The World Is Not Enough (1999)

 "There's no point in living of you can't feel alive."

This is the finest Brosnan Bond film so far. I was unimpressed with GoldenEye; Tomorrow Never Dies was better; this is a superb film that channels the best of Bond.

It's all very late '90s, of course. Q is about to retire, and his replacement, the fittingly amusing R, played by a sprighly John Cleese, a mrere sixty years old, describes the latest Bond supercar as having "six cupholders". Amongst the globetrotting to Bilbao, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Istanbul is a superb set piece boat chase through London, including the Millennium Dome. And, of course, Miss Moneyponey says of a cigar that "I know exactly where to put that."

There's only one decade where that line makes sense.Still, let us note tht Bill Clinton was an abusive wanker, and Kenneth Starr was the same by proxy. May they both suffer lifelong impotence.

There's an innocence to this world pf post Cold War, End of History hubris, where there are no significant hostile countries and where threats of tyranny or nuclear armageddon, that feels charmingly dated. Yet the whole dynamic of Bomd and Elektra offers a surprisingly thoughtful take on sex and to wthe extent it can involve deceiving and using people.  

All this, and we have some splendid set pieces, a supern Bond villain in Robert Carlyle, a nice bit of misdirection where we think Elektra is the Bond girl but she turns out to be the big baddie, and one of the best theme tunes ever. This is, quetly, one of the very best Bonds.

Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

"You always were a cunning linguist, James."

I know, it's been a while since GoldenEye. But it took a while before I could face another Bond after that, and it was with all due trepidation that I sat down to watch this. It's a relief to say, then, that Brosnan is better, if still hardly my favourite Bond, and that this is a good if not great Bond film- it says a little in the middle, perhaps, and the whole thing is an extremely formulaic Bond-by-numbers but done well enough, and I think that's what's required at this stage. This is only the second film after a large gap, and there's a need to re-establish all the many tropes.

So we get a notable return to tradition after GoldenEye's sometime iconoclasm, with a notably less spiky relationship between Bond and Judy Dench's M. But we get a decent pre-titles- the Russians are goodies; it must be the '90s- and a mildly disappointing theme tune from Sheryl Crow, and off we go.

This film's Bond villain is the media mogul Eliot Carver, played with splendidly scenery-chewing relish by Jonathan Pryce as he arranges conflict between the UK and China purely to make money. He gets lots of zeitgeisty speeches about the power of the media that date the film enormously; it won't be long until the Internet starts to topple the likes of him off their perches. And I notice that Bond has his first mobile phone, although from the dependably sarky and now octogenarian Q, who has been there since From Russia with Love.

We get a splendid cast as usual, even with the likes of Jason Watkins, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Gerard Butler and Hugh Bonneville with small parts as naval officers. This is hardly one of the greats, but Bond is back on track.

GoldenEye (1995)

"I think you're a sexist, misogynist dinosaur, a relic of the Cold War."

I saw and enjoyed this film at the pictures back when I was an 18 year old student at Liverpool University, briefly: I ended up dropping out and getting my degree later. I must admit, though, that disappointed as I am on a second viewing I can't entirely blame this film.

So why did GoldenEye disappoint this time round? Well, to a large degree it's Pierce Brosnan. He really is shockingly rubbish, just phoning in his performance and displaying no charisma whatsoever, something which is not the case with his non-James Bond career.

But it's more than that: it's the script. It feels as though, after a six year gap, they've forgotten how to do James Bond. Only Desmond Llewelyn connects this to any previous film, and really does suddenly look so shockingly old. And the attempts to make ironic references to Bond's inevitable sexism- his combative relationship with the new female M and the new Moneypenny's flirtatious mention of "sexual harassment"- just aren't as clever as the film thinks they are.

Where are the glamorous locations? Yes, it's the '90s, and Russia is fleetingly friendly if also incredibly corrupt, but Siberia is no place to set a Bond film, and brief scenes in St Petersburg and Cuba don't make up for that. Xenia Onatopp is a genuinely brilliant and very Bond character- a female assassin who kills her victims by squeezing them with her legs and a delightfully Freudian nightmare for men- but there's not much else here that's brilliant.

It's hard not to compare this with the Austin Powers films- and unfavourably- given the conscious contrast between the social mores of the '60s and '90s, respectively. And you can tell it's the '90s when bond starts the film with a bungee jump. But this is a slow, ponderous film that takes ages to get going and just lacks oomph. Not their finest hour. In fact, I'm so underwhelmed that I'm going to press pause on watching the Bond films for a bit.

Oh, and we have the bizarre absence of the proper Bond theme tune at the very start. Legal reasons?

The Living Daylights (1987)

"We've nothing to declare!"

Before I go on to praise this splendid film... I may get one last blog post out tomorrow on the train- we will see- but after that there won't be anything more until after my big exam on Tuesday 3rd May. It's a week of hardcore revision for me to look forward to. Still, expect a flurry of new blog posts in the couple of days after the exam, probably.

Anyway, I loved The Living Daylights even if it didn't feel much like a Bond film when watched in context. It's a strange thing to say for a series of spy films, but Bond hadn't done a proper Cold War thriller before and only now, in 1987, the very last opportunity there would ever be, do we get one. And yes, I know we have an American chief baddie as a fig leaf so they can deny that this is a straight ahead Cold War spy film with the Russians as the baddies so as not to offend the real world USSR but, well, they're fooling nobody.

And so we have a tale of defections, crappy police cars, secret police arresting pretty girls in the exotic surroundings of, er, Bratislava, and that classically Cold War locale that is Vienna and a Ferris Wheel that immediately evokes The Third Man. Mind you, nothing has dated quite as much as showing the Afghan Mujahideen as the good guys. I'm no useful idiot, far from it, but Najibullah (not a nice man but no one deserves to die like that) was much better for Afghanistan than what came after.

Timothy Dalton... let's actually mention him, shall we? He's obviously a fine actor, easily the best so far, far more technically competent and nuanced in his portrayal than Connery or Moore. I like him. And yet... he's genuinely charismatic, yes, but less so than either of the two aforementioned, both of whom oozed it, and for me he doesn't quite convince as a ladies' man- well, womaniser. He's too sensitive. Still, a promising debut. 

Maryam d'Abo makes a good, and refreshing Bon-bimboesque, Bond girl, and we get good performances from John Rhys-Davies, Art Malik and the ever-reliable Desmond Llewelyn, in a good film for the gadgets.

This is the best film of the '80s so far, let down only by a mildly disappointing theme song from a-Ha, even if it isn't as awful as Shirley Manson of Garbage notoriously said it is. After the problems of A View to a Kill we now have a younger Bond and a witty script, and as a result there's not a lot wrong.

A View to a Kill (1985)

"Well my dear, I take it you spend quite a lot of time in the saddle."

"Yes, I love an early morning ride."

"Well, I'm an early riser myself."

Meh. This isn't quite the worst Bond film so far- that would be Thunderball- but it's certainly the very dampest of squibs. Roger Moore, at 57 and suddenly looking it, is by now absurdly too old to be convincing in the part, but ultimately the problem lies with the script. The plot is fine, but the dialogue is functional and lacking in wit, and as a result the film fails to come alive. That's a shame, as an actor like Christopher Walken deserves a much better villain to play. Still, he deserves much praise for triumphing over a crap script to give us a memorable Max Zorin regardless.

The film also suffers from that perennial problem of Bond films set largely in the United States: what is Bond doing there when the Americans have agencies of their own? Still, Duran Duran give us a decent theme tune and it's always good to see Patrick Macnee, even if his character does spend his final few hours alive being ordered about by Bond. Grace Jones is good as May Day but, again, wasted, as indeed area many of the set pieces which seem to be shot rather unimaginatively. Still, I enjoyed the finale with the airship on the Golden Gate Bridge.

Not a good swansong, then, for the suddenly much-aged Roger Moore: he should have left on a high with Octopussy. It's goodbye too, though, for Lois Maxwell, the only cast member who's been there since Dr No.

Octopussy (1983)

"You must be joking! 007 on an island populated exclusively by women? We won't see him till dawn...!"

Now that's more like it. Exotic locations, high stakes, great set pieces... the Bond franchise has got its mojo back. Well, unless you happen to be a coulrophobe, that is. Then you'd have problems.

It's the early '80s, the Raj is all the rage and Bond hasn't done India yet, so Octopussy gets a fantastic setting with Delhi, the Taj Mahal, and even a massive hunt riding elephants during which Bond meets a tiger. For a baddie we have Kamal Khan, an exiled Afghan prince who, for some reason, is working with the Soviets, his natural enemies or so one would have thought, but it makes for a good film. The real baddie has a Cold War flavour for once in the shape of Steven Berkoff's nuke-happy Russian general, Orlov, although our old friend Gogol is around to stop things going too far. 1983 is a somewhat appropriate year to raise the spectre of nuclear annihilation, of course...

Roger Moore is 55 and looks it, but he just about gets away with it: his charisma and acting chops are as impressive as ever. Maud Adams is an ok Bond hgirl too, although for once the set pieces tend to outshine both the sex and the baddies.

This film is absolutely the least like the source material of any so far (the Fleming short story is actually about an octopus), but how can you dislike a film where Q turns up in a hot air balloon? After two duds, Bond is back on track.

Moonraker (1979)

"I think he's attempting re-entry, Sir!"

Meh. This is Bond by numbers. It's just a collection of barely connected set pieces,  some of them admittedly rather good, leading up to a silly and implausible finale. Hugo Drax must have the resources of a G7 nation to build six space shuttles and a space station. The fact that Michael Lonsdale makes a dull and charisma-free Drax doesn't help either.

At least Roger Moore is on good form. He seemed a little old in The Spy Who Loved Me but he seems a little rejuvenated in his sixth decade. It's also good to see a bigger role for M in Bernard Lee's final film, with a suggestion that, deep down, he always had a high regard for Bond. The return of Jaws is a mixed bag; he gets some superb action sequences but the scenes of him falling in love at first sight are just silly. And he finally gets to utter four whole words!!! Still, I love the way hired him after Chang dies, the suggestion being that there's actually an employment market for henchmen!

But this is all very obviously influenced by Star Wars and very silly, at a time when peak human space travel had already given way to the age of the space shuttle and the Moon had given way to the brilliant Voyager spacecraft. And worse: it's very worrying to see a Bond film be quite as formulaic as this.

You Only Live Twice (1967)

"Well, at least he died on the job..."

Well, it's quite the contrast. Thunderball was a pile of pants, an incoherently directed film with little in the way of charm or entertainment, whereas You Only Live Twice is superb, and easily the best Bond film so far. What went right? Well, the straightforward direction by Lewis Gilbert helps; Thunderball may be much artier (It has wipes, for Christ's sake! In a James Bond film), but it fails to make the narrative clear. Here we have no such problems. What we do have is a well constructed and paced film courtesy of a script by the great Roald Dahl. Yes, that Roald Dahl.

Even the opening sequence is innovative-the image of a NASA space capsule being eaten by another spacecraft is delicious, as is Bond's apparent death before the titles. And the image of a spacewalking astronaut drifting helplessly through space to what he knows will be his death has all the existential horror of the late David Bowie's "Space Oddity" a couple of years later.  All this before we even get to the theme song from Nancy Sinatra, who gives the great Shirley Bassey a run for her money.

We then move straight to the Americans blaming the Soviets for the swallowing of the spacecraft, with both of them portrayed as squabbling juvenile warmongers, leaving the British (naturally) as the voice of reason. This is a little uncomfortable to watch from a distance of fifty years, however. In the wake of Dean Acheson's famous comment Britain is being portrayed here as a "Greece to America's Rome", which smacks very much as a consolation prize for a wannabe superpower. Even this film, which portrays the clever British as in control and saving the world, can't hide the fact that the Americans and Russians of 1967 are sending people into space and we are not.

The fact that M and Moneypenny are in a submarine is brilliant, as is the recognition of Bond's naval rank. The two superpowers are at loggerheads and world war beckons if all this is not sorted out before the next spacecraft is launched. Fortunately, there's a lead pointing to Japan. Also fortunately, Bond took a First in Oriental Languages at Cambridge.

It's interesting that the film's inevitable misogyny (as ever, women are seen through the eyes of a fifteen year old boy) is somewhat obscured by the presentation of all this in the context of what Japanese culture is supposed to be like. There's also the question of ethnic stereotyping, and while this can't be dodged the film gives a broadly positive image of Japan, perhaps remarkably so less than a generation after the War. We get Sumo wrestling, geishas and, of course, ninjas. The tropes are all here to play.

Is impossible at this point not to mention the cute and willing Aki ("I think I will very much enjoy serving under you") who is killed, while Bond's initially more modest "wife" is not. Hmm. Still, this Japan is cool, and I love Tanaka.

The bit with "Little Nellie" looks suspiciously as if it was just crowbarred into the film to give Desmond Llewelyn something to do, but it isn't long before the Russians launch a rocket of their own (Norse pagans will be either pleased or outraged that the Russian for "three" is "Odin"), which is duly swallowed again. Cue more recriminations and a reminder of the stakes, although it certainly makes me wonder how credible it is that a criminal organisation like SMERSH could have the resources to send a rocket into space capable of doing this. Best to banish such thoughts.

This film is possibly the most influential Bond film in popular culture and certainly for Austin Powers: the volcano base is brilliant, and Donald Pleasance's splendidly hammy performance as the now-revealed Ernst Stavro Blofeld is blatantly the inspiration for Dr. Evil. And the piranhas, and the collapsible ramp above them, are perfect.

This is an incredible film and easily the best so far. I'm genuinely unsure if anything will top it.

Thunderball (1965)

"Sorry, old chap. Better luck next time."

I think I can put my finger on why this film is do rubbish: it's the direction. Oh, it's fancily shot with wipes, etc, but the director does a terrible job of telling the story clearly, especially as there are so many silent aquatic sequences. The result is a confusing mess. You have to blame the director for the performances, too: yes, Adolfo Celi is rubbish as the baddie on general terms (they had to dub his dialogue), but the performances are flat all round, and when that includes the likes of Sean Connery you just have to blame the director. The film is not only incoherent, but also charmless.

And it's a pity. On paper the film should have been good. It has SPECTRE, with an embezzling underling being buzzed beneath a trap door to his doom. It has a pool full of sharks. It even has Q, now already a fixture, supplying Bond with gadgets which end up being suspiciously and exactly what he needs.

The pre-titles sequence is good though; I love the jet pack. And Tom Jones' theme tune is superb. But I'm sad to say that this is one Bond film I've no desire to see again. Long, plodding, charmless and forgettable.

Next...

Goldfinger (1964)

"Some things just simply aren't done. Like drinking Dom Perignon '53 at above 38 degrees Fahrenheit. Or listening to the Beatles without earmuffs."

Well, Bond's taste in music is pants, then.

Let's get one thing straight, first: I liked this film a lot. But... well, I like the James Bond films. I've seen most of them, some several times, but not all them. I haven't seen Goldfinger before for instance. But I'm vaguely aware that the received opinion of this film is that it's amongst the best. But, well, I liked it very much but I liked it's predecessors better.

Why? I'm not entirely sure. Perhaps it feels smaller in scale? Perhaps the locations aren't as big or exciting, with long scenes in golf clubs and dull cells, and Bond spending much of the last part of the film as a prisoner? I think it's mainly that Gert Frobe is ok but not all that good or charismatic. Even the "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!" moment underwhelmed me. Has popular culture led me to expect too much?

Still, Connery is awesome as ever.and the full on gadgetry emerges with the gadget filled Aston Martin and a glimpse into "Q" branch. There are some good set pieces, too, most notably Jill Masterson being killed from asphyxiation after being covered in gold paint, as so splendidly debunked in Mythbusters.

Honor Blackman is suitably icy as the deliciously named Pussy Galore, but.. well, the sexual politics of the Bond films have raised a good number of eyebrows up until now, with all the slapping and somewhat unreconstructed attitudes, but Bond quite unambiguously subjects Pussy to sexual assault. It isn't depicted as rape, with Pussy clearly shown to be yielding... but that in itself is troubling.

Still, it has the best theme tune so far and possibly ever. And is still a bloody good film.