But John Glen had improved as director. Both Dalton Bonds are better directed than the 3 Moore Bonds he did. Especially For Your Eyes Only is visually a terrible bland film.
Licence to Kill is for me also one of the 7 or 8 best Bonds.
Just re-watched Moonraker for unknown reasons. Maybe the worst of them all. Only A View to a Kill is maybe worse. But this one contains an excellent Christopher Walken as the baddie. Too bad he wasn’t in a better one.
Licence to Kill …liked the change of pace in this one. Lost track of Bond after this though. Few things really. The gap to the next one was the longest ever, and could never get into Pierce Brosnan as Bond. Maybe one day I will view a Bond with Daniel Craig, but I suspect not as lost my desire for Bond these days.
Family film night at our house and we were all keen to see how Tim Dalton’s second (and final) outing in the franchise turned out. His first had been a universal success with the familia and Licence to Kill maintained the standard I think. By far the most violent and, at times, downright gruesome Bond film to date with shark attacks, people grinding and human fireballs all laid on quite graphically. This was all to the good from my standpoint and I’ve come away from the Dalton Bonds wishing he had done more. The action at times was non stop and the quality of the stunts, again, was terrific. The semi trailer lorry riding on one set of wheels and then dropping smack on top of a parked jeep was a winning sequence and there was some excellent ‘hanging out of a plane’ stuff again which is always good value. Nice to see a very young Benicio Del Toro as one of the main heavies too, which was a surprise.
Dalton brought a much needed harder and more serious edge to the Bond screen character and he was good in the role I think. We all liked him and are looking forward to comparing him to the next guy when we move on to the Brosnan era. I’ve seen some of his before on TV but, to be honest, they all kind of blend in to one another in my memory. A re-viewing will hopefully give me a better sense of their worth.
I saw two Brosnan Bonds recently: Tomorrow Never Dies and The World is Not Enough. to be honest, while Brosnan was good, they basically followed the same pattern and are pretty bland. On the other hand, they are quite fun.
GoldenEye was the family film night choice at our house last night as we continue our journey through the Bond franchise.
Pierce Brosnan’s first appearance in the role he and seemed to wear the part like a comfortable coat. A little lighter in tone to the Dalton films but still with the ruthless edge which is essential for an effective Bond in my opinion. There was a 6 year gap between films before this one finally saw daylight and the world had moved on, both in political terms and political correctness terms. The Berlin Wall had come down and the Soviets were no longer the enemy although still clearly considered with some doubts. But the biggest change was the place of women and what was and was not considered acceptable attitudes in that area. So now we have a female Boss (Judi Dench) and a couple of female characters (one good, one bad) who are anything but helpless eye candy at the whim of Bond’s fancy. This is all to the good in my book as (a.) there is nothing sexier than a strong woman and (b.) the conventions of the Bond genre were in clear need of an update. Brosnan fitted this perfectly, as he still looked good enough for the girls and had the ‘naughty boy’ glint in his eye that they like so much but was not the same chauvinist dinosaur (Judi Dench’s words) that he had been previously.
Another improvement was the higher impact of the fight scenes which were much more convincing and brutal than prior while the larger scale stunts were still of the highest calibre. The opening scene bungee jump was a very good start in that area.
So, on the whole, a positive response from us. I had seen a couple of Brosnan Bonds (or at least parts thereof) before but could not remember which ones. I can say now that GoldenEye was not one of them. It was all new to me and a pretty pleasant ride. Brosnan was convincing in the part, the action was sustained and good quality and the lighter moments were well timed and not overplayed. Not the best of the series for me but a pretty good entry nonetheless.
I keep saying that GoldenEye is my favorite James Bond, but that’s based on childhood memories, I never re-watched it because I was afraid that those memories would be crushed. But your positive response makes me want to give it another go, maybe it’ll still be my favorite Bond.
GOLDENEYE…childhood memories??
Oh my!!
That is further proof that I am ancient! My childhood memories of Bond are of Connery and the first couple of Roger Moore 007 flicks.
I feel prehistoric! 
I thought GOLDENEYE was alright. I liked TOMORROW NEVER DIES, as well (mostly for Michelle Yeoh). But, frankly, after those two films…I lost interest in the Brosnan Bonds.
[quote=“Chris_Casey, post:327, topic:544”]GOLDENEYE…childhood memories??
Oh my!!
That is further proof that I am ancient! My childhood memories of Bond are of Connery and the first couple of Roger Moore 007 flicks.
I feel prehistoric!
I thought GOLDENEYE was alright. I liked TOMORROW NEVER DIES, as well (mostly for Michelle Yeoh). But, frankly, after those two films…I lost interest in the Brosnan Bonds.[/quote]
To us Paladin guys GoldenEye sounds more like a midlife crisis …
Aha! Well, since my father was a relative James Bond fan, I’ve also grown up with a few movies from Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton. I can’t remember watching any Sean Connery when I was younger, though. Next up kids who’ve grown up with a blonde James Bond!
Yes, James Blond, maybe the best ever. At least the films.
Yes, that is one of the Brosnan’s I have seen before and it was definitely Michele that stuck in my mind. 8)
Right you are, amigo! ;D
Tomorrow Never Dies was viewed by the family and I have to say was a very big hit. I had seen parts of this before but not all through so my memories of it, although positive, were also somewhat sketchy. On rewatching it all the way through I would say it compares favourably with any of its predecessors and, in my view, rates as high as all but the very best of the Connery Bonds.
Michele Yeoh’s kick arse appearance helps it along very well and her character adds not just some great martial art fight scenes but an effective female foil for the Bond character, putting the chauvinism of the past to bed well and truly. On top of that the action scenes are exciting and quite unrelenting, Judi Dench makes the role of M her own and the soundtrack, after the disappointing effort in GoldenEye, is back as it should be. There’s also a blonde assasin (always a good thing in a Bond movie in my opinion) and a major villain based clearly on Rupert Murdoch (and his ilk) which is always going to win brownie points with me. This last played very well by Jonathan Pryce too. Plus, Brosnan inhabits the role of 007 just fine, ticking all the right boxes and making an appealing and believable Bond.
So, all in all, a genuine winner and, according to the family voting system) a top 5 Bond which I could easily see us revisiting…
The World is Not Enough was the latest one from the franchise watched by the family in our journey through the series and although, in my opinion, not quite as good as its immediate predecessor it’s still a fine entry and Pierce Brosnan continued to cement himself with the family as a very popular Bond. In fact most here apart from me rated this one above Tomorrow Never Dies and it has accordingly usurped it in the family’s top 5 Bond film list. I have never seen the final Brosnan Bond (Die Another Day) but I’m told it’s the worst of the bunch so we will go into that one with some trepidation. But so far, Brosnan gets a unanimous thumbs up from us with all we’ve seen so far in the top 10.
The World is Not Enough is quite a good Bond film, but I felt while watching it that it was trying to ape Tomorrow Never Dies too much, only with a lesser villain. Brosnan was good as you say, however, for me, it’s definatly a lesser Bond.
[quote=“ENNIOO, post:320, topic:544”]The Living Daylights was the last complete John Barry Bond score, but not one of the best in my view. To many songs and pop sounding at times.[/quote]The Pretenders song is much better than the A-ha one too.
[quote=“Phil H, post:334, topic:544”]I have never seen the final Brosnan Bond (Die Another Day) but I’m told it’s the worst of the bunch so we will go into that one with some trepidation.[/quote]In my opinion not only is it the worst Brosnan one it’s the worst out all the Bonds.
It’s barely edged out for me by A View to a Kill.
[quote=“Cat Stevens, post:338, topic:544”]It’s barely edged out for me by A View to a Kill.[/quote]That comes a close second ;D
the only james bond is sartana