most over-rated Bond entry?
crawfordboon
Posts: 126MI6 Agent
Opinions are going to radically differ on this, but there must be 007 films that AJB users think are over-hyped or enjoy excessive reputations. Just thought it would be worth seeing if there was any commonality in what people think are the most overated Bonds.
My vote would go to Goldfiner: the whole is nowhere near as satisfying as the individual iconic moments, the pace is slow at times, Bond spends too much time being captured, and the ending where a scientist, not Bond, defuses the bomb, is limp. Also, there was no logic to Goldfinger's Grand Slam demonstration, since he kills all the delegates almost immediately.
Which Bonds did you think got undeserved levels of praise?
My vote would go to Goldfiner: the whole is nowhere near as satisfying as the individual iconic moments, the pace is slow at times, Bond spends too much time being captured, and the ending where a scientist, not Bond, defuses the bomb, is limp. Also, there was no logic to Goldfinger's Grand Slam demonstration, since he kills all the delegates almost immediately.
Which Bonds did you think got undeserved levels of praise?
Comments
I thing GF ranks highly for most fans (me included) because it's the picture in which Bond's Precious Classic Formula was defined: every subsequent film (except for OHMSS and CR) has adhered to it, albeit with varying degrees of success.
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
Don't get me wrong I don't dislike it but I feel it has this image of being the great big Bond movie of the 60's (which it was) but when one looks at it now something like FRWL is more sophisticated.
Batman: "The Hammer Of Justice is UNISEX!"
-Batman: The Brave & The Bold -
Thanks. I needed that.
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
Batman: "The Hammer Of Justice is UNISEX!"
-Batman: The Brave & The Bold -
Overrated piece of tripe with an overrated Bond (bland), overrated Bond girl (scary), overrated villain (annoying), overrated EVERYTHING ELSE! God enough already, it wasn't that great!!!! X-( X-(
OHMSS and TB aren't my favourites either.
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
I prefer the 67 spoof, it's one that I enjoy (which is a rarity around here). TB also sucks! It's worse than Casino Royale!
OHMSS is the most underrated.
CR, I think, is the best Bond entry in years . . . might be -- at least for me -- the best Bond movie ever. Nice to see a movie adhere to the atmosphere of Fleming's original creation.
-Roger Moore
Roger Moore should have quit before this film.
Someone's gonna have a field day with you calling AVTAK over-rated.
I'd put it on the under-rated list myself (High-fives JFF
-Roger Moore
Well, this is the second AVTAK revelation of the week for me. Hardy coming to it's defence in one thread and now Brosnan_fan naming it as the most over-rated Bond film.
I would also put AVTAK in the under-rated list, but only just. (High-two and a halves, JFF
For Your Eyes Only: I'm sorry, but it's just a B-grade film. There are some good things about it, but if this had been released a couple of years later, it wouldn't have half as good a reputation. Its close proximity to Moonraker means people leapt on it as some sort of wondrous film. But it's just a bit boring, and underpowered; all European locations, and people looking earnest, and the fight for some nebulous, uninteresting device that no-one (including the participants in the film) actually gives a monkey's about.
GoldenEye: it looks cheap. In 1995, it was amazing just to see a Bond film again after such a long gap, but watch it on a triple bill between LTK and TND and you can see the small sets, underpowered action sequences, and shameless product placement that funded half the budget. There is a lot to love about this film, but I demand that a Bond film puts every dollar on the screen, and I don't think that happened here. Plus, there is the most awkward break in a Bond film ever after Bond and Natalya kiss in Russia; from there on the climax feels grafted on from a different script, and distinctly underwhelming after much of St Petersburg has been demolished. At least the jolt in TLD between Tangiers and Afghanistan lead to an enormous cataclysmic war in the Russian army base - here it's two people running around a satellite dish.
And this one will get me shot, but:
Dr No: it's just boring and, all my complaints about GE being cheap, times by ten, and Dr No is boiled to death in a giant condom, and they have a big sign with DANGER LEVEL written on it, which begs the question, why go up to a DANGER LEVEL and not stop before hand? Yes, Connery and Andress and Wiseman are great, and there are some good moments, but I can't get excited about a car chase when Sean Connery is filming his part on a blue screen somewhere, and I can't help noticing that all those "Chinese" people seem to have graduated from the Shirey MacRaine School of Curtural Lerations and are about as Chinese as me ("I am the son of a German missionary and a Chinese girl" - really, Mr Wiseman?!?!), and the good bits of Fleming are banged up against a really cheap and nasty B-movie. Thank God it exists, and it created Bond, and so on, but I really wish I could watch it on a more regular basis.
Should I just hand in my Mod badge now?
@merseytart
YES! Just hand it over to me.
Sorry jetset, disagree entirely about FYEO. However, I do agree with some of your comments, such as GE looking cheap (in part) and those Chinese people in DN looking about as Chinese as you or I. I do think you have to cut DN some slack regarding cheapness and blue screens considering it was made fourty five years ago and the budget (although sizeable for the time) was not that big.
Overall, I do not consider either FYEO, GE or DN to be over-rated.
FRWL
also: TB, GF and GE
"Better make that two."
Over-rated would surely suggest that the film is generally given high regard, so I'd consider TSWLM - often held up as a sacred cow on these boards - to be over-rated.
It certainly looks expensive, the locations are first class and Moore is at the top of his game. But re-watching it recently I considered it juvenile; Barbara Bach makes for a very un-convincing 'highly trained agent' with apparently little muscle- tone and Karate skills that looked as dubious as her acting ability. The wonderful Kurt Jurgens could have been one of the best villains in the series, instead his role was reduced to a series of menacing sound-bites. Moore quipped his way throughout the film, undermining any pretence of the macho qualities that seemed quite promising in his LALD & TMWTGG performances, and ushering in his more comedic style that was to reach a peak in Moonraker. The tone and any moments of tension in the film were constantly being undermined with humour, whether it be with Union Jack parachutes, silly henchmen, attention-grabbing Lotus’s, musical cues... it goes on and on.
Die Another Day is crap, agreed, but I don't think it's overrated. I don't know of anyone here who thinks Die Another Day is any good. Perhaps the general media may have overrated this film, because as an action flick, it's not bad, but as a Bond film, it's seriously lacking.
For me, the most overrated on here is The Spy Who Loved Me. Here you have a madman in Mr Stromberg trying to create a new underwater world. Wow, what a brilliant story, wish I'd thought of that earlier 8-) I also don't like the fact that Bond teams up with a Russian female agent. Fleming's Bond likes to work alone, he had cursed M for sending him a woman to work with him on a "man's job" on several occasions, even if the woman was a British agent. How much more would he despise having to team up with a female Russian agent? That is completely out of character for Bond. Another thing I have against it is that it had no resemblance to the novel whatsoever. Granted that the novel wasn't the best of Fleming's works, but I felt that they could've at least written in the character of Vivienne Michel as the Bond girl in the film. That is the least they could've done to pay homage to Fleming's novel.
I also have to agree with the comments about GoldenEye ... it does look cheap and tacky, and Brosnan's appearance wasn't too flash either - he looked like he badly needed a haircut. I also think that this was the second worst of Brosnan's films - better only than Die Another Day.
-Just kidding folks.
My serious entry for most overrated would have to be Thunderball. It's good, but it's not great. The last sequence really devalues the movie to me. I know it's an old film and these things happen, but it's just soooo bad looking. The last sequence on the boat would have been better if they didnt even try to show the water out the window. I'm sure there would be other ways of convincing viewers that Bond is on a boat that's out of control.
AVTAK? OVER-rated? Brosnan_fan, you are a very, very funny person
Firstly, Moore is portraying an aging spy, world-weary, as you can tell by how angry he is with the death of Tibbett and the whole City Hall sequence. Most label it as a parody but on closer inspection, it may be Moore's most serious outing yet. Barry's score is haunting, with a dark tone all throughout.
Roberts isn't supposed to be playing a tough-as-nails Bond girl per se, she's your average American working woman who was going about her daily routines until Zorin intervened and sent thugs to her house to make sure she caved in and then left her for dead in a burning elevator shaft. If I were her, I'd do more than just yell "Jaaaaaaaames..."
I'm not going to turn this into a "why AVTAK is amazing" post but what do you mean by the "unnecessary cruelty and violence"? Are we talking about the Klotkoff in the fan scene? The elevator shaft? The mine scene slaughter? If you want to see unnecessary cruelty and violence, check out the worst Bond movie in existence, LTK, which also is quite the overrated Bond movie.
And jetset, how does Goldeneye look cheap? It's very much NOT, and what really baffles me is how you say it's moreso cheap looking than "I could make this in my backyard" LTK?!?! It was a wonderful reboot, with a great Bond, Bond girl, Bond villain, and Bond henchwoman, what more could you ask for? Also FYEO was a way to bring Bond down to earth after the spectacle known as Moonraker, Moore may display his greatest acting yet here alongside the vengeful and resourceful Melina (Carole Bouquet) and in terms of budget, it spent more money than Octopussy did.
However, I'll agree with you about DN, very, very long movie.
Tee Hee and MNL, thanks for the high fives! I'm glad some people see the greatness that is AVTAK.
It appears to me that much of the high regard afforded to OHMSS is due to it's loyalty to Fleming's novel. That's not enough for me, I'm afraid. Not that being loyal to Fleming is bad in any way, it's actually good.
But you have to believe in what you see on the screen. And for the most part I don't believe in George Lazenby as Bond. It's not just George though. The Piz Gloria sequence is too long and dull for the most part. The montage sequence makes me cringe, but not Louis Armstrong's wonderful rendition of All The Time In The World. Fight scenes are sped up to the point of resembling cartoons, which goes against the prime reason for Lazenby's casting as Bond. And for the most part, Diana Rigg is not as Emmappealing (in terms of acting and sexiness) as she was in The Avengers.
The two elements to OHMSS that are truly worthy of high regard are the excellent ski chase sequences and John Barry's superb score. An honourable mention goes to Telly Savalas who brings considerably more menace, physicality and believability to the role of Ernst Stavro Blofeld than either Donald Pleasance or Charles Gray.