James Bond: The Wrap-up

Wow, so it took a lot longer than expected, but we have finally gone through all the Eon-produced Bond films. Of course, as a new film is released, I will be sure to promptly review it and rank it in its proper place.  And someday I would like to review the "unofficial" Bond films, such as Never Say Never Again and 1967's Casino Royale, but I think it is a time to take a short break from our British super spy!

Watching all the films again, in order, was truly a fascinating experience.  For better or worse, the franchise changed with the times, accurately judging the latest fads that audiences were into and capitalizing on them.  Sometimes that meant you were getting lean and hungry spy thrillers, and sometimes that meant James Bond was going to space!

This flexibility is also what allowed the franchise to survive longer than any other.  Historically, most film series would chug along until the studios felt the audiences had lost interest, and then they would be put out to pasture.  Bond was different.  When Cubby Broccoli felt the audiences tuning out, he would tweak the formula to get them back in.  We see this phenomenon more often today, as old franchises are rebooted for modern sensibilities. But Eon Productions was ahead of the curve; they’ve been playing this game and playing it well for over half a century.

First things first, here is my final ranking to all the Bond films, as well as links to their individual reviews.  I don’t feel entirely confidant about the middle of the list, as some of these films really shift in their spots depending on my mood.  But I am confident about the films that are in the bottom, and even more confident about Casino Royale being at the top. It really is that terrific.

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

I also wanted to rank the actors who played Bond themselves.  I have already spent some time going into this, but thought it would be important to official rank them here at the end.  The good thing is that I feel the Bond producers have almost always hit the mark with their lead character, only having missed the target once.  I truly do not like Lazenby as Bond, even though I have liked him in other films.  The rest of the performers playing the iconic role have been excellent choices – though only two have been the perfect package.

1. Sean Connery – the first, the best, the man who made Bond what he is.  Connery perfectly embodied all the elements that Bond needed – he was ruthless and believable as both a spy and a warrior, he was charming and debonair, he could handle a good pun and was completely at home flirting with the ladies. He is universally considered the best, and for a good reason.

2. Pierce Brosnan – the man born to be Bond.  He is the only other actor who I feel really embraced all the different elements of the character.  I do feel that he took a different approach to the character, however. As mentioned in earlier reviews, I always felt that Connery was a fighter who taught himself to be a suave man of the world.  Brosnan seems to me to be the opposite.  He was a charming and roguish prep school kid who then learned how to fight.  However you come into the role, I still feel these are two actors who most embodied everything Bond could and should be.  People discount Brosnan sometimes because his movies were not the best (and two of them are close to the worst), but they should really revisit those films just to observe Brosnan himself.  He truly was born to play the role.

3. Daniel Craig – another bruiser who became debonair, like Connery.  No actor has so fully embraced the flaws in Bond’s character, especially his arrogance, as Craig has.  His Bond is not a role model.  He has deep rooted problems. Craig is dangerous and is excellent in action mode. Admittedly, I don’t think he is as strong in the lady and comedy department. While part of this is because his films are more serious, he has had some opportunities to show off Bond’s lighter side.  And he is fine at it, just not remarkable. Can he nail the one-liner like Connery, Brosnan and Moore?  Sometimes he can, but sometimes the jokes fall a bit flat. And his Bond is also missing one important component – Bond has a certain joie de vivre.  He genuinely enjoys his work.  Craig’s Bond really seems to hate it, which might be why he tries to leave MI6 every single movie. I know that is a character decision and not necessarily the fault of Craig’s performance, but on the other hand, good producers also know to play to their actor’s strengths. Creative teams see what their actor is good at and they build around it to reinforce those strengths.  And Craig’s brooding anger is a huge asset that you can build around.  It just doesn’t necessarily vibe with a character who just loves being a spy.

4. Roger Moore – talk about someone who loved being a spy! Moore was the perfect Bond for the 1970s. He could play up the absurd, and was terrific at delivering a pun.  And his flirting with the ladies was always entertaining.  Look, could anybody in real life get women to swoon the way Roger Moore’s Bond did?  No, absolutely not. It is completely unrealistic. But in the context of the insane world that Roger Moore’s Bond inhabited – with its iceberg submarines and hovercraft gondolas – yes, I absolutely believe all of these women wanted to sleep with him. Yes, the world was crazy, but Moore’s Bond was in on the joke and winked at the audience through seven movies. Could I take Moore seriously as a dangerous spy?  Not really, though he had his moments.  Were Moore’s fights sometimes clunky and not particularly exciting?  Definitely.  Moore was better at throwing a quip than a punch.  But it is hard to deny that the man was having fun, and we were having fun with him.

5. Timothy Dalton – Dalton was the polar opposite of Roger Moore. Until Daniel Craig arrived on the scene, Dalton was easily the most serious Bond, and certainly the most dangerous.  In fact, if you were to think about which Bond actor fits the mold of a real spy, I would pick Dalton hands down.  I totally believe Dalton as a Cold War superstar, whether it is assassinating KGB agents or stopping heroin smuggling in Afghanistan.  Where he faltered was the other part of Bond's character.  He wasn’t particularly funny, and his romantic scenes always seemed forced. I do understand the producers wanted to tone down Bond’s promiscuity as the headlines of the late 1980s were dominated by the AIDS crisis.  But that doesn’t change the fact that Dalton’s Bond just looks uncomfortable with the ladies.  He just doesn’t want to be there.  He’s acting like he is begrudglingly sleeping with these women because he knows it is expected of him, and he would really rather be off somewhere else, beating up bad guys.  Dalton’s Bond can be a complete stick-in-the-mud (which Craig can also be guilty of).  Though he does sometimes enjoy himself like a true Bond should (look at the sheer pleasure he gets from sliding down the side of a mountain on a cello case in The Living Daylights), that is only the case when he is in the thick of the action, which I feel is only half the equation.

6. George Lazenby – the only terrible Bond. I like all the other actors who have played Bond.  They may have some flaws, but I enjoyed all of them and thought they brought something cool to the role.  But I really do think Lazenby is awful.  And it is nothing against George Lazenby himself.  I’ve seen him in a few other movies and he is fine.  I think he is downright hilarious in his cameo appearance in Kentucky Fried Movie.  But as Bond, I just think he is dull and flat.  Maybe I can give him a pass because this was his first movie and he just didn’t know what he was doing yet.  Maybe if he had accepted that multi-picture deal, he would have grown into the part and developed into a worthy 007.  But in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, he’s just dull and I feel he brings the whole picture down with him.  I don’t believe him as a dangerous spy for a second, he’s not particularly suave or charming, he can’t really deliver a joke, his romantic scenes with Diana Rigg seem forced (apparently, the two actors didn’t like each other very much).  I will say that the man clearly knows how to throw a punch.  So I guess there’s that.

Okay, now that we got that out of the way, let’s go into a few other iconic Bond “elements” that I didn’t really get into during my reviews. There are a lot of pieces of the James Bond formula, aspects that have now become just as iconic as the character himself, and it would irresponsible for me not to mention them!


Best Bond Song:

The Bond films are now famous for their opening credit songs. As every new film goes into production, people wait with anticipation to see which artist has been Selected for the opening credits.  It’s a brilliant marketing ploy to build buzz, sell soundtrack CDs, and potentially bring a new audience to your movie. Seriously, how many hardcore Adele fans do you really think would have seen Skyfall if she hadn’t performed the opening number?

Just like the films themselves, the Bond songs have kept up with the popular trends of the day, and a number of huge hits have come out of the franchise. I generally prefer the brass-heavy or faster-paced songs, but the franchise is just as well known for its slower ballads.  There are some truly great songs in the canon: Diamonds are Forever, You Know My Name, Skyfall, Goldeneye and A View to a Kill - the last of which gets a special nod because the first 20 seconds are the coolest James Bond has ever sounded.  The whole song is good, but those first 20 seconds...brilliant!

But in the end, these songs (except for the aforementioned 20 seconds) are just honorable mentions. There are two true titans of the franchise, two songs are so good they need to be separated from the rest of the pack. These songs are not just the best Bond songs, but should be considered among the best songs written for any film ever.

Paul McCartney’s Live and Let Die is so dynamic and thrilling that it was used as the soundtrack for the entire film, and was somehow perfectly appropriate for both the love and action scenes.

And then there is Goldfinger – the perfect Bond song - full of towering brass and featuring the titanic vocals of Shirley Bassey.  This was also the first time that the song was dedicated to the villain of the film, which I think is just hilarious.


Opening Title Sequence:

For better or worse, the franchise has also become famous for its elaborately designed opening credit sequences, popularized by the late, great Maurice Binder.  Stylized and always heavily symbolic, these opening title sequences ranged from octopus tentacles engulfing the screen to footage of the characters projected on gold-painted belly dancers (and yes, it is just as weird as it sounds).  The title sequences were probably most famous (and infamous) during the Roger Moore years when they truly went off the rails – often featuring blue-tinted nude silhouettes dancing, bouncing on trampolines, swinging off of giant gun barrels (with the guns often serving as the ultimate phallic symbol). They are bizarre and often unintentionally funny, but I wouldn’t call them good, necessarily.

For the best title sequence, I am going to have to go with Goldeneye – it features all the hallmarks of the Bond title sequences (tinted colors and silhouetted dancers), but they are dancing on top of crumbling monuments of Cold War Russia – and in some cases, smashing these monuments apart with giant hammers.  What is a perfect symbol of the uncertain era that Bond is about to enter – a chaotic new world where it isn’t always as clear who the good guys and bad guys are.  It’s pretty brilliant.

Best Pre-Credits Sequence:

Bond was also the first franchise to feature a pre-credits tease, a little mini adventure for audiences to enjoy before the film actually gets started.  Sometimes these pre-credit sequences are connected to the main plot, sometimes they are completely random.  But you can always count on a Bond film to start with one.  There have been a number of truly superb sequences, including the stylized black & white scene in Casino Royale where a newly minted 007 gets his first kills.  But for my money, you have to go back to Goldfinger for the best.  This short adventure is Bond at his most iconic – everything we know about Bond’s character and the formula that has served is his character so well for decades is featured in this tight 5-minute sequence.

Bond sneaks into the villain’s base in a wet suit, plants some explosives and then peels off his wet suit to reveal a tuxedo underneath so he can go to a swanky night club nearby.  We have some sneaky spy work, a few well-choreographed fights and even some spare time to make out with the local belly dancer.  And who can forget Bond giving one of his best Bond puns.  After electrocuting a bad guy at the end of a fight, he looks around in disgust, mutters “shocking” to himself and walks out.  If there is a sequence that manages to literally define everything Bond is about in under 5 minutes, this is it.


Best Bond Villain:

I know the answer is supposed to be Ernst Stavro Blofeld.  As the leader of SPECTRE, Blofeld is Bond’s ultimate nemesis and has plagued him for multiple films.  But honestly, I feel the franchise has always sort of missed the mark with Blofeld.  He was at his most terrifying and powerful when he was not seen, when he was just a faceless, intimidating voice in a Board Room full of villains.  As soon as he started appearing in the films, he somehow became less scary.  Whether it was Telly Savalas, Charles Gray, Donald Pleasance or Christoph Waltz, I never thought Blofeld was a truly credible threat.  Instead, Blofeld’s henchmen were always more menacing – Dr. No, Red Grant, Fiona Volpe, even Mr. White and Silva in the Craig movies (following the logic that both worked for SPECTRE).  But they all pale in comparison to the greatest henchman in the Bond movies, and maybe in any movie: the unforgettable Oddjob! 

I have loved Oddjob, played by Hawaiian actor (and Olympic medialist!) Harold Sakata, ever since I saw him crush those golf balls with his bare hands in Goldfinger.  The guy doesn’t have a line of dialogue, but his silence, with that “I am better than you” smirk permanently plastered on his face, is sublimely and menacingly perfect.  I love that he has an unbelievable weapon (a killer hat he throws at people) that is somehow made believable by his badassness.  And I love that Bond truly cannot defeat him.  He just can’t.  Oddjob mops the floor with him.  In order to win, Bond has to cheat.  I’ve always loved that.  So for me, this really isn’t a difficult choice.  Oddjob is my favorite villain, hands down.


Best Bond Stunt: 

The franchise has also become famous for its stunt work.  Lately, thanks to the vast improvements in digital effects, Bond's stunts have become a bit less flashy.  But back in the day, there was a lot of buzz about the next big stunt - whether it was the record setting bungie jump in Goldeneye or the 18-wheel tractor trailer that pops a wheelie in License to Kill...or the entire winter sequence in For Your Eyes Only that is more imaginative and stunt-laden than most chase scenes today.

But there are a few amazing sequences that rise to the top.  Here are my picks for top three stunts in Bond history below:

Coming in at #3, is The Spy Who Loved Me.  While the franchise had employed a lot of fantastic stunt work in the past, this is the film where they really said, "hey, audiences, guess what?  We are about to blow your mind!"  And when James Bond skies off that mountaintop (another record-breaking moment for the franchise) and deploys his Union Jack parachute, audiences were given one of the most iconic stunts in movie history.  And minds were indeed blown!

Then at #2 - we have what is easily the best car stunt ever, featured in Man with the Golden Gun.  This stunt is important in movie history because it was the first stunt to ever be conceived and calculated with a computer program.  There was some debate among my friends about whether this stunt was real or not, but I assure you it was.  This was an actual car with an actual driver, a driver who thought he was going to die, and who refused to do a second take when the first take miraculously went off without a hitch.  So enjoy this awesome car stunt.  I urge you to watch this with no sound, because the stupid slide whistle pretty much ruins the whole thing!

And now, at #1, the best stunt in James Bond history!  The cargo net fight in The Living Daylights.  Sure, in the tighter shots, this is Timothy Dalton fighting in a studio.  But for the wide shots...those are literally two stunt men hanging off the back of a cargo plane...this is an incredibly dangerous and awe-inspiring stunt once you realize what those stunt men are actually doing and how life-threatening it is...well, I'll just let the video do the rest of the talking:

Best Bond Girl:

Last but not least, the Bond Girl has become an enduring and iconic part of the franchise. The Bond Girl has become such a key ingredient of the franchise that there is actually an entire documentary about the phenomenon (Bond Girls are Forever).  It’s an exclusive club – though in fairness, these actresses were often given nothing to do except to look pretty and get rescued.  There is certainly a lot of sexism in these films, and watching how many of the female characters are treated, especially in the older films, can at times be uncomfortable.  But there are also a lot of empowered and progressive Bond Girls – badasses like Pussy Galore (Honor Blackman), Xenia Onatopp (Framke Janssen), Tracy (Diana Rigg), and Agent Mai (Michelle Yeoh) who go toe-to-toe with Bond and serve as equal partners or powerful villains.

So who is the best Bond Girl? I know I am supposed to say Ursula Andress in Dr. No.  She was the first, and she has that famous entrance as she walks out of the ocean with a knife in her belt, like some sort of armed Venus de Milo.  It's an iconic moment, and rightly so.  And for that beach walk alone, she probably should go near the top of the list.  But I would never put her at No.1 because after that iconic entrance, she kinda…doesn’t do anything.  She’s just there, serving no purpose and adding nothing of value (except for her looks, of course).  So who would I pick in her place?
 
It's also tough to choose just one because the Good Bond Girls and Bad Bond Girls are so different and hard to compare to each other.  So I will pick a favorite in each of the three categories.

For the Bad Bond Girl, I love Fiona Volpe (Luciana Paluzzi) from Thunderball, one of the few truly dangerous villains in Bond’s rogue’s gallery. One could argue that she is actually smarter than Bond; she’s almost always one step ahead of him.

For the Good Bond Girl, I would say Vesper Lynn (Eva Green) is terrific in Casino Royale; she is the one Bond Girl that I honestly believed the character could fall in love with.  Her arc in that film is positively heart-breaking.

But wait, I hear you say, you mentioned three categories. Was that a typo?  Definitely not!  There is of course the important third category, the Bond Girl That I Would Most Likely Fall In Love With...and that is without a doubt Solitaire from Live and Let Die, played by Jane Seymour.  Because it is Jane Seymour.  And...well, yeah, there really isn't much else to say about that.  It's Jane Seymour.

So there we go.  That’s it.  This series of reviews is over!  This has been a fun experiment, and while I hope you enjoyed revisiting this franchise as much as I did.

But I’ll be honest, I do look forward to reviewing other films again!

Until next time…

Licence to Kill

Licence to Kill

And now we come to the franchise killer, Licence to Kill.

Financially unsuccessful and generally derided, Licence to Kill is almost always ranked at or near the bottom of the canon.

And that is totally unjustified.  Certainly not without its major problems, Licence to Kill just isn't that bad, and it attempts to nudge the franchise in a direction that it wouldn't experiment with again until the Daniel Craig years.

There are a number of reasons why people don't like this movie.  Among the biggest complaints is the plot itself.  Bond neither takes on enemy spies nor is the squeaky wheel that ruins the nefarious plans of megalomaniacs; Licence to Kill has much smaller fish to fry.  There is a nasty drug kingpin named Sanchez (Robert Davi), and Bond is gonna bring him down.  But even if the world is not at stake in this film, there are very personal issues to wrestle with. Sanchez attacked CIA agent and longtime Bond ally Felix Leiter (David Hedison) on his wedding night, killing his bride and lowering him into a shark tank until his legs were eaten off.  Now Bond wants revenge.  M and his other superiors at MI6 tell him back off.  So Bond goes rogue, determined to take down Sanchez on his own.

Nowadays, the idea of Bond quitting MI6 doesn't seem like a big deal.  Pierce Brosnan abandoned MI6 in Die Another Day, and it seems like Daniel Craig has made a nasty habit of it in most of his movies.  But in 1989, this was pretty shocking.  Bond was the Britain's secret weapon, loyal to Queen and country.  He never loses his cool, and to have him desert his post to fight some feisty drug dealer was surprising and controversial to many.  It doesn't bother me, especially since Licence to Kill features Bond doing more genuine undercover spy work than Roger Moore did during his entire tenure. He works his way down to Mexico, infiltrates Sanchez's gang and sets out to destroy it from the inside.

There is actually a lot of interesting stuff going on in this film, and it has a lot of good qualities. Timothy Dalton takes the seriousness and sense of danger up another notch in this film, making his run in The Living Daylights seem almost joyous in comparison. He's cruel and dangerous here, and that is cool to see.  I think the rest of the cast also does good work, particularly Carey Lowell as Bond's new CIA ally Pam Bouvier, and Robert Davi and a VERY young Benicio del Toro as the villains.  Long-time Bond helmer John Glen's direction is assured and reliable (he is even quoted as saying this is his favorite Bond film), and there are some exciting stunts - including some ridiculous tricks with 18-wheeler trucks, which would be laughably bad if it weren't for the fact that they were really doing them!  That makes the absurd become something impressive!

On the other hand, I don't want to defend the film too much.  Licence to Kill is definitely not some sort of misunderstood masterpiece.  It has some serious problems.  This is a long film, and it could have used some serious stream-lining. And entire subplot with Wayne Newton really serves no purpose and is just a time-kill.  The film is utterly devoid of any humor at all, which is definitely a mistake.  I really do feel that a key component of this franchise is that Bond enjoys his job, and we enjoy watching him enjoy his job.  Licence to Kill is just way too grim.  A shark ate off Felix's legs, for crying out loud!

And of course, if I am listing the horrible thing in this movie, I have to reserve a space for Carey Lowell's bad wig in her first scenes.  Thank goodness they let her go with her natural short hair for the rest of the movie. Yeesh.

But the biggest problem is that there are stretches where Licence to Kill just doesn't feel like a Bond film.  Ultimately, I think the quality that had been Bond's greatest strength for two decades backfired this time around - and by that, I mean the ability to adapt with the times.  The late 1980s was the heyday of the rated R action movie, and stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone ruled the box office.  Gore and violence was in.  This was the age of Lethal Weapon, Robocop, Die Hard, Commando, Predator, and Rambo...and James Bond wanted to cash in.  There are some truly grisly deaths in Licence to Kill - shockingly so for a PG-13 movie.

The other way the producers bowed to the issues of the late 1980s was by making Bond monogamous because of the AIDs crisis - he only sleeps with Pam Bouvier in this film.  And while it is noble that they wanted to acknowledge what continues to be a very serious crisis, it is certainly out of character for Bond to ignore all the other women in the film.

I know the Daniel Craig films are also grim, and it must drive Timothy Dalton up the wall that Craig's tenure is praised for the very reasons that Dalton's tenure is derided.  But the simple fact of the matter is that by trying to pursue what was popular in the late 1980s, Licence to Kill loses track of what makes Bond so special and unique. It devolves into your standard late 1980s revenge flick, just with a better actor in the lead.  And that is a very serious problem, and certainly contributed to its under performance.

Licence to Kill took a beating at the box office for another reason - bad luck.  The film was released in 1989, which was a bonanza year for franchises.  It just got swallowed up by franchise films like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Ghostbusters 2, Batman, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, Back to the Future II, Karate Kid 3, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, and Star Trek V.  Wow.  No wonder the film failed to ignite the box office.

But here is where I need to defend the film's legacy.  It was not a disaster.  It did not kill the franchise. Yes, for awhile it did look like there would be no more Bond films, but that had nothing to do with Licence to Kill.  There was a run of bad luck. Ongoing fierce legal battles with a bankrupt MGM (the parent company of Bond's distributor, United Artists) left the franchise mired in lawsuits and tangled in development hell.  With the production seemingly delayed indefinitely, Dalton retired from the role (important to note - he left; he wasn't let go). After five films, director John Glen also decided to throw in the towel.  Then two of Bond's iconic team members passed away - open titles designer Maurice Binder and screenwriter Richard Maibaum, both of whom had been with the franchise since Dr. No.  Worst of all, Cubby Broccoli himself had to step back from the driver's seat, as he was struggling with serious health concerns.

You can't blame Licence to Kill, but for a few years, it really was starting to look like James Bond was dead.  Thank goodness for Goldeneye.


RANKINGS:

This was a tough film to rank.  Licence to Kill has its problems, but its not a badly made film.  I think it is going to rest nicely right below Live and Let Die...squarely in the middle of the pack.

1. Thunderball
2. From Russia with Love
3. Goldfinger
4. The Spy Who Loved Me
5. The Living Daylights
6. Dr. No
7. Octopussy
8. For Your Eyes Only
9. Live and Let Die
10. Licence to Kill
11. Man with the Golden Gun
12. Diamonds are Forever
13. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
14. Moonraker
15. You Only Live Twice
16. A View to a Kill

BEST LINE:

When Bond is arguing with M about seeking vengeance against Frank Sanchez:

M:  This private vendetta of yours could easily compromise Her Majesty's government.  You have an assignment, and I expect you to carry it out objectively and professionally. 

James Bond: Then you have my resignation, sir.

M (furious): We're not a country club, 007!

TRIVIA:

The scene where Bond confronts M and then resigns from MI6 was filmed in Ernest Hemingway's old house in Key West.  Hence the line: "Well, I suppose this is a farewell to arms."  Ah, you gotta love inside jokes...

MVP:

What is the best thing about Licence to Kill?  Despite my earlier criticism of Timothy Dalton's humorless take on the role, he is still clearly the best thing about the movie.  He's a consummate professional and he was willing to take the character to some truly dark and dangerous places, and that needs to be applauded. And I do feel bad that he gets slammed for some of the same reasons Daniel Craig is praised.  It seems hardly fair!

The Living Daylights

The Living Daylights

Despite the fact that A View to a Kill is almost unwatchable in my opinion, the film still managed to be a financial success.  But it was clear to everyone that Roger Moore could no longer appear in the role of James Bond - most of all to Moore himself.  Change was in the air.  And it wasn't only the lead actor who needed to be a refresh.  The genius of producer Albert Broccoli is that he kept adapting the franchise to fit with the times.  While the essence of the Bond character stayed the same, the approach to the films shifted considerably over the decades.  If you didn't already know going in, it would be almost inconceivable that Dr. No and A View to a Kill belonged to the same franchise.  And now, in 1987, it was time to rock the boat again.  No more over-the-top baddies imbued with super strength by the Nazis and no more killer blimps.  It was time to bring Bond back to reality.

With the Cold War heating up again, Bond (Timothy Dalton, The Lion in Winter) is assigned to help Soviet general Koskov (Jeroen Krabbe, The Fugitive) defect from East Germany.  During the post-defection debriefing in a MI-6 safehouse, Kostov reveals that the KGB is launching an initiative called "Smiert Spionom," which translates to "Death to all Spies."  Basically, the KGB is going to target all Western spies to escalate tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union.  Before he can go into more details, the safehouse is attacked by KGB operative Necros (Andreas Wisniewski, Die Hard).  After wreaking havoc, Necros kidnaps Koskov and escapes.  Deciding that "Smiert Spionom" is more important than recovering Koskov, M orders Bond to assassinate the head of the KGB (John Rhys Davies, Raiders of the Lost Ark) before international tensions turn into full scale war.

Of course, being a Bond film, there is more to the story, but why spoil it?  Instead of super villains and secret lairs, we are given a true Cold War thriller, and for the most part, it really is quite good.   The plot is interesting, the action and stunts are great, John Glen's direction is assured, and John Barry's music delivers the goods.  The villains, which also include an American arms dealer Brad Whitaker (Joe Don Baker, Walking Tall), are all entertaining. Wisniewski is particularly effective as the henchman Necros, towering over Timothy Dalton, and participating in two of the franchise best fights since the Sean Connery days.

The movie certainly has its problems. Bond's allies this time are a bit less engaging than the villains. The main Bond girl Kara (Maryam D'Abo, The Browning Version) is Kostov's girlfriend and an accomplished cellist, and really does not belong in the movie after the first 45-minutes.  Her role in the plot complete, she is only there to serve as a distraction to Bond and the audience, and that is a bit annoying.  I also found the attempts at humor to fall a bit flat; a leftover feature from the Roger Moore years that seems at odds with the new tone being established here.  It does seem like everyone is working through the process, looking to see what works and what doesn't with their new approach. That results in a few bumps on the road - but only a few.  For the most part, this really is quite a good film and easily ranks in the top half of the franchise.

And what about Dalton?  The Welsh actor is considered one of the "lesser" Bonds, probably because he only made two films and the latter one appeared at one point to be the franchise killer (until Pierce Brosnan brought the Bonds roaring back).  In general, Dalton is dismissed with a "meh" and his films are considering forgettable.  I find this all very confusing.  First of all, Living Daylights was a well regarded success upon its release and Dalton's second film License to Kill is nowhere near as bad as people say. And as for Dalton himself - people seem to criticize him for doing exactly what Daniel Craig is praised for - bringing some darkness and danger to the character.  This criticism must drive Dalton crazy!  Overall, I think Dalton is really quite good.  He brings a new physicality to the role, throwing himself into fights and stunts that Roger Moore hadn't been able to do for a decade.  He is also utterly believable as a dangerous and cold-hearted spy. In fact, Dalton might get the "spy" piece of the Bond character better than any of the other actors who played the part; he is downright brilliant. Unfortunately, there are a few other important pieces to the Bond character than Dalton is not quite as good at. He is generally not very believable with the ladies; it's almost as if he is being forced to sleep with them.  And he is also mostly humorless, even more so than Craig.  A key part of Bond is that he enjoys being Bond.  Dalton's Bond is focused on his duty and doing what's right, but he is not necessarily enjoying himself in the process, and I don't think that was the right approach to take.  But all in all, I think that can be forgiven. He is a great actor and he is doing really good work in this role. He deserves to be re-evaluated!

Okay, back to the movie.  As I mentioned above, it's far from perfect. But The Living Daylights is a good and sometimes even great entry in this franchise.  Definitely see it!

RANKINGS:
Okay, The Living Daylights shoots right up to the top of the list - not in the upper echelon, but close.  It is certainly better than all of Roger Moore's films, except for The Spy Who Loved Me.  That's one of the classics and would be hard to top, but I think Dalton's first entry to the franchise fits comfortably just below it.

1. Thunderball
2. From Russia with Love
3. Goldfinger
4. The Spy Who Loved Me
5. The Living Daylights
6. Dr. No
7. Octopussy
8. For Your Eyes Only
9. Live and Let Die
10. Man with the Golden Gun
11. Diamonds are Forever
12. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
13. Moonraker
14. You Only Live Twice
15. A View to a Kill

BEST LINE:
Bond: Stuff my orders.  I only kill professionals.  That girl didn't know one end of her rifle from the other. Go ahead. Tell M what you want. If he fires me, I'll thank him for it...Whoever she was, I must have scared the living daylights out of her.

TRIVIA:
Bond casting is always an interesting source of trivia.  It really is a huge deal whenever the part is recast; you are replacing an icon and the world knows it.  A number of interesting choices have been considered for the part, everyone from Cary Grant to James Brolin to Mel Gibson.  In fact, Pierce Brosnan was almost cast in The Living Daylights (I'll save that trivia for my Goldeneye review) before the producers decided on Timothy Dalton.  Dalton was also almost cast on multiple occasions before finally getting the role.  When Sean Connery left the series after You Only Live Twice, Dalton was considered for the part.  I don't know if Broccoli and Saltzman decided to look elsewhere or if Dalton turned down the part, but I think this was the right call - Dalton was way too young at that point.  He never would have worked (even if he would have saved me the torture of having to watch George Lazenby).  He was considered again in 1971 after Diamonds are Forever, and again in 1981 in For Your Eyes Only, when it wasn't clear whether or not Roger Moore was returning.  In fact, he was actually offered the role for Octopussy and A View to a Kill, but turned them both down due to scheduling conflicts.  So Broccoli really, really liked Dalton enough to chase him for twenty years!

MVP:
For The Living Daylights, I am not going to say a person.  Yes, I like Dalton.  And I like the direction by John Glen and the music score by John Barry (his last Bond score, by the way).  No, the MVP for The Living Daylights is not a person.  It is a stunt.  Probably one of the coolest stunts I have ever seen!  Spoilers here: Bond's final fight with Necros takes place in the cargo hold of a military plane The loading door of the plane opens and both combatants slide out of the plane, just barely grabbing ahold of a cargo net to keep them from falling to their deaths.  And then they proceed to fight while hanging on this net.  And two stunt men really spent hours filming scenes of punching each other while being dragged around by a cargo plane. The closeups are obviously filmed on a set, but the wide shots were filmed pretty damn high.  That is just insane.  INSANE! And incredibly dangerous.  My hats off to the stunt team.  I have to say this is the best stunt in franchise history! And an easy winner for my MVP award.

Here it is if you want to see it:

BOND...JAMES BOND

Bond is my franchise.  Let me just get that out there.  It was something I realized around the time of Casino Royale (2006).  As a child of the 1980s, I grew up in a time when franchises were really beginning to explode, and I was raised on a healthy diet of Star Wars, Star Trek, Indiana Jones and James Bond.  Since then, I have seen all of these franchises hit some dark days.  In fact, in some ways, I'm not sure I want those franchises to survive.  I think many of us would agree that the Star Wars prequels and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull almost killed Star Wars and Indiana Jones, respectively (even if they did make a lot of money).  We'll see what Disney has in store for these series moving forward, but my expectations are not that high.  And Star Trek, while I like the cast and found the first reboot to be genuinely entertaining, was not really Star Trek to me.  It felt more like J.J. Abrams' demo reel to get the Star Wars gig.

So why do I prefer Bond to those others?  Longevity and consistency.  Look, there is not a single James Bond film that is as good the original Star Wars Trilogy, Raiders of the Lost Ark, or Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.  No Bond film even comes close to hitting the triumphant peaks that those films reached.  And yet, the character and the formula of Bond endures.  And unlike other franchises, there doesn't seem to be a lot of second guessing.  If Eon Productions makes a bad Bond film, they shrug their shoulders, fix what isn't working, and then move on to the next one.  There is comfort in that consistency.

There is also the matter of Bond himself.  I hear Disney is rebooting Indiana Jones with a new actor in the lead.  That's not gonna work.  Indiana Jones is Harrison Ford.  Bond is bigger than any of the actors who played him.  He has entered the territory of Sherlock Holmes, Dracula, and other icons who are far more important than the actors who are playing them.  I think that is an important point that needs to be made.

As far as I'm concerned, the Indiana Jones series ended with The Last Crusade.  Star Wars only had three films that ended in 1983, and Star Trek was ruined by the Next Generation's cast moving to the big screen (three out of those four films were garbage, and even the good one, First Contact, was only okay).

Nope.  It's official. Bond is my franchise.

One of the longest continuing film series in history, James Bond was the literary creation of Ian Fleming, a British author who had spent time as a naval intelligence officer in World War 2.  While his war service was nowhere near as adventurous as Bond's career, it did give the books a bit of authenticity.  I always felt that Bond was the spy Fleming wished he could have been, but that might just be me reading into it too much!   Either way, the books were hits, and it didn't take long for Hollywood to come calling.

The first Bond adaptation was the Casino Royale episode of the Climax TV show.  It featured Barry Nelson as American (not British) spy James Bond and weaselly Peter Lorre as the villainous Le Chiffre.  I think most people just consider Casino Royale as an interesting side note and mark the true beginning of Bond's cinematic career when producers Harry Saltzman and Cubby Broccoli teamed up in 1962 to make Dr. No.  And that is where I will begin my reviews.

I plan on watching all these films and reviewing them in order, and ranking them as I go.  It will be fascinating to watch the series change as the decades pass, always riding a wild roller coaster from fairly serious and realistic to over-the-top special effects bonanzas, and then back again, always staying current by cashing in on current trends (including even Blaxploitation, Kung Fu and the Star Wars films) and continually riding on the timeless coattails of one of the most entertaining characters in movie history.  This is going to be fun.

So let's get going!

The Tourist

The Tourist

I was actually excited about The Tourist. The teaming of Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp in a Hitchcockian light-hearted romp through Venice seemed appealing. Then the movie came out to middling and bored reviews, and my enthusiasm waned. But with one of my favorite cities in the world, Venice, being featured prominently, I knew it was just a matter of time before I saw it-for better or worse.

Alexander Pierce is a mysterious fugitive who has stolen a massive amount of money from a gangster and is also wanted by the British authorities (led by Paul Bettany from A Beautiful Mind and a former James Bond, Timothy Dalton) because he owes $744 million in back taxes to England. Pierce’s lover Elise (Angelina Jolie) is told to throw the hunters off his scent by picking a random shlub on the train to Venice and showering him with attention so that the police and the gangsters will suspect him, taking the heat off the real Alexander Pierce. The poor shlub just happens to be Frank (Johnny Depp), a boring math teacher who is visiting Italy. What is supposed to follow is a fun, sexy romp of mistaken identity, thrilling escapes from bad guys and heated chemistry between Elise and Frank.

The problem is, frankly, the movie is kind of boring. Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp never quite work the screen like you want – the problem is the movie doesn’t know what it wants. They have two choices. 1) They can follow the storyline and have the hapless innocent, slightly dull, fish out of water being wooed by a women waaayyy out of his league – in this case, your chemistry should be forced because that is where you get the drama (and the humor). Or 2) the other option is to forget realism and go straight for Hollywood hotness. Who cares if he is playing a boring math teacher; this is Johnny Depp, one of the sexiest men in the world. And he is sharing the screen with one of the sexiest women in the world. Let them smolder! You can go either direction and be effective, but the problem with The Tourist is that they want it both ways and that just can’t work. The movie probably works best when they let Depp play bumbling. His terrified dash into the bathroom when he is first attacked by the Russian gangsters is a funny scene and provided the proper vibe that the whole movie should have had. Instead, the movie's tone wobbles all over the place, with some scenes played for broad laughs and others seemingly deadly serious. The movie is also burdened with a few twists that are in the movie just for the sake of having a twist. The big twist is clearly just there for effect and makes absolutely no sense when you consider the rest of the movie. It is one of the more poorly conceived twists I have seen in a long, long time.

It’s a pity because the movie could have been fun. It looks great, the supporting cast (which also includes Rufus Sewell from Dark City) is solid, and the Venice scenics are stunning to behold. The director is Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, who directed the Oscar-winning The Lives of Others and the writers include the awesome scribes Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects) and Julian Fellowes (Godsford Park). So it really is just a shame the whole thing never quite works. The Tourist desperately wants to be To Catch a Thief, the Hitchcock masterpiece starring Cary Grant and Grace Kelly. Instead, it’s a missed opportunity and a dull one at that.

BEST LINE:

Inspector: "You wish to report a murder?"

Frank: “Attempted murder.”

Police: “That's not so serious.”

Frank: “Not when you downgrade from murder. But when you upgrade it from room service, it's quite serious.”

MVP:

I think I will go with the Director of Photography, the terrific John Seale (Oscar winner for The English Patient). If nothing else, The Tourist is a great looking movie, with terrific use of lighting and composition. When the action on screen wasn’t working for me, I could always switch my brain over and admire Seale's artistry at work. It doesn't hurt that he knows how to capture Venice at her alluring and mysterious best. I think I need to go be a tourist myself...

TRIVIA:

Tom Cruise was originally going to play Frank, but then dropped out. He was replaced by Sam Worthington, who also dropped out due to creative differences. Cruise and Worthington...chose wisely...