing his plans, Bond manages to escape and open the volcano's blast doors, allowing ninja's to invade, and a battle ensues as Blofeld flees. This is the first film in which the main villain escapes, as Bond and his ninja allies have other concerns. He prevents the theft of another spacecraft, ensuring that the cold war will not become a hot one. While in this film Blofeld is the standard antagonist, he takes on a more significant role by the end of the next one....
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This concludes the second installment in this series, but Words About Bond will return!
In 1952, writer Ian Fleming created the British secret agent James Bond. The character's gone on to appear in over 20 films in the last half-century, and inspire or influence countless other movies and television series. As a child, I was only able to catch bits and pieces on television, as my mom felt there were too many “dirty women” in those pictures. Now that I've nearly caught up on all of the world's longest-running series, it's interesting to note that most are PG or PG-13, and tame by today's standards. Over the next few weeks I'll provide short reviews of these films, leading up to the November release of the most recent adventure, Casino Royale. There will be spoilers, so skip ahead as needed.
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1Casino Royale Bond: Barry Nelson Villain: Le Chiffre (Peter Lorre) Many changes were made to the original novel when it was adapted for an episode of the television series Climax!, including making Bond an American. I was able to catch this classic first appearance of the character on camera when it was included on the DVD for 1967's Casino Royale(more on that jumbled spoof later). The basic premise of the agent infiltrating a casino to catch the villain remains intact as does his name. There are no gadgets here, only a henchman with a knife concealed in an umbrella. His daring escape is made from a bathtub, where he and the show's female lead are tied up and, in true Bond fashion, left unattended to formulate an escape.
2Dr. No Bond: Sean Connery Villain: Dr. No (Joseph Wiseman) Henchmen: Three Blind Mice Bond Girl: Honey Ryder (Ursula Andress) Dr. No is the first film in the official series, and the debut of Connery in perhaps his most famous role. He quickly established Bond's fighting acumen and keen wit. Ursula Andress appears as the first Bond girl, emerging from the sea in a bikini on the villain's island that Bond has just infiltrated. Startled to see anyone, she asks if he too is looking for shells as she is. “No,” he replies with a wry grin, “I'm just looking.” Though Dr. No's lair is somewhat dated by today's standards, as are the radiation suits he and his underlings wear in their nuclear laboratory, it establishes the tradition of the official series of the final confrontation at the villain's lair. It's also the first time we see the trademark opening gun barrel sequence. To introduce the character, a scene is borrowed from Casino Royale, placing Bond at a card table, not for the last time in the series. When asked her name, the woman across from the still off-camera Connery replies, “Trench. Sylvia Trench. And you?” The camera finally shows Connery as the theme music plays and he introduces himself: “Bond. James Bond.”
Other firsts include the introduction of Bond's boss M(Bernard Lee), M's secretary Miss Moneypenny(Lois Maxwell), weapons supplier Q(Peter Burton), and CIA agent Felix Leiter(Jack Lord). Lee would portray M for 12 films, while Maxwell's Moneypenny would appear in 14. This would be the only time Lord would portray Leiter, and with one exception that character has always been played by a different actor every time he appeared. In Dr. No, Q does little more than replace Bond's gun, supplying him with a Walther PPK for the first time. Burton would not return to the role.
3From Russia With Love Bond: Sean Connery Villain(s): Rosa Klebb,Ernst Stavro Blofeld(off-camera) Henchman: ”Red” Grant(Robert Shaw) Bond Girl: Tatiana Romanova(Daniela Bianchi) Connery's second outing as Bond is the first of appearance of Desmond Llewelyn as Q. Llewelyn supplied Bond with gadgets in 17 films in the official series. In this film, Bond must escort a Tatiana Romanova, a beautiful Russian defector, through Turkey onboard a train. Romanova's defection is originally a ruse to trap Bond so the evil organization SPECTRE can get revenge for the loss of their agent Dr. No, but she ends up falling in love with Bond instead. Bond gets some help in Turkey from Kerim Bey, played by Pedro Armendariz who discovered he had terminal cancer during filming but finished his final role before committing suicide. His son would later appear in another Bond film, Licence to Kill.
Bond “dies” before the movie even begins, as SPECTRE agent “Red” Grant hunts down and kills a man in a Connery mask. Despite this training, when he impersonates a British agent on the train to gain the real Bond's trust, he fails to defeat the genuine article. Bond and Romanova succeed in their journey, only to have Romanova's boss Klebb show up to finish him herself. Romanova's betrayal allows them to get the best of the villainess and, as always, Bond gets the girl. Be sure to also look for a brief appearance by Eunice Gayson at the beginning of the film as she briefly reprises her role as Sylvia Trench, the only time a Bond girl returns in a sequel.
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That's all we have time for today. Look for future installments of Words About Bond in the near future!
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MCF is a mild-mannered
artist from the suburbs.
His knowledge of obscure
comic book characters
is more powerful than Gladiator
of the Shi'ar Imperial Guard on
an ego-trip. Able to leap topics
in a single sentence faster than
a speeder-bike on the moon of
Endor, MCF has never written
about himself in the third person
and now dreads the day he
utters aloud the fateful phrase,
"MCF is gettin' upset!"
