The title and release date of the next Bond movie have been made official.
So bring on your hate for Craig, if you will. I think he’s great and will miss him, since this will be his last. I have a soft spot for violent sociopaths and will be buying a ticket come April.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/aug/20/no-time-to-die-james-bond-25-title
I love Craig, but I think the quality of the films has really dipped with his last couple. A shame after such a strong start with Casino Royale – irrefutably the best “film” in the whole series, as opposed to best “bond film”, if you know what I mean. It had real film-making heft to it.
I’ll definitely still go and see this though. The Bond franchise has shown a remarkable tenacity and talent for regeneration over the years, so with every new entry there’s always the chance for a new classic. An interesting choice of director.
I really like Skyfall and find Spectre less disastrous than most.
I though Brosnan was really good as Bond too and deserved better movies. Goldeneye is a classic, Tomorrow Never Dies was decent, I guess. Then it really went down the drain.
Agree re Goldenye, disagree re Tomorrow Never Dies! I think The World Is Not Enough was fabulous, almost a true return to form.
A shame that it was Madonna, a surfboard and an invisible car until the Bourne series inspired Bond to try harder again.
The World Is Not Enough? That´s a very brave statement. But then I don´t rate Roger Moore´s movies at all, nor his take on Bond. Too much Benny Hill. So what do I know?
Dont get me started on A View To A Kill then…. an underrated masterpiece is what I say….
@Arthur-Cowslip
People seem to think it’s one of the very best, due to it going so far over the top, or one of the worst for the exact same reason.
It’s too camp for me. Introducing Cosmo Kramer as James Bond.
Thanks @Neela now I have a mental image of the cast of ‘Seinfeld’ as the principals of the next Bond movie…
My pleasure, @Slotbadger! Introducing Newman as Blofeld. He would be great.
“Hello… Blofeld“
See? The script is writing itself! And Newman works for the postal office. It makes sense Spectre would like to control information.
Uncle Leo is Q. He´ll talk a lot about how much more careful Jeffrey is with all the gadgets.
Ha ha, “Kramer”! Yeah there is a bit of that.
For the defence, m’lud, I cite the following:
– The soundtrack is magnificent, particularly the simultaneously poignant and sinister “dance into the fire” refrain, used to best effect when Bond and his girl are escaping from that burning building. John Barry at his best.
– The comedy relationship between Roger Moore and Patrick Macnee is sweet.
– Christopher Walken is… well, just one of the most chilling and psychotic villains in ANY Bond film. Still unbeaten, I think. The bit where he goes crazy with a machine gun is sublime.
– Some excellent locations. The Eiffel Tower, the Golden Gate Bridge, Silicon Valley…. Many Bond films live or die by their sense of globetrotting momentum, and this one is pure momentum the whole way.
– The comedy is clever (mostly), and is a real step up from the slapstick stuff the seventies movies had descended into. I like a lot of the snappy dialogue – “I’m James Bond, British secret service agent.” – “Is he?” – “I don’t know, are you?” – “Yes” – “Yeah well I’m Dick Tracey and you’re still under arrest”.
We agree on Walken. Properly scary.
I used to think it was funny he has the same hairdo as Let’s Dance-era Bowie until I read somewhere they DID approach Bowie to play the villain.
I much preferred The World Is Not Enough to Tomorrow Never Dies too. I almost wept sat watching Die Another Day. It was abysmal.
Skyfall was a really good looking film and quite enjoyable, despite being utterly daft really and Bond basically getting his boss killed with some major errors of judgement. SPECTRE was a mess. One of the best, scene stealing actors in the world, playing the ultimate villain and completely phoning it in. So disappointing. And the Andrew whatshisnameoffsherlockwiththeannoyingvoicebutwhowasreallygoodinfleabag character was really interesting but just went nowhere.
I have a theory about Skyfall which I trot out at every opportunity (like now), but no one ever agrees or sees what I’m driving at.
For me, the bit where he smuggles M off to Scotland in, ahem, THAT Aston Martin was only pointing to one thing for me. I remember sitting in the cinema thinking that we must be heading for a cameo from Sean Connery here….Scotland, Aston Martin DB5, it was the annivesary of the first film…but we ended up with Albert Finney playing the old family retainer. Surely that was written for Connery..?
OK….just me then…
I’ve had the same thought. Two brilliant minds making the same conclusion can’t be wrong, can they?
He wush playing golf, and they didnae awfer enough cash. Tae hell wi’ Bawnd unlesh ye have the caash.
Yesch, that’sch probably what happened. Named after your father, perhapsch?
While I’ll trot along dutifully to the local fleapit next year, I can’t evince any great enthusiasm at this stage. I believe the problem with the series is that new installments come out far too infrequently and the producers hold far too tight a stranglehold on the writers and directors. It’s acknowledged that the Craig era yields two good-to-great entries in Casino Royale and Skyfall, one passable though overlong outing in Spectre and one out-and-out dud in Quantum Of Solace (which featured an excellent female foil in Olga Kurylenko while the film as a whole was let down by poor direction and scripting).
Mind, Craig’s going to have to up his wardrobe game in this new one – too much drab Tom Ford linen and white tuxes in Spectre and not enough of the sartorial punch of Crockett & Jones, Billy Reid and Sunspel.
The Mission Impossible series came very close to drinking Bond’s milkshake with Rogue Nation but shat the bed completely with Fallout. The skeletal script wasn’t helped by the cast: Henry Cavill is a truly terrible actor.
Tenet by Christopher Nolan may be the only espionage caper worth shelling out for in 2020.
I’d love to see Nolan direct the next Bond, with Tom Hardy taking over from Craig. Failing that, Dan Stevens off Downton Abbey would be fab in the role.
Agree that Nolan directing Bond would be fantastic, but surely the next Bond has to be Idris Elba
@Chrisf The only problem with Elba, though I”m sure he would be great, is he’s in his mid forties now and so would be closing in on fifty around the time of his first film.
25 movies and 1 (maybe 2) good ones?
I agree with above. Craig is the best Bond, Casino Royale the only really good film.
A town near me called Matera is one of the locations in the new film. It’s an amazing place, quite unlike any other town in Europe and often used to represent ancient Jerusalem (in Mel Gibson’s The Passion Of Christ and the remake of Ben Hur, for example).
Some of it is being filmed in the Cairngorms. If I’d known exactly where, I’d have tried walking into the background.
At least the scenery will be nice.
I loved the Bond books as a teenager and also loved the films up to, and including, ‘Live and Let Die’. After that I felt they became increasingly tedious and the subsequent actors were just actors. Not Bond.
The way I see it Bond was born in the post-war world and the books and the original run of films tended to reflect, with varying degrees of ‘seriousness’, the paranoia of the Cold War and the perceived glamour of the sixties (cheaper air travel, ‘swinging’ London et al). In this respect I see Bond as pretty much of an era. These days they’re just action films.
Have to agre with you. The paperbacks entranced me as a teenager – I still have a few tattered Pans and can’t bear to part with them. Bond truly belongs back then, and it’s a shame the films have been allowed to slip through the decades rather than re-creating the glamour of, say, Havana or Berlin in period.
Having said that, the fillums have usually been hugely enjoyable as, well, just action films.
Hmm… I think I would be a bit fairer than that. I do think the film franchise has managed to reinvent itself quite convincingly every so often. It says something when a new Bond film is still big news in 2019.
The early films, sure, were veiled social commentary and are a good barometer of sixties social mobility and wish fulfilment, but each new run of Bond films tends to say something about the decade it appears.
Erm, don’t ask me exactly WHAT they say… just…. something….
My party piece is being able to recognise any Bond novel just form the first two words. Although I can only do it from the words themselves, not from the title, if that makes sense.
Feel free to test me on this.
Impressive. I’m quite good on first lines from classic novels generally and love to be tested.
I liked the Bond books when I was younger because they were a tantalising peep into the grown up world although I have to admit that sometimes I was in the dark when it came to plots and things like Bond’s intricate breakfast routine. My favourite book was probably ‘From Russia With Love’- which is my favourite Bond film too. Nasty but with the right level of glamour and sophistication.
I once drove Bond composer Monty Norman round London and had to perform an emergency u-turn on Westminster Bridge. That’s my Bond claim to fame…
By the way, I soon realised, of course, that the novels weren’t a genuine peep into adulthood at all.
“By the way, I soon realised, of course, that the novels weren’t a genuine peep into adulthood at all.” – Whaaaaaaa?? No!
Irony.
Chapter One
What were the first two or three words from Four Weddings and a Funeral, anyone?
I think that’s the only one I know.
Isn’t it repeated ‘fucks’ as Charlie and his sister realised that they have overslept and will be late for a wedding? As opening lines go its hardly, ‘I believe in America.’
But memorable.
True. I haven’t seen the film in decades but remembered it without too much of a struggle.
I saw it on an aeroplane shortly after it came out and they changed it to bugger.
Tattered Pans? I think I have some of their early singles.
My problem talking about Bond films is I can never remember which one was which – with the exception of Casino Royale.
Looking forward to the new one, although I hope they break the habit and don’t put 51 year-old Daniel Craig in bed with an actress in her mid 20s. It’s getting creepy.
Monica Bellucci was cast in the last one, and she was a couple of years older than Daniel Craig.
Ha. This is like criticising the ‘Saw’ movies for gratuitous violence!
Is Naomie Harris in it? She is?? I’m watching.
I’ve never seen a Bond film, and I don’t intend starting now.
You really should. Imagine the incisive comments you could be putting on threads such as this one!
But how is this even possible? Isn’t it like never having heard a Beatles song?
I always thought Timothy Dalton was the best Bond, but in the worst films. I know I’m probably in a minority of one here. But I DO know Bond should come across like he can kill someone with his bare hands. And that takes us down to two, maybe three actors so far.
The Living Daylights is one of the very best.
It certainly is, but Licence To Kill isn’t that great.
No, but still on the top half for me.
I would say you have to be able to wear a tux like you mean it. Therefore I continue to nominate Bryan Ferry.
He’d be pants in MI6. One dish of Fererro Rocher and he’s anyone’s.
With Eno as Blofeld.
Bond films always follow the same pattern for me: the film is released and the critics rave about it. I go and see it and find it disappointing. A few years’ later, despite telling myself not to fall for it again, the cycle repeats itself and I trot off and watch another Bond film I don’t enjoy.
Having genuinely not enjoyed a Bond film since Goldeneye, I have conclusively made up my mind not to go and see the next one. Until I do, obviously.
Good that you rate Goldeneye. It’s pretty great, isn’t it? It wasn’t an attempt to be any kind of “clever” re-booting or re-imagining of Bond – it feels like it was just an attempt to lay out all the things Bond films do well (action, comedy, gadgets, world under threat….) and just do them better than ever before. Terrific film. The high speed tank chase alone throws it into the upper echelons of Bond movies.
I remember really enjoying the commentary on the DVD. In these CGI days it’s easy to forget just how much was done with models and stunt work. Goldeneye is very well crafted – a real labour of love.
Shame about the awful theme tune! The last great Bond theme was A-ha…. discuss….
Strange, as I actually like A-ha, but I’m not that keen on their theme song. I don’t really like Duran Duran, but I thought their tune was pretty good! The Living Daylights is a good film, though, and I think Timmy Dalton is the best Bond…
I watched it quite recently actually. (I had an idea to start a blog about 80s movies, not the usual suspects but movies I had genuinely watched in the cinema in the 80s and loved at the time (so stuff like Krull, Willow, Mannequin, etc) but never really got off the ground….) Anyway, I found it kind of slow and uneventful after the initial bits about her with the cello trying to defect. It was crying out for a big villain with a master plan, which I suppose was something they were trying to get away from at the time. I can’t even remember the actual plot to be honest… something about arms dealing?
Ha, you’re spot on regarding the villain’s intentions – I’m foggy about the plot, but arms dealing sounds familiar…possibly an opium deal, too.
Bond films have form with curious casting. Maud Adams has played two different roles in the franchise, and Joe Don Baker, The Living Daylight’s main villain, reappeared as Pierce Brosnan’s CIA mate in the 90s. Charles Gray has portrayed different characters, too… and I always think he’s going to do the Time Warp when he’s on screen. Who knows, maybe Judy Dench will reappear in Bond 25 as an arch seductress who convinces Bond to invest in a timeshare in Corfu.
Even for the minor roles, they seem to go back to actors they’ve used and trusted. You get the same faces popping up as the second tier Bond girls and small time henchmen and villains.
Dalton was excellent in the role and criminally underrated. And he’s the only person I’ve ever written to (well, his agent actually) to request a signed photo, as I have a large collection of autographs of people connected with the Bond films (just under 300) and he was the only ‘Bond’ that I didn’t have. I’m pinning my hopes on my son becoming a Bond fan, and wanting all my Bond memorabilia, as my daughter isn’t bothered. He’s 9 and only yesterday we decided on The Spy Who Loved Me as his first Bond film that we’ll be watching very soon. Fingers crossed!
@Paul-Wad What did your son make of The Spy Who Loved Me? I’m guessing it’s a good one for a nine year old with the cartoony Jaws and Moore being less violent than every other Bond.
Agreeing to watch a film with him and pinning him down to actually do so are two completely different things, especially when he’s been good and isn’t serving a Fortnite ban! I will let you know once I’ve managed to coax him away from his XBox/football!
I think that it’s about time for a classic James Bond séries, really based on the books, not placed in the 21 th century, starting in the fifties, with a real study of the historical background and some care for details. As an example, I saw some of the Mad Men series and that looks great on the screen.
There have been some radio adaptations but a TV series doesn’t seem likely while the movie franchise still has legs. I imagine Eon Productions have the rights very tightly sewn up indeed.
Not in Canada, I read on a forum where members dedicate their lives to jb.
Huh ! Good god! Owwww!
More precise:
https://io9.gizmodo.com/what-does-it-mean-now-that-james-bonds-in-canadas-publi-1678191830
Having read the above link, anything that does emerge from Canada while Eon still view Bond as “theirs” is going to be very closely scrutinised. Teams of lawyers will be on the lookout for grounds to launch lawsuits and kill anything by anyone else.
The Bond lawyers have always been vigilant. With Carry on Spying, they said no to Charles Hawtrey being called Charlie Bond – code number 001 & 1/2. Instead he was Charlie Bind. Code number “Oh, Oh, Ohhh”
*Pennsylvania 6 5 …