Posted on 12/03/2012 5:29:23 AM PST by Perdogg
So here we are at last, three years after I began reviewing the James Bond series, and it’s time to announce my choices for the best elements of the entire series. You have to hand it to the Broccoli family and all involved. Bond has endured over 24 films across 50 years, six actors, the bankruptcy of its home studio, battles over rights, changes in technology and culture, and the very nature of the action film.
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ping
The Sean Connery Bond made an anglophile of every American male teenager.
Brosnan made a decent Bond, and Judy Dench was the best "M" ever - the uncertainty of her trustfulness in the movie is interesting. The scenes in Iceland are the most spectacular in any Bond film, and please - an invisible car? How cool is that?
Best Bond - George Lazenby closest to Fleming Novel character
Worst Bond - Daniel Craig - terribly miscasted. Does not appears to have the on screen comfort to make love to a woman or the ability to explain the Manichaean concept of Bond like Connery, Moore, or Lazenby.
Best Bond Girl - It is really hard to compare women across 50 years, I still think at her age at the time, Eunice Gayson was probably one of the most beautiful in a Bond film.
Best Bond Movie - On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
Worst Bond Movie - Die Another Day (QoS and Skyfall not really Bond movies).
Best Score - John Barry’s OHMSS
Worst Score - Dave Arnold’s Die Another Day
Sean Connery was the only “Bond”...All the others were imitators....
Sean Connery was the perfect visual image of the Bond book readers BEFORE the movies.....He was exactly what I saw in my mind’s image of Bond reading as a youngster.
Sean Connery was the only “Bond”...All the others were imitators....
Sean Connery was the perfect visual image of the Bond book readers BEFORE the movies.....He was exactly what I saw in my mind’s image of Bond reading as a youngster.
Oops...sorry for the double...
Not as cool as an invisible airplane with Linda Carter in it scantily clad!
I agree with the author that Carole Bouquet was (and is) a stunningly beautiful woman. As for the most sex appeal though, I’m not seeing Honor Blackman at the top of the list. That goes to Ursula Andress as Honey Ryder (I think that was her character name). Yowza!
Mehhh. Daniel Craig is one of favorite Bonds. Roger Moore is the worst for me.
Connery #1
Craig #2
everybody else
Moore dead last, except for the parody Bonds.
Roger Moore has been good in a lot of roles. He was great as the Saint which was a much more light-hearted, David Niven kind of character. He just never had the grit to play a "licensed killer".
#1 connery #2 roger moore. They both had a sense of class and humour. The rest of the bond actors were shallow or forgettable. Craig has completely ruined the series. The last several movies are crap. The latest one has a good score which is desperately needed to compensate for a horribly written but well done movie. Best bond movie IMO was goldfinger.
Thunderball.
Oh PUHLEEEEZ! Are you kidding me? There is a reason that Lazenby only did one bond film and even Timothy Dalton did two: Lazenby was awful. A cardboard cutout of Daniel Craig can emote better than Lazenby.
Having read a few of the Fleming novels and short stories, I would say that Dalton was much closer to the Fleming character than Lazenby, while Daniel Craig flat nails it.
Connery set the standard for Bond actors; none of the other Bond actors met that standard until Craig surpassed it.
I thought I was the only OHMSS fan. The movie doesn’t appear dated even now. Great musical themes.
Diana Rigg had a lot to do with it, too.
Pierce Brosnan looked like what you would expect of a James Bond.
Live and Let Die was transitional. It took us from Connery to Moore. And it was Moore’s best effort.
Barbara Carerra was good as a Bond girl as was Maude Adams.
Favorite film? Diamonds are Forever.
Best novel and best movie: From Russia with Love.
By the way, if you haven’t read the original novels and you are a fan, you should. Nothing like the movies, for the most part, but very good reads. The movies are basically parodies. Sean Connery was the only Bond. Daniel Craig is a far second.
Yes that one is outstanding. Diamonds are forever definitely gets some points for charaters like Mr Wint and Mr Kidd. :-).
Not only have I read the novels, but also I have a modest collection of them.
In TLD, I love the scenes of the Soviet chase of 007's Aston Martin through the Alps.
The mountain climbing scene toward the end of FYEO was awesome, and Topol is one of my favorite actors (he was 007's Greek friend in that movie).
Jaws is, and always will be, my favorite 007 villain.
Richard Kiel mailed me an autographed photo when I returned home from Afghanistan.
One thing about Bond fans is that their opinion on Bond movies is more diverse than any other franchise.
Nevertheless here are the best 3 Bonds EVER!
OHMSS
Casino Royale (Craig)
Well OK there were only two!
Worst Bond..Roger Moore
Worst movie..Octopussy and a View to a kill,second...
Best Bond girl..The girl in QOS.Olya Kurylenko,she actually got to fight and shoot instead of just saying James,James,James.
Everything else i agree with..
***Best Bond - George Lazenby closest to Fleming Novel character
Oh PUHLEEEEZ! Are you kidding me?***
I saw it at the theater. It was AWFUL! It was so-bad that when it was shown on TV the first time, they broke it into two parts, shown over two weeks, and started it in the middle where Bond escapes the castle on skis, then to the auto race in which a car flips and skids, the driver looks at the upright car with Bond in it, then after that comes a voiceover...”Now how did I get into something like this..”? Then the movie reverted to the main titles.
I like to think of James Bond as a transitional character.
A good agent, name unknown, is assigned the name and number, JAMES BOND 007.
After he is wore out and retires, a new agent is reassigned the same name and number.
Think of what kind of movie could be made in which the latest James Bond must talk with one or more of the earlier James Bonds.
***Sean Connery was the perfect visual image of the Bond***
But, but he got killed in TARZAN’S GREATEST ADVENTURE and failed as a singer when the shown up by little Irish leprechauns (Darby O’Gill and the little People).;-D
I also have a collection. I have them all on audio CDs (copied from the library, legally) except Thunderball and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (I have both these on Kindle). I am missing Man with the Golden Gun and the short story collection Octopussy, Living Daylights, Property of a Lady, and 007 in New York. I plan on finishing my collection in the coming year.
All are good reads/listens, and if you grew up in the Cold War, they are very entertaining. I suspect that younger generations would not enjoy these stories much in the their original format...
The audio CDs are great to listen to on the road. The stories are engaging enough to keep you interested, but are not so intense or complicated that you have to concentrate on them while listening to enjoy the stories.
Just saw the extended Heineken commercial featuring Daniel and Bérénice yesterday (at Landmark E Street Cinema while waiting for “Hitchcock” to start) and I must say that I saw more action from Bond in those 2 minutes than I did in all of “Skyfall”.......
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpTUAOYrSII
Teh Awesomest scene evar!
I like Dalton and Young Connery the best.
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