Daylights is maybe my favourite Bond film; I was just the right age. I love the Cold War feel of it, lots of good Eurothriller stuff, covering up a film which is a bit silly with a car with rockets etc. just like a Bond film should be. It’s got a great opening, lots of dangerous-seeming thrills helped by Barry’s sinister music but is still lots of fun. Plenty doesn’t make sense (the whole sniper bit is ridiculous when you think about it: why are they making him run across the road? 😅) and the climactic action set piece feels more like the third act one so the film kind of just stops, but I still love it.
I can enjoy Dalton in it but really he doesn’t make for a great James Bond: he’s just not a movie star. Not great with the gags or romance as Napoleon mentioned above, and he’s just missing that swagger of Bond which is the whole reason he’s enjoyable to watch in the first place. I think if Brosnan had been in this it would have been a much bigger hit. He’s a movie star and audiences just connect with him.
Leiter's blonde friend was in Your Rang M'Lord as the dapper lesbian.
One of the best PTSs, with exciting action (and you can actually see Bond’s face in some action shots), John Barry’s music thumping away, and a laugh at the end. Dalton’s intro is one of the best new Bond intros.
The song is okay; everyone knows about the behind the scenes battles Barry had with the group but it’s still okay. The score has a lot of high points and a few low ones (Chrissie Hynde) but it’s good to see Barry making an appearance (as an orchestra conductor, of course) in his last Bond movie.
For a Fleming fan like me, it’s good to see a reasonably faithful version of his short story used just as the film proper opens and then extrapolated into a longer plot. One question- why does Sender (in the book) become Saunders (in the film)?
Jeroen Krabbe makes a weaselly villain. In fact, one of this film’s three biggest flaws is that it lacks a good villain. Zorin in the film before and Sanchez in the next both fill the Bond villain shoes far better.
Maryam d’Abo is no better than okay. Sometimes. Caroline Bliss is a poor replacement for Lois Maxwell, it’s good to know that Samantha Bond is waiting in the wings for her turn.
The action scenes are in general terrific but big flaw 2 is that Bond isn’t present during the raid on the safe house which is otherwise fine.
Big flaw 3 is the over-complicated plot. It takes a long time to set up then an equally long time to break down again in the last third. I’ve read many people complaining that they don’t understand what’s going on, at least on first viewing.
And, of course, Dalton is excellent. I’d have liked to have seen him in more than two movies, and my friend @Higgins says so too.
I agree with @emtiem that Brosnan might have been better, I mean particularly given that some of Dalton's line readings are awful, if you take the view someone is only as good as the worst moments, Dalton does have a few of those. But then again, Dalton does come across as a real man whereas Brosnan was very young around this time and still had that slightly gormless look in GoldenEye years later. I suppose this is like the woman trying to choose between two suitors, with each having a quality the other lacks.
Women tend to like TLD, perhaps because Kara is not your usual 'You used to look as good as me but now I could nick your boyfriend/husband off you' sexually threatening type, and has a bit more to do, also. Plus, Dalton is very good looking in many scenes, indeed in 'Bratislava' it's unlikely he could pass as unnoticed by anyone on the tram. But he's good looking in a way that women slyly appreciate and blokes do not really. Our dearly departed Lady Rose fancied Dalton so had his two movies in her top 5.
As for the villains, well, both start off as jokes and end that way too, there aren't many or any scenes where we the audience get to see them for the nasty pieces of work they need to be. Given Art Malik is in this, it's as if James Cameron made True Lies and instead got Arnie's sidekick and Bill Paxton to the the main villains. On top of which, I'm not sure there's a Bond film in which there is so little Bond/villainy direct interaction. From Russia With Love runs it close, as Bond never meets Blofeld, Kronsteen, and barely meets Klebb save at the end, but he does have a prolonged meet with Red Grant, including the traditional wining and dining albeit with Grant not quite unmasked at this point. Golden Gun is like that for a while until Scaramanga gets to twig that Bond is in his orbit, then it picks up. Not saying this makes Daylights a bad movie, or it's a bad thing but there is a point where one subconsciously feels there is something missing.
The villainy issue would be addressed in the next film, you might say overcompensated for somewhat.
Finally, and this really is just me, it's not just the convoluted plot, or that Dalton's Bond has to deceive Kara and pretend Yogi is waiting for her - does that mean his enthusiasm for her playing is phony too, and his falling for her? - it's that there are things in this I don't quite 'get'. So he has a spare parachute in the pre-credits? Is that his safety chute? Did all parachutists have those by that point? Is it meant to be a surprise when he pulls the ripcord in the Land Rover? The pig iron thing, I didn't quite get it. If a scourer or something is used, why are Russians looking odd and perplexed when one goes whizzing along the pipe? How does the assassin rig the doors so it smashes shut on Saunders? What exactly is Bond doing when he exits the plane on his Jeep, how does he achieve that?
We see Bond repacking his parachute after they’ve all landed on the Rock.
I agree on the villains though. I like Joe Don Baker a lot, but I think as Whittaker is barely in it they needed someone a bit bigger, both performance-wise and maybe even fame, to make more of an impact. For some reason I often imagine James Coburn doing it and I can just see it working better with someone like him. You’re right that he probably needed to actually do something evil though: the most we get is him ordering Pushkin dead over his salad.
I do wonder about Bond’s enthusiasm for Kara too: I think it becomes genuine but he’s probably faking it to start with. The whole situation on the ferris wheel makes me slightly itchy, as if he just decides it’s time for them to get off now; I’m not sure it’s terribly romantic.
I think re: Pierce, he does a good job as a deadly cold killer in Fourth Protocol in this very year, so I think he’d have been happily accepted at this time.
I very rarely watch NSNA. Connery is good enough, Rowan Atkinson and the new Q are good supporting characters and Kim Basinger loks fantastic. But there are only a few standout scenes and I miis the music and gunbarell.
Timothy Dalton’s second and final Bond film is one of the best in the canon. Played totally straight it harks back to the FRWL and OHMSS entries. John Glen, as with FYEO, is much more comfortable with the serious stuff rather than comedy. Dalton gives a wonderful performance as Bond, one that gets bloodied and bruised but still comes out top at the end, just as he does in the books. The whole cast is strong (something else that’s been missing since the 60’s) Carey Lowell, Robert Davi, Anthony Zerbe, Everett McGill, Frank McRae, Don Stroud, Pedro Armendariz Jr. and Wayne Newton are all excellent. Special mentions to Benicia del Toro as one of the nastiest henchman in the series and Desmond Llewelyn as Q who is simply wonderful.
Michael Kamen writes a very good score, Gladys Knight sings the title song which is one of best.
Everything gels together perfectly. What a shame Dalton didn’t get the chance to continue in the role. When he’s at Sanchez’s place dressed in white shirt and black trousers he’s the image of Lazenby (who in an alternate universe this could have been his last Bond movie ending a 20 year run).
I've never loved LTK, it's just lacking something that Bond should have somehow. Obviously the humour is lacking massively and it's a pretty dour watch. It might be the locations: I like a bit of eurothriller flavour like we got in TLD, or maybe it's just missing that exotic feel. There's lots to like still, and it actually has one of the better plots of a Bond film, where the action scenes have real story implications rather than just random set pieces (the plane waterskiing one has real ramifications for the whole film onwards); but then some story elements feel really undercooked. Bond and Felix's friendship I never really buy, and considering how the film is built around it that's a big problem (oddly it's the one place where Roger Moore would have improved the film! 😄 If it were him in the wedding scenes I could have actually believed he and Felix had a connection), Della's murder is uncomfortable ground for a Bond- they should have just killed Felix off really: his survival serves little point. The stuff with Pam working Heller is thrown away rather. Also -and rather fundamentally- I just don't know if I buy Bond throwing it all away for revenge in this way. The way it's handled in Quantum of Solace or NTTD is better for me and rings truer to Bond's character: he values duty much higher.
Sanchez is great, one of the few times the audience learns a weird of sort of respect for the villain: he's an evil guy but he does have a sense of honour. Dalton is fine, but again rather distant and it's not really a movie star performance. We're sort of watching him from a distance rather than being allowed inside and it's almost hard to care about this Bond. And I think the Kamen score kind of serves to underline how John Glen isn't as punchy and energetic a director as the others Kamen was working with at this time. LTK directed by McTiernan or Donner: that would really be a cut above I think: and Dalton is definitely no Willis or Gibson. The climax is at least a spectacular affair, and actually feels like the big finish, unlike in the previous film.
I made a big mistake before first seeing this film (at its Scottish premiere, and I still have the brochure) - I read the John Gardner novelisation. No offence to the work of Mr Gardner, although his rationalisation for Felix suffering the same shark attack twice is pretty thin, but it meant that I simply knew too much of the story going in. I knew which scene followed which and a fair part of the dialogue. It made the film itself seem mechanical and by rote, although I could still appreciate the excellent action scenes and watch out for the little bitty pieces of what used to be Fleming.
That sensation obviously faded away with (frequent) rewatches and I found myself enjoying it a lot more. Dalton is, yes, humourless but it’s not a tale that calls for a lot of quips although there are a few and I could have enjoyed a lot more of his Bond in subsequent movies. The rest of the cast are also terrific, apart from Talisa Soto of course.
I’m watching it right now and it does seem to take a while to get going after the titles. The music is not up to Bond standards although it’s not the worst official Bond score. Of course not, that’s the next one.
Robert Davi is miles ahead of Koskov in TLD. Benicio del Toro makes for the best henchman in … oh, a long time. Depends how you feel about Jaws.
At the time I was desperate to get hold of the USA edit which was fractionally longer than the UK one (more of Krest’s exploding head, for example) and I eventually managed to get hold of one. Academic nowadays. Anthony Zerbe, perfect as Krest.
Glen handles the outdoor scenes far better than the indoor ones.
I take it everyone knows the story about Richard Maibaum having to quit work on the screenplay early and most of the work therefore having to be done by MGW. It was the last Bond as writers for both of them (MGW had his hands full as producer afterwards).
Anyway, haven’t seen it in some time and am enjoying it now though a lot of that will be nostalgia.
Differences of opinion - @CoolHandBond rues that LTK could have been Lazenby's last film after 20 years in the role. But, in another fan's fantasy (@emtiem) it might have starred Roger Moore in his - gulp - ninth Bond film.
We did LICENSE TO KILL last night (year, obviously).
I've historically been pretty down on this one for various reasons (mainly the cack acting and the overall look) but this viewing experience was the best that the film has ever played for me. I still wouldn't rate it as being a particularly good entry but it's out of the basement now.
The good:
It's honestly a pretty strong narrative and the throughline taking the viewer through said narrative is decently constructed.
The villain is strong. I have issues with a lot of the acting in the film but Robert Davi nails Sanchez. He's appropriately charismatic, arrogant, and intelligent. Benicio Del Toro, in a small role, is effective as Dario as well.
I like that the film plays up the fact that Bond is intelligent. There are plenty of action sequences to be had but seeing Bond plan ahead and work at sowing doubts in everyone's heads is good stuff.
That final truck sequence is pretty strong and the explosions really pack a punch.
Q is a hoot.
The not so good:
The acting from everyone not named Dalton, Davi, Del Toro, or Zerbe is terrible. Flat out terrible. Cary Lowell and Talisa Soto are never convincing in any of their line deliveries. I've seen Lowell in other things and she can be decent so I chalk things up to her being a novice (and poorly directed) in this movie. I have no idea on Soto. They're gorgeous but that's it. The rest of the supporting cast is really duff as well, especially Everett McGill, another actor I've seen do better work.
The look of the film is that overly lit 80s bland aesthetic, aping countless Canon group or Golan/Globus productions.
The Michael Kamen score is ok at best, not really noteworthy. It's appropriate considering the 80s vibe, though.
Elements of the plot feel underdeveloped/underwritten. The whole bit with the Hong Kong narcotics squad feels like it got really edited down to almost nothing, for instance. Same with the deal on the stingers.
There are plot gaps that are really quite jarring. How do Sanchez's men find Bond and the Hong Kong crew so quickly? How do they have any idea of their location? In the final battle, Lowell's character finds a rogue trailer cab. That was set up 5 minutes prior when Dalton unhooks that cab but there was never any follow up on that sequence...the cab disappears and then reappears later. If you're going to set something up like that, you need to show that cab again (barrelling down the hill or similar) or otherwise make that cab look memorable so that the audience immediately remembers where it came from.
Bond is rogue. He's just been cut off from MI-6 and opts to go out to the WaveKrest. OK, cool. Where did he get that giant manta contraption? If he's truly on his own without any resources from Q branch (until Q shows up later), then show him struggling.
But most of my complaints, acting aside, are nitpicky in nature. Again, this played pretty well last night. I think TLD is a better overall film still.
LTK is one of my favourite Bond films. While the villains in TLD were probably the weakest part of the movie, Robert Davi delivers one of the best ever Bond villains here. Daltons Bond is smart strategic and tough. The plot is solid and the action great.
The negatives? There are a couple. The movie needed a bigger budget and the film just doesn't look as colourful and crisp as for example TLD does. If David Hedison had played Leiter in TLD too it would've made both films better. The phone call at the end should've been with M instead of Leiter. I also think the script should've made Bond more clearly British, perhaps giving Carey Lowell some funny lines to point it out. LALD made the fish out of water thing a strength and I think that could've been done here too. I never saw the problem with the ninja fight or the fish blinking.
TLD is a movie I often return to. It's the best Bond film of the 1980's.
After a 6 year break Dalton was gone and replaced by Pierce Brosnan. Brosnan was to have succeeded Moore but contractual obligations put an end to that and he had to wait. Gone is the chiselled handsome look of Connery/Lazenby/Dalton and instead we get a pretty boy, looking years younger than his 42 years and looking as threatening as a teenaged schoolboy. We’re back to Roger Moore smugness and arrogance with inane grinning at every opportunity. As with Roger, I like Brosnan in virtually everything else they do except Bond. Roger wasn’t a good James Bond and Pierce Brosnan is even worse, at least Roger had loads of charisma. This is Bond being played by an imposter, it’s like Bond has been severely injured and taking months to recuperate so MI6 have replaced him to make the enemy think that Bond is still in active service.
The PTS begins with an obvious stunt double for Brosnan, so we’re back to Rogerland immediately. We get a bungee jump (ho-hum, at least Roger had exciting starts to his movies). His first words are hanging upside down in a toilet with a guard having a dump. Not the most auspicious of beginnings. The titles are poor, the title song is dreadful (a shame because Tina Turner deserved much better) and the music is the worse Bond score to date by a long, long way.
We get a new M, this time portrayed by Judi Dench, the most overrated actress of all time, she is exactly the same in every move she’s ever made apart from some early performances. We get a new Moneypenny, more Lois Maxwell like than Caroline Bliss, but still nowhere near as good. Thankfully Desmond is still Q.
Back to the PTS, 006 is played by Sean Bean who is supposedly shot dead. As Bean is second billed it’s plainly obvious that this isn’t so, really poor scripting. We get an early sex scene totally inappropriate for a Bond movie, how the producers thought this was acceptable is beyond imagination, they were obviously trying to mimic the recent movies portraying soft porn scenes but they’ve never belonged in a Bond film and this was a major mistake. We get an M who clearly dislikes Bond. We get a Roger style tank chase with a statue planted on the tank. We’re used to Bond girls not being great actresses but we are not used to them being dowdy, unfortunately we get both here. Derek Meddings passed away before release and he deserves a special mention for his miniatures on movies past, unfortunately his work on this one was one of his lesser efforts with some patently obvious effects.
There are some good points. Sean Bean is good (probably should have been Bond), Gottfried John and Michael Kitchen are also good. Unfortunately most of everything else is poor. What on Earth possessed the producers to bring back Joe Don Baker? He was poor in TLD and even worse in GE and bringing him back after a prominent role in a previous movie echoes the mistake they made with Maud Adams.
I have no idea why this is so loved by many, I guess the absence of 6 years made the heart grow fonder. It’s so bad it makes OP look wonderful. To date it’s the nadir of the series, would it recover?
Bye bye, John Glen. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
GE: If you're going to do a soft reboot after a 6 year gap, this is the way to do it.
The good:
Martin Campbell has a much better compositional eye than John Glen. Shots consistently look great throughout the film, aided by having a real cinematographer provide some dramatic lighting. It's great to see a movie look like a MOVIE again.
The quality of the acting is much, much better. Gone are the terrible 'first take' line readings of the John Glen era. Each actor delivers, no matter how small the role. To that end, the casting of actual ACTOR actors throughout the film helps immeasurably, with Dame Judi Dench and Robbie Coltrane making the most out of their screentime to class up the joint.
The plot is solid with a strong narrative throughline. The script takes the viewer through the necessary plot machinations without any confusion and Campbell is effective in terms of telling the story visually. There are a few logic holes here and there but nothing that wrecks the flow.
The humor works, for the most part.
Brosnan is solid and is allowed to immediately play to his strengths as an actor. He feels pretty fully formed right from the start, playing about 80% Moore and 20% Connery. I still think he's a bit too slight looking physically but that's a nitpick. He's got the requisite charm up the wazoo, something that Dalton was noticeably lacking.
The villains are strong. Having a rogue 00 agent was a great plot hook and Sean Bean is awesome. He hams it up a tad but that's ok...it's fun. Xenia Onatopp (Onattop? Onatopp!) is delightful. Alan Cumming is a lot of fun as Boris as well.
Natalya is a good Bond girl. Beautiful and effective.
The action scenes, for the most part, really work. I have some complaints which I'll go into below though.
The not so good:
That score by Eric Serra is absolute pants with only a few exceptions. Bleep bloop bong. The Aston Martin/Ferrari car chase is particularly cringe worthy.
Some of the model work does not look great. When the Semarnaya station is blowing up, it never really looks great. There's a particularly bad shot of a model Mig flying into the radar dish which is laughable.
Some of the action scenes go on too long. That whole Semarnaya sequence goes on forever, especially when Natalya is trying to escape. The finale on the dish also goes on forever. Some tightening up on things would really help.
I have some issues with the fact that most of the Brosnan films turn into machine gun fests. That's just a personal complaint.
The existence of the radar dish in Cuba makes no sense. I have the same complaint here that I have with the space station in MR: this would have been noticed while being built. I mean sure, fill it with water to hide it after the fact, but US surveillance would have noticed the construction process of the dish before it was filled with water.
Jack Wade doesn't really work as a character. I get that he's the new Felix Leiter and is there to provide a fun touch, but he's played too broadly for my tastes.
A lot of fans rate GE as one of the very best, and while I don’t rate it quite that highly, it is pretty excellent. Martin Campbell is immediately on top of the tone of the whole thing, he knows when you have a serious moment, he knows when to play an entire action set piece for laughs, and it just feels so confident and assured.
There is a bit of a drop in pace with Servenaya which loses a couple of points from me, but otherwise it’s all great.
Brosnan takes over from Dalton and it’s a relief: we have a proper movie star in the lead again, someone with screen presence and charisma, and he was an instant hit with audiences. He won’t be winning any Oscars, but he was exactly what Bond needed.
The series is reborn beautifully, Dench is instantly in control as M and on her way to being the best one, the new MI6 looks great, and Danny Kleinman’s titles are the best in years and a fantastic new direction for the series, especially after Binder had visibly run out of ideas on the last one (okay, so there’s a wedding at this point and the film is about a licence to kill… I know: cameras!). Straight away the gunbarrel is so striking and strong. Meddings’ models are a low point, although to be fair he does have a couple of triumphs, like the MIGs taking off, the Tiger escape pod or Bond’s plane crashing into the lake.
There is that odd sequence where Bond happily machine guns down dozens of Russian soldiers: who at this point weren’t our enemy. Imagine if he’d opened fire on all those men at the American airbase trying to stop him in Octopussy! Campbell seemed to realise his mistake by CR, where Bond storms an embassy in the opening sequence but is careful not to use lethal force on anyone.
But it’s great: Bond is back and entertaining audiences just as it should. It does feel slightly greatest-hits, and in the cinema I remember really enjoying it but also a slight pang of disappointment that it felt like another Bond movie rather than something totally new - it's a bit like when a model of car has been on the market for a few years and they update it with new headlights and bumpers so it feels fresher, but you know it's ultimately still the same old thing underneath and they haven't exactly redesigned it. But it’s such a strong start for the new Eon (named in the titles for the first time!) regardless.
Will just add, Dalton was perhaps the only Bond actor to not have anything boyish about him. All the other Bonds had that boyish quality, that twinkle in the eye or bit of mischief. It was a quality that made audiences indulge his antics a bit and forgive any wrongdoing. I'm not saying Fleming's Bond has too much of that, but Fleming did. Brosnan brought it back.
First things first: Brosnan is just fine as Bond an he'd get even better later. The cast are generally also fine (except Joe Don Baker, though he was worse in TLD), and a special word to Michael Kitchen as the best Tanner to that date.
As @emtiem says above, there's a greatest hits feel but that's not necessarily a bad thing - TSWLM did that too and it worked well there. Both films came after a longer than usual gap and both did very well financially; I hope Amazon have taken note.
And unusually for me I've left this till last - this film has the worst score of any Bond film and that includes NSNA, though when watching that one I sometimes feel differently. It's inappropriate, amelodic, and off-putting. The main song is all right (and a mention for the excellent title sequence), it's a pity it isn't used in the score, and of course that wasn't written by Eric Serra who was the guilty man for most of the musical shambles. Not "Tank Drive Around St Petersburg" which replaced Serra's intended piece once the makers heard his ideas, and is the best cue in the whole film.
I have not been able to partake of this watchalong, but I did catch this on the box last night (saves digging out the DVD)
GOLDENEYE (1995)
Oh, I don't know. I watched this with half an eye while preparing and eating a late dinner of pasta, garlic bread and tiramisu - no wine tho' so a bit disappointing, must try harder next time. Which rather summed up my opinion of GE.
I think some reviewers are a bit down on this movie, but I enjoy it despite a ponderous first half and a too-extended second. The mission takes an age to get going but nothing interesting is happening here - not like in OHMSS where the long prelude is fundamental throughout to the unfolding dramas and the ultimate emotional success of the film. In fact, the sequences all seem to be of that 'greatest hits n bits' milleu. The background to the PTS is almost unnecessary. They could just as easily have had Bond blow the dam up and scar Ouremov's face. The whole Sean Bean traitor angle seems hopelessly complicated. I don't like the stupid stunt with the plane which is scientifically impossible, ruptured by bad SFX and worse repeats a feat we just saw with the bungee rope - a begining as aweinspiring as the parachute jump in TSWLM.
The film then reinterprets a whole host of famous and not-so-famous Bond scenes. The business with OO7's 'psychological assessment' and the silly psychiatrist he seduces could be dumped. So too the obscene nature of the jokes, in Monaco, in MI6 HQ and in Severnaya. The humour is a bit pitiless. Wade is next to useless and again, humourless. Robbie Coltrane is great and so too Famke Janseen, but one feels both are wasted here, the roles too small, too underdeveloped. I gather the movie was rewritten and I would be interested to know which bits got added in - I guess the humour and the easter eggs. Does anyone know?
The movie trundles along quite nicely and picks up in the middle. The ending (spoiled by Wade and an aching section where Bond reflects on his role as a OO operative) is spectaular and smilingly gimicky, but the final fight is too long and the final stunt repeats again an idea we saw in the PTS. Not very original.
Everyone seems to hate the music. I do too. All I will say is, it sounds worse without the pictures. Good titles. Tina Turner is wasted. In fact, there is a lot of 'wasted' material here which is a shame. The photography is clean and occasionally unusual and the editing quite sharp, which makes a change from the last few films, but the director can't avoid the obvious cliches and the comic-strip characters [M's briefing scenes aside] do not help.
The more I see of GE, the less I like it, so the challenge I suppose is not to watch it. Generally though, it serves as an effective introduction to the boyishly charming and super-confident Pierce Brosnan, which I think is the point. The movie (like LALD) plays to his strengths and succeeds primarily because of it. However, the film is very stop-start. Nonetheless, GE tends to sit just outside my top ten, chiefly because I dislike other films even more.
I think I'd question if the plane stunt is impossible: I think I remember them saying they did it for real at altitude. Obviously there was a pilot in the plane so I don't know if they were slowing it down somehow, but I imagine it would be still be something a plane could feasibly do on its own. Also we see a couple of genuine shots of a real skydiver catching the plane up in the sequence itself (including the initial bike jump), so I get the impression it's possible. The horrible VFX shot of Pierce dangling next to the plane in a studio does ruin the effect though, you're right. But if someone has more experience of skydiving after a plane I'm happy to take their advice! 😅
Nonetheless, GE tends to sit just outside my top ten, chiefly because I dislike other films even more.
Always good to be amongst other fans of the Bond movies 🤣
GE is a very good Bond film. Plot, cast, stunts etc. is very good and enjoyable. I won't say no more Bond films would be made if GE wasn't a success, but it would be very hard and take more time. The weak link in GE is the music score and Eric Serra, but the movie is still a joy to watch.
I have thoroughly enjoyed these GoldenEye reviews, and how they contradict one another.
I particularly enjoyed @CoolHandBond 's contribution - I thought I was the only one who did reviews like this, where a Bond film makes one hate the entire world, all its contents and everyone who lives in it.
CHB has been a little tense with me since I raised the spectre of Calvin Dyson on this thread, and now I can see why, as GoldenEye is possibly Dyson's favourite Bond film while currently is sits at the foot of CHB's table. (That all said, you'd find it hard to argue with Dyson's scathing and very funny review of Never Say Never Again.)
Now, CHB would particularly hate GE given that Licence to Kill is one of his favourites, because it did that thing that the series does from time to time - addresses the perceived faults of its predecessor while unnecessarily introducing a few dealbreakers of its own.
So, GE has all the stuff LTK lacked - gun-toting Russians, a Cold War theme, a murderous femme fatale, European locations, the Aston Martin DB5, some gadgets...
Space hardware. Neither of Dalton's films had any space scenes and nor did any of Craig's. Okay, I suppose, given they're meant to be occupying Fleming's world, and he never wrote about that stuff. Then again, for some of us, it imposes some kind of limit on Bond's world for the duration of those actors' tenure.
And of course, GE has Pierce Brosnan, who can do the gags that Dalton didn't quite manage.
Yet for all these compensations, GE lacks a few things LTK had.
GE lacks a believable, understandable, straightforward plot. It lacks a believable, three-dimensional villain. It lacks sincerity.
As I wrote in a letter published by Starburst when the film came out, I can't really believe in anything up on the screen. It doesn't help that Campbell has this edgy, cool direction that somehow draws attention to the absurdities. At the time I might have figured out why the pre-credits seems odd, the geography off, as Bond dives off a dam and then later free falls off the top of a mountain. The free fall into a falling aeroplane is Brosnan's tsunami moment but luckily audiences opted to laugh a long with it.
For CHB, the falling off would be similar to going from OHMSS to DAF - however, I love DAF. I don't love this.
There are loads of plot holes of the kind that wind me up. Is Trevelyn old enough to support his backstory about Britain's betrayal in World War II? Someone did try to defend it, once. Bond's tank appearing on the railway tracks ahead of Ourmov's speeding train, when it's been in motion for a good few minutes. Now, the author Sinclair Mackay did write in his book The Man With The Golden Touch something that pulled me up a bit. He said that the Bond films are entertaining stupid movies, and that some folk know this and others don't. Both think they're enjoying it in the same way but they are not, and both go home satisfied, with honour upheld. It does make me wonder if the writers aren't trying to make the films dumb sometimes, as if to make a point. And that I've missed the point.
I never believe I'm seeing the Bond villain Alec Trevelyn, instead I'm watching Sean Bean try his hand as a Bond villain. It's not bad, it's just not particularly believable.
I am not trying to troll @Barbel when I say I quite like the soundtrack. It has this stark, eerie vibe to it. In a compilation LP, I'd happily pick three tracks from this film. Of course, the tank chase was rescored - and the climax on the satellite dish was too, wasn't it? The actual song is Bond pastiche, like a lot of this film and the closer is a nice song that belongs in a different movie altogether, but not here.
The film is dogged by this knowing, self-deprecating humour of the kind we had in Never Say Never Again, where it seems it's far too knowing and self-conscious about being a Bond film, so the audience can't quite go a long with it. Almost everyone pops up to have a go at our hero so it becomes repetitive. Agreed, the film is very stop-start.
That all said, while I enjoyed LTK on its release - largely because the likes of Indiana Jones, Lethal Weapon and Batman scratched that Bond itch that year - and saw it maybe three times at the cinema, I never feel the need to catch any of it on telly, there are no action highlights for me. You're either all in or you're out with that one, and you get some Bonds like that - if you don't like the main thing it's selling, you won't like it. Other films have a subtext, so if you don't believe the space stuff in YOLT, you can follow the Far East culture clash angle; if submarines bore you then you can enjoy the sexual/political tension between Bond and his Cold War counterpart.
But I will tune in for the pre-credits of GE, as the direction has flair, it is imaginatively and ambitiously staged, there is a good turnover of scenes in the movie so you can enjoy it for 20 mins or so; it just feels like a trailer, or a brochure of a Bond film.
For all this, I could enjoy GoldenEye a whole lot more if it had a smoother, warmer feel and most importantly, if the jokes were any good. Bizarrely, given Brosnan was meant to be a funny fellow, the jokes are a bit perfunctory in this, possibly a result of the last-minute rewrites, so the actual dialogue can feel a bit first draft. This would be a problem that would dog most of the Brosnan films, aside from TWINE. So GE is a bit like DAF if a) It didn't have Connery b) The fine jokes weren't there and c) No John Barry.
The film brings out the nitpicker in me, which is a side of myself I dislike. I got to see action films to avoid that.
I think it's good and well-made, but I did watch one of those reaction vids last week on it where the reviewers had started with it as their first Bond film- and they it enjoyed it but found it 'cheesy', which I think is a fair comment, and much in line with what you're saying, NP. I was left thinking that if they make it to the Craigs they'll much prefer them, just because they're kind of more engaging films, generally. They don't do cheese and you get more involved emotionally watching them.
@Napoleon Plural If it feels that I’ve been tense to you then that is not my intention. The written word is totally different to the spoken word and emojis do not always express the emotion that is intended either. I’m thoroughly enjoying this thread and the differing views are fascinating to read. It does go to show that filmmakers have a difficult job in deciding what goes up onto the screen, they cannot please everyone.
Yes, GE got a particularly scathing review from me which is opposite to most of the people who have commented, but it’s only my opinion and I express it, I enjoy reading other views but those views mean nothing to me as my view is the only one that counts (for me) the same as everyone else’s views only count for them.
TND is next and I will rewatch it tomorrow, from what I remember of it the review will be a lot more sympathetic than GE 😁
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Comments
Daylights is maybe my favourite Bond film; I was just the right age. I love the Cold War feel of it, lots of good Eurothriller stuff, covering up a film which is a bit silly with a car with rockets etc. just like a Bond film should be. It’s got a great opening, lots of dangerous-seeming thrills helped by Barry’s sinister music but is still lots of fun. Plenty doesn’t make sense (the whole sniper bit is ridiculous when you think about it: why are they making him run across the road? 😅) and the climactic action set piece feels more like the third act one so the film kind of just stops, but I still love it.
I can enjoy Dalton in it but really he doesn’t make for a great James Bond: he’s just not a movie star. Not great with the gags or romance as Napoleon mentioned above, and he’s just missing that swagger of Bond which is the whole reason he’s enjoyable to watch in the first place. I think if Brosnan had been in this it would have been a much bigger hit. He’s a movie star and audiences just connect with him.
Leiter's blonde friend was in Your Rang M'Lord as the dapper lesbian.
No way! I can’t believe I never knew that! 😄
Very James Bond story from Paris today:
Shades of A View To A Kill, Spectre and 'Women drivers!' there - no casualties, thankfully.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Very intriguing review @Napoleon Plural I was wondering how many shandy bass you'd consumed during the watch....
THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS (1987)
One of the best PTSs, with exciting action (and you can actually see Bond’s face in some action shots), John Barry’s music thumping away, and a laugh at the end. Dalton’s intro is one of the best new Bond intros.
The song is okay; everyone knows about the behind the scenes battles Barry had with the group but it’s still okay. The score has a lot of high points and a few low ones (Chrissie Hynde) but it’s good to see Barry making an appearance (as an orchestra conductor, of course) in his last Bond movie.
For a Fleming fan like me, it’s good to see a reasonably faithful version of his short story used just as the film proper opens and then extrapolated into a longer plot. One question- why does Sender (in the book) become Saunders (in the film)?
Jeroen Krabbe makes a weaselly villain. In fact, one of this film’s three biggest flaws is that it lacks a good villain. Zorin in the film before and Sanchez in the next both fill the Bond villain shoes far better.
Maryam d’Abo is no better than okay. Sometimes. Caroline Bliss is a poor replacement for Lois Maxwell, it’s good to know that Samantha Bond is waiting in the wings for her turn.
The action scenes are in general terrific but big flaw 2 is that Bond isn’t present during the raid on the safe house which is otherwise fine.
Big flaw 3 is the over-complicated plot. It takes a long time to set up then an equally long time to break down again in the last third. I’ve read many people complaining that they don’t understand what’s going on, at least on first viewing.
And, of course, Dalton is excellent. I’d have liked to have seen him in more than two movies, and my friend @Higgins says so too.
What's a shandy bass?
I agree with @emtiem that Brosnan might have been better, I mean particularly given that some of Dalton's line readings are awful, if you take the view someone is only as good as the worst moments, Dalton does have a few of those. But then again, Dalton does come across as a real man whereas Brosnan was very young around this time and still had that slightly gormless look in GoldenEye years later. I suppose this is like the woman trying to choose between two suitors, with each having a quality the other lacks.
Women tend to like TLD, perhaps because Kara is not your usual 'You used to look as good as me but now I could nick your boyfriend/husband off you' sexually threatening type, and has a bit more to do, also. Plus, Dalton is very good looking in many scenes, indeed in 'Bratislava' it's unlikely he could pass as unnoticed by anyone on the tram. But he's good looking in a way that women slyly appreciate and blokes do not really. Our dearly departed Lady Rose fancied Dalton so had his two movies in her top 5.
As for the villains, well, both start off as jokes and end that way too, there aren't many or any scenes where we the audience get to see them for the nasty pieces of work they need to be. Given Art Malik is in this, it's as if James Cameron made True Lies and instead got Arnie's sidekick and Bill Paxton to the the main villains. On top of which, I'm not sure there's a Bond film in which there is so little Bond/villainy direct interaction. From Russia With Love runs it close, as Bond never meets Blofeld, Kronsteen, and barely meets Klebb save at the end, but he does have a prolonged meet with Red Grant, including the traditional wining and dining albeit with Grant not quite unmasked at this point. Golden Gun is like that for a while until Scaramanga gets to twig that Bond is in his orbit, then it picks up. Not saying this makes Daylights a bad movie, or it's a bad thing but there is a point where one subconsciously feels there is something missing.
The villainy issue would be addressed in the next film, you might say overcompensated for somewhat.
Finally, and this really is just me, it's not just the convoluted plot, or that Dalton's Bond has to deceive Kara and pretend Yogi is waiting for her - does that mean his enthusiasm for her playing is phony too, and his falling for her? - it's that there are things in this I don't quite 'get'. So he has a spare parachute in the pre-credits? Is that his safety chute? Did all parachutists have those by that point? Is it meant to be a surprise when he pulls the ripcord in the Land Rover? The pig iron thing, I didn't quite get it. If a scourer or something is used, why are Russians looking odd and perplexed when one goes whizzing along the pipe? How does the assassin rig the doors so it smashes shut on Saunders? What exactly is Bond doing when he exits the plane on his Jeep, how does he achieve that?
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Oh, I've not seen one of those before, no I was on the white wine - Villa Maria Sav Blanc, I think.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
We see Bond repacking his parachute after they’ve all landed on the Rock.
I agree on the villains though. I like Joe Don Baker a lot, but I think as Whittaker is barely in it they needed someone a bit bigger, both performance-wise and maybe even fame, to make more of an impact. For some reason I often imagine James Coburn doing it and I can just see it working better with someone like him. You’re right that he probably needed to actually do something evil though: the most we get is him ordering Pushkin dead over his salad.
I do wonder about Bond’s enthusiasm for Kara too: I think it becomes genuine but he’s probably faking it to start with. The whole situation on the ferris wheel makes me slightly itchy, as if he just decides it’s time for them to get off now; I’m not sure it’s terribly romantic.
I think re: Pierce, he does a good job as a deadly cold killer in Fourth Protocol in this very year, so I think he’d have been happily accepted at this time.
The Living Daylights is on ITV4 again today (Saturday) at 6.15pm.
I will of course sit down to watch it and offer a running commentary here in case I missed anything out last time.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
You'll not get drunk too quickly on that stuff (the Shandy Bass). 😀
I very rarely watch NSNA. Connery is good enough, Rowan Atkinson and the new Q are good supporting characters and Kim Basinger loks fantastic. But there are only a few standout scenes and I miis the music and gunbarell.
LICENCE TO KILL (1989)
Timothy Dalton’s second and final Bond film is one of the best in the canon. Played totally straight it harks back to the FRWL and OHMSS entries. John Glen, as with FYEO, is much more comfortable with the serious stuff rather than comedy. Dalton gives a wonderful performance as Bond, one that gets bloodied and bruised but still comes out top at the end, just as he does in the books. The whole cast is strong (something else that’s been missing since the 60’s) Carey Lowell, Robert Davi, Anthony Zerbe, Everett McGill, Frank McRae, Don Stroud, Pedro Armendariz Jr. and Wayne Newton are all excellent. Special mentions to Benicia del Toro as one of the nastiest henchman in the series and Desmond Llewelyn as Q who is simply wonderful.
Michael Kamen writes a very good score, Gladys Knight sings the title song which is one of best.
Everything gels together perfectly. What a shame Dalton didn’t get the chance to continue in the role. When he’s at Sanchez’s place dressed in white shirt and black trousers he’s the image of Lazenby (who in an alternate universe this could have been his last Bond movie ending a 20 year run).
Fabulous and eminently rewatchable.
OHMSS - TB - FRWL - LTK - GF - YOLT - DN - FYEO - TSWLM - LALD - TLD - DAF - AVTAK - TMWTGG - MR - OP
I've never loved LTK, it's just lacking something that Bond should have somehow. Obviously the humour is lacking massively and it's a pretty dour watch. It might be the locations: I like a bit of eurothriller flavour like we got in TLD, or maybe it's just missing that exotic feel. There's lots to like still, and it actually has one of the better plots of a Bond film, where the action scenes have real story implications rather than just random set pieces (the plane waterskiing one has real ramifications for the whole film onwards); but then some story elements feel really undercooked. Bond and Felix's friendship I never really buy, and considering how the film is built around it that's a big problem (oddly it's the one place where Roger Moore would have improved the film! 😄 If it were him in the wedding scenes I could have actually believed he and Felix had a connection), Della's murder is uncomfortable ground for a Bond- they should have just killed Felix off really: his survival serves little point. The stuff with Pam working Heller is thrown away rather. Also -and rather fundamentally- I just don't know if I buy Bond throwing it all away for revenge in this way. The way it's handled in Quantum of Solace or NTTD is better for me and rings truer to Bond's character: he values duty much higher.
Sanchez is great, one of the few times the audience learns a weird of sort of respect for the villain: he's an evil guy but he does have a sense of honour. Dalton is fine, but again rather distant and it's not really a movie star performance. We're sort of watching him from a distance rather than being allowed inside and it's almost hard to care about this Bond. And I think the Kamen score kind of serves to underline how John Glen isn't as punchy and energetic a director as the others Kamen was working with at this time. LTK directed by McTiernan or Donner: that would really be a cut above I think: and Dalton is definitely no Willis or Gibson. The climax is at least a spectacular affair, and actually feels like the big finish, unlike in the previous film.
It's fine but far from being a favourite.
LICENCE TO KILL (1989)
I made a big mistake before first seeing this film (at its Scottish premiere, and I still have the brochure) - I read the John Gardner novelisation. No offence to the work of Mr Gardner, although his rationalisation for Felix suffering the same shark attack twice is pretty thin, but it meant that I simply knew too much of the story going in. I knew which scene followed which and a fair part of the dialogue. It made the film itself seem mechanical and by rote, although I could still appreciate the excellent action scenes and watch out for the little bitty pieces of what used to be Fleming.
That sensation obviously faded away with (frequent) rewatches and I found myself enjoying it a lot more. Dalton is, yes, humourless but it’s not a tale that calls for a lot of quips although there are a few and I could have enjoyed a lot more of his Bond in subsequent movies. The rest of the cast are also terrific, apart from Talisa Soto of course.
I’m watching it right now and it does seem to take a while to get going after the titles. The music is not up to Bond standards although it’s not the worst official Bond score. Of course not, that’s the next one.
Robert Davi is miles ahead of Koskov in TLD. Benicio del Toro makes for the best henchman in … oh, a long time. Depends how you feel about Jaws.
At the time I was desperate to get hold of the USA edit which was fractionally longer than the UK one (more of Krest’s exploding head, for example) and I eventually managed to get hold of one. Academic nowadays. Anthony Zerbe, perfect as Krest.
Glen handles the outdoor scenes far better than the indoor ones.
I take it everyone knows the story about Richard Maibaum having to quit work on the screenplay early and most of the work therefore having to be done by MGW. It was the last Bond as writers for both of them (MGW had his hands full as producer afterwards).
Anyway, haven’t seen it in some time and am enjoying it now though a lot of that will be nostalgia.
Differences of opinion - @CoolHandBond rues that LTK could have been Lazenby's last film after 20 years in the role. But, in another fan's fantasy (@emtiem) it might have starred Roger Moore in his - gulp - ninth Bond film.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Copy/paste from last year with some edits:
We did LICENSE TO KILL last night (year, obviously).
I've historically been pretty down on this one for various reasons (mainly the cack acting and the overall look) but this viewing experience was the best that the film has ever played for me. I still wouldn't rate it as being a particularly good entry but it's out of the basement now.
The good:
The not so good:
But most of my complaints, acting aside, are nitpicky in nature. Again, this played pretty well last night. I think TLD is a better overall film still.
Current ranking on this rewatch:
The 'manta ray' is surely just big bit of carpet or something. All Bond needs for that is a Stanley knife.
You're ruining the magic.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
LTK is one of my favourite Bond films. While the villains in TLD were probably the weakest part of the movie, Robert Davi delivers one of the best ever Bond villains here. Daltons Bond is smart strategic and tough. The plot is solid and the action great.
The negatives? There are a couple. The movie needed a bigger budget and the film just doesn't look as colourful and crisp as for example TLD does. If David Hedison had played Leiter in TLD too it would've made both films better. The phone call at the end should've been with M instead of Leiter. I also think the script should've made Bond more clearly British, perhaps giving Carey Lowell some funny lines to point it out. LALD made the fish out of water thing a strength and I think that could've been done here too. I never saw the problem with the ninja fight or the fish blinking.
TLD is a movie I often return to. It's the best Bond film of the 1980's.
GOLDENEYE (1995)
After a 6 year break Dalton was gone and replaced by Pierce Brosnan. Brosnan was to have succeeded Moore but contractual obligations put an end to that and he had to wait. Gone is the chiselled handsome look of Connery/Lazenby/Dalton and instead we get a pretty boy, looking years younger than his 42 years and looking as threatening as a teenaged schoolboy. We’re back to Roger Moore smugness and arrogance with inane grinning at every opportunity. As with Roger, I like Brosnan in virtually everything else they do except Bond. Roger wasn’t a good James Bond and Pierce Brosnan is even worse, at least Roger had loads of charisma. This is Bond being played by an imposter, it’s like Bond has been severely injured and taking months to recuperate so MI6 have replaced him to make the enemy think that Bond is still in active service.
The PTS begins with an obvious stunt double for Brosnan, so we’re back to Rogerland immediately. We get a bungee jump (ho-hum, at least Roger had exciting starts to his movies). His first words are hanging upside down in a toilet with a guard having a dump. Not the most auspicious of beginnings. The titles are poor, the title song is dreadful (a shame because Tina Turner deserved much better) and the music is the worse Bond score to date by a long, long way.
We get a new M, this time portrayed by Judi Dench, the most overrated actress of all time, she is exactly the same in every move she’s ever made apart from some early performances. We get a new Moneypenny, more Lois Maxwell like than Caroline Bliss, but still nowhere near as good. Thankfully Desmond is still Q.
Back to the PTS, 006 is played by Sean Bean who is supposedly shot dead. As Bean is second billed it’s plainly obvious that this isn’t so, really poor scripting. We get an early sex scene totally inappropriate for a Bond movie, how the producers thought this was acceptable is beyond imagination, they were obviously trying to mimic the recent movies portraying soft porn scenes but they’ve never belonged in a Bond film and this was a major mistake. We get an M who clearly dislikes Bond. We get a Roger style tank chase with a statue planted on the tank. We’re used to Bond girls not being great actresses but we are not used to them being dowdy, unfortunately we get both here. Derek Meddings passed away before release and he deserves a special mention for his miniatures on movies past, unfortunately his work on this one was one of his lesser efforts with some patently obvious effects.
There are some good points. Sean Bean is good (probably should have been Bond), Gottfried John and Michael Kitchen are also good. Unfortunately most of everything else is poor. What on Earth possessed the producers to bring back Joe Don Baker? He was poor in TLD and even worse in GE and bringing him back after a prominent role in a previous movie echoes the mistake they made with Maud Adams.
I have no idea why this is so loved by many, I guess the absence of 6 years made the heart grow fonder. It’s so bad it makes OP look wonderful. To date it’s the nadir of the series, would it recover?
OHMSS - TB - FRWL - LTK - GF - YOLT - DN - FYEO - TSWLM - LALD - TLD - DAF - AVTAK - TMWTGG - MR - OP - GE
Copy/paste from last year, with some edits:
GOLDENEYE
Bye bye, John Glen. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
GE: If you're going to do a soft reboot after a 6 year gap, this is the way to do it.
The good:
The not so good:
Overall, it's pretty great though.
A lot of fans rate GE as one of the very best, and while I don’t rate it quite that highly, it is pretty excellent. Martin Campbell is immediately on top of the tone of the whole thing, he knows when you have a serious moment, he knows when to play an entire action set piece for laughs, and it just feels so confident and assured.
There is a bit of a drop in pace with Servenaya which loses a couple of points from me, but otherwise it’s all great.
Brosnan takes over from Dalton and it’s a relief: we have a proper movie star in the lead again, someone with screen presence and charisma, and he was an instant hit with audiences. He won’t be winning any Oscars, but he was exactly what Bond needed.
The series is reborn beautifully, Dench is instantly in control as M and on her way to being the best one, the new MI6 looks great, and Danny Kleinman’s titles are the best in years and a fantastic new direction for the series, especially after Binder had visibly run out of ideas on the last one (okay, so there’s a wedding at this point and the film is about a licence to kill… I know: cameras!). Straight away the gunbarrel is so striking and strong. Meddings’ models are a low point, although to be fair he does have a couple of triumphs, like the MIGs taking off, the Tiger escape pod or Bond’s plane crashing into the lake.
There is that odd sequence where Bond happily machine guns down dozens of Russian soldiers: who at this point weren’t our enemy. Imagine if he’d opened fire on all those men at the American airbase trying to stop him in Octopussy! Campbell seemed to realise his mistake by CR, where Bond storms an embassy in the opening sequence but is careful not to use lethal force on anyone.
But it’s great: Bond is back and entertaining audiences just as it should. It does feel slightly greatest-hits, and in the cinema I remember really enjoying it but also a slight pang of disappointment that it felt like another Bond movie rather than something totally new - it's a bit like when a model of car has been on the market for a few years and they update it with new headlights and bumpers so it feels fresher, but you know it's ultimately still the same old thing underneath and they haven't exactly redesigned it. But it’s such a strong start for the new Eon (named in the titles for the first time!) regardless.
For UK viewers wishing to pitch in, GoldenEye is being shown on ITV4 tonight (Wed) at 7.20pm.
If you're in for a Bond evening, Sky Arts is repeating Ian Fleming: The Curse of Bond at 11pm.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Will just add, Dalton was perhaps the only Bond actor to not have anything boyish about him. All the other Bonds had that boyish quality, that twinkle in the eye or bit of mischief. It was a quality that made audiences indulge his antics a bit and forgive any wrongdoing. I'm not saying Fleming's Bond has too much of that, but Fleming did. Brosnan brought it back.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
GOLDENEYE (1995)
First things first: Brosnan is just fine as Bond an he'd get even better later. The cast are generally also fine (except Joe Don Baker, though he was worse in TLD), and a special word to Michael Kitchen as the best Tanner to that date.
As @emtiem says above, there's a greatest hits feel but that's not necessarily a bad thing - TSWLM did that too and it worked well there. Both films came after a longer than usual gap and both did very well financially; I hope Amazon have taken note.
And unusually for me I've left this till last - this film has the worst score of any Bond film and that includes NSNA, though when watching that one I sometimes feel differently. It's inappropriate, amelodic, and off-putting. The main song is all right (and a mention for the excellent title sequence), it's a pity it isn't used in the score, and of course that wasn't written by Eric Serra who was the guilty man for most of the musical shambles. Not "Tank Drive Around St Petersburg" which replaced Serra's intended piece once the makers heard his ideas, and is the best cue in the whole film.
I have not been able to partake of this watchalong, but I did catch this on the box last night (saves digging out the DVD)
GOLDENEYE (1995)
Oh, I don't know. I watched this with half an eye while preparing and eating a late dinner of pasta, garlic bread and tiramisu - no wine tho' so a bit disappointing, must try harder next time. Which rather summed up my opinion of GE.
I think some reviewers are a bit down on this movie, but I enjoy it despite a ponderous first half and a too-extended second. The mission takes an age to get going but nothing interesting is happening here - not like in OHMSS where the long prelude is fundamental throughout to the unfolding dramas and the ultimate emotional success of the film. In fact, the sequences all seem to be of that 'greatest hits n bits' milleu. The background to the PTS is almost unnecessary. They could just as easily have had Bond blow the dam up and scar Ouremov's face. The whole Sean Bean traitor angle seems hopelessly complicated. I don't like the stupid stunt with the plane which is scientifically impossible, ruptured by bad SFX and worse repeats a feat we just saw with the bungee rope - a begining as aweinspiring as the parachute jump in TSWLM.
The film then reinterprets a whole host of famous and not-so-famous Bond scenes. The business with OO7's 'psychological assessment' and the silly psychiatrist he seduces could be dumped. So too the obscene nature of the jokes, in Monaco, in MI6 HQ and in Severnaya. The humour is a bit pitiless. Wade is next to useless and again, humourless. Robbie Coltrane is great and so too Famke Janseen, but one feels both are wasted here, the roles too small, too underdeveloped. I gather the movie was rewritten and I would be interested to know which bits got added in - I guess the humour and the easter eggs. Does anyone know?
The movie trundles along quite nicely and picks up in the middle. The ending (spoiled by Wade and an aching section where Bond reflects on his role as a OO operative) is spectaular and smilingly gimicky, but the final fight is too long and the final stunt repeats again an idea we saw in the PTS. Not very original.
Everyone seems to hate the music. I do too. All I will say is, it sounds worse without the pictures. Good titles. Tina Turner is wasted. In fact, there is a lot of 'wasted' material here which is a shame. The photography is clean and occasionally unusual and the editing quite sharp, which makes a change from the last few films, but the director can't avoid the obvious cliches and the comic-strip characters [M's briefing scenes aside] do not help.
The more I see of GE, the less I like it, so the challenge I suppose is not to watch it. Generally though, it serves as an effective introduction to the boyishly charming and super-confident Pierce Brosnan, which I think is the point. The movie (like LALD) plays to his strengths and succeeds primarily because of it. However, the film is very stop-start. Nonetheless, GE tends to sit just outside my top ten, chiefly because I dislike other films even more.
Better was to come.
I think I'd question if the plane stunt is impossible: I think I remember them saying they did it for real at altitude. Obviously there was a pilot in the plane so I don't know if they were slowing it down somehow, but I imagine it would be still be something a plane could feasibly do on its own. Also we see a couple of genuine shots of a real skydiver catching the plane up in the sequence itself (including the initial bike jump), so I get the impression it's possible. The horrible VFX shot of Pierce dangling next to the plane in a studio does ruin the effect though, you're right. But if someone has more experience of skydiving after a plane I'm happy to take their advice! 😅
Nonetheless, GE tends to sit just outside my top ten, chiefly because I dislike other films even more.
Always good to be amongst other fans of the Bond movies 🤣
GE is a very good Bond film. Plot, cast, stunts etc. is very good and enjoyable. I won't say no more Bond films would be made if GE wasn't a success, but it would be very hard and take more time. The weak link in GE is the music score and Eric Serra, but the movie is still a joy to watch.
I have thoroughly enjoyed these GoldenEye reviews, and how they contradict one another.
I particularly enjoyed @CoolHandBond 's contribution - I thought I was the only one who did reviews like this, where a Bond film makes one hate the entire world, all its contents and everyone who lives in it.
CHB has been a little tense with me since I raised the spectre of Calvin Dyson on this thread, and now I can see why, as GoldenEye is possibly Dyson's favourite Bond film while currently is sits at the foot of CHB's table. (That all said, you'd find it hard to argue with Dyson's scathing and very funny review of Never Say Never Again.)
Now, CHB would particularly hate GE given that Licence to Kill is one of his favourites, because it did that thing that the series does from time to time - addresses the perceived faults of its predecessor while unnecessarily introducing a few dealbreakers of its own.
So, GE has all the stuff LTK lacked - gun-toting Russians, a Cold War theme, a murderous femme fatale, European locations, the Aston Martin DB5, some gadgets...
Space hardware. Neither of Dalton's films had any space scenes and nor did any of Craig's. Okay, I suppose, given they're meant to be occupying Fleming's world, and he never wrote about that stuff. Then again, for some of us, it imposes some kind of limit on Bond's world for the duration of those actors' tenure.
And of course, GE has Pierce Brosnan, who can do the gags that Dalton didn't quite manage.
Yet for all these compensations, GE lacks a few things LTK had.
GE lacks a believable, understandable, straightforward plot. It lacks a believable, three-dimensional villain. It lacks sincerity.
As I wrote in a letter published by Starburst when the film came out, I can't really believe in anything up on the screen. It doesn't help that Campbell has this edgy, cool direction that somehow draws attention to the absurdities. At the time I might have figured out why the pre-credits seems odd, the geography off, as Bond dives off a dam and then later free falls off the top of a mountain. The free fall into a falling aeroplane is Brosnan's tsunami moment but luckily audiences opted to laugh a long with it.
For CHB, the falling off would be similar to going from OHMSS to DAF - however, I love DAF. I don't love this.
There are loads of plot holes of the kind that wind me up. Is Trevelyn old enough to support his backstory about Britain's betrayal in World War II? Someone did try to defend it, once. Bond's tank appearing on the railway tracks ahead of Ourmov's speeding train, when it's been in motion for a good few minutes. Now, the author Sinclair Mackay did write in his book The Man With The Golden Touch something that pulled me up a bit. He said that the Bond films are entertaining stupid movies, and that some folk know this and others don't. Both think they're enjoying it in the same way but they are not, and both go home satisfied, with honour upheld. It does make me wonder if the writers aren't trying to make the films dumb sometimes, as if to make a point. And that I've missed the point.
I never believe I'm seeing the Bond villain Alec Trevelyn, instead I'm watching Sean Bean try his hand as a Bond villain. It's not bad, it's just not particularly believable.
I am not trying to troll @Barbel when I say I quite like the soundtrack. It has this stark, eerie vibe to it. In a compilation LP, I'd happily pick three tracks from this film. Of course, the tank chase was rescored - and the climax on the satellite dish was too, wasn't it? The actual song is Bond pastiche, like a lot of this film and the closer is a nice song that belongs in a different movie altogether, but not here.
The film is dogged by this knowing, self-deprecating humour of the kind we had in Never Say Never Again, where it seems it's far too knowing and self-conscious about being a Bond film, so the audience can't quite go a long with it. Almost everyone pops up to have a go at our hero so it becomes repetitive. Agreed, the film is very stop-start.
That all said, while I enjoyed LTK on its release - largely because the likes of Indiana Jones, Lethal Weapon and Batman scratched that Bond itch that year - and saw it maybe three times at the cinema, I never feel the need to catch any of it on telly, there are no action highlights for me. You're either all in or you're out with that one, and you get some Bonds like that - if you don't like the main thing it's selling, you won't like it. Other films have a subtext, so if you don't believe the space stuff in YOLT, you can follow the Far East culture clash angle; if submarines bore you then you can enjoy the sexual/political tension between Bond and his Cold War counterpart.
But I will tune in for the pre-credits of GE, as the direction has flair, it is imaginatively and ambitiously staged, there is a good turnover of scenes in the movie so you can enjoy it for 20 mins or so; it just feels like a trailer, or a brochure of a Bond film.
For all this, I could enjoy GoldenEye a whole lot more if it had a smoother, warmer feel and most importantly, if the jokes were any good. Bizarrely, given Brosnan was meant to be a funny fellow, the jokes are a bit perfunctory in this, possibly a result of the last-minute rewrites, so the actual dialogue can feel a bit first draft. This would be a problem that would dog most of the Brosnan films, aside from TWINE. So GE is a bit like DAF if a) It didn't have Connery b) The fine jokes weren't there and c) No John Barry.
The film brings out the nitpicker in me, which is a side of myself I dislike. I got to see action films to avoid that.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I think it's good and well-made, but I did watch one of those reaction vids last week on it where the reviewers had started with it as their first Bond film- and they it enjoyed it but found it 'cheesy', which I think is a fair comment, and much in line with what you're saying, NP. I was left thinking that if they make it to the Craigs they'll much prefer them, just because they're kind of more engaging films, generally. They don't do cheese and you get more involved emotionally watching them.
@Napoleon Plural If it feels that I’ve been tense to you then that is not my intention. The written word is totally different to the spoken word and emojis do not always express the emotion that is intended either. I’m thoroughly enjoying this thread and the differing views are fascinating to read. It does go to show that filmmakers have a difficult job in deciding what goes up onto the screen, they cannot please everyone.
Yes, GE got a particularly scathing review from me which is opposite to most of the people who have commented, but it’s only my opinion and I express it, I enjoy reading other views but those views mean nothing to me as my view is the only one that counts (for me) the same as everyone else’s views only count for them.
TND is next and I will rewatch it tomorrow, from what I remember of it the review will be a lot more sympathetic than GE 😁