007 Journals: The Living Daylights

Well I finally made it through the Roger Moore era of James Bond and into the short lived Timothy Dalton run. Now I've never seen any of the Dalton films before. I feel like these are the least talked about Bond movies from within my social circle, so I was a little more in the dark going into The Living Daylights. The only thing I've really heard about these two films is that they are darker than previous Bond movies, but I will say that this one didn't really get that dark so that must be more License to Kill. Now up until this point Bond has been on a wide variety of missions, but most of them ended up being big bombastic battles with super villain like bad guys. The Living Daylights brings it down a little which is something that I really appreciated. One thing I love is the use of the Russian's "Death To Spies" mantra that was in the books but has been absent from the films. While it makes for a great plot set up, this unfortunatly gets dropped quickly. I would have liked this film a lot more if it was about just trying to stop a plot of Russian assassins trying to elliminate British spies, but in the end I still ended up liking the movie quite a bit.

The first thing to talk about here is Dalton, the new Bond. Now that I have seen all of the Bond actors I can finally say with assurance that Daniel Craig is the best James Bond. I get it, everyone loves Connery because he was the first, hes amazing, there is nostalgia, and yada yada yada. Craig is everything I imagine Bond to be and maybe it's just beacuse he was in some of the best films in a more modern era of film making, but when I read the books and think of the character, Craig fits that image the best. However I think I would put Dalton pretty high on that list. I think it's a real shame that he only made it to two films because I would really like to see what he could have done with more movies. First of all him and Pierce Brosnan look pretty similar to me and carry themselves pretty much the same. I could easily pluck Brosnan out of Goldeneye and replace him with Dalton and it would still be an amazing movie (we'll get there). With this movie being more grounded and serious I think Dalton fits the bill very well. He has a good look and there is something so suave about him. The only thing I noticed against his performace is that he always seems to have this smile on his face like he's just so happy to be in this movie. Honestly though he should be.

The plot . . . is not perfect. It's not bad. It starts off great, becomes servicable, and then ends with a bang. It goes through some ups and downs but never crosses the border into boring or absurdity. We start off with some real great spy stuff. We have 007 and some other \agents in a training excercise and his comrades are killed by a Russian assassin and leaves the note "death to spies." It's great, I love it. Then we have Bond trying to help a Russian defector make it to England. Awesome! Then the defector is re-kidnapped by the Russians. Wow this is intense! Of course everything turns out to be a ruse by the defector. A twist! Aaaaand everything starts to get a little convaluted from there. Bond tricks the defectors girlfriend into falling in love with him and we get a long period where Bond is just taking her on dates. I like the arc of her character and she's played wonderfully by the beautiful Maryam d'Abo but this period of the movie drags slightly. While I always love Bond as a man who will use anyone to get a mission done I just feel like this part of the movie could have been better written, though I could see myself enjoying this section more on a re-watch.

With this movie being more serious in tone, there are some moments that don't seem to fit and all of them pretty match happen during and after the car chase early on in the movie. First is bond cutting a car in half with a laser from his car. This feels like a campy Roger Moore moment and kind of ate at me inside. Then Bond drives his car around with a shack stuck around it on ice. Slightly less ridiculous so I'll buy it, until only moments afterwards where he cuts the ice with his bare tire and causes another vehicle to fall through the ice, THEN he has a ski come out of the side so he can keep driving. All of this is followed by a sled ride on a cello case. This all happens in about one ten minute chunk and almost had me spitting out anything I would have been drinking. Luckily all of these moments were packed together early on and left for you to quickly forget about them. What we do get in this movie are some great action scenes. The cold open for isntance has a parachute jump into a testing combat situation followed by Bond on top of a speeding truck trying to get the assassin. It's a great opening and shows us Dalton's action presence which I approve of. I will say there's not a lot of gun play throughout the film, especially from Bond who barely uses his Walther. The end of the movie does however evolve into a giant gun fight on a runway with Russians fighting Taliban like allies of Bond. They were the good guys then, remember? This movie came out in 1987, after such films like Commando and the first two Rambo films so I felt like the ending battle was trying to emulate the explosive action of the 80's and it really nailed it in my opinion.

The Living Daylights is a great Bond film and I love Dalton. I can't really get much clearer than that. One final thing I'd like to point out is that it was weird having seen this movie after having seen Goldeneye in the past and having Joe Don Baker play a bad guy in this and a good guy in Goldeneye. The reuse of actors in different roles is nothing new in Bond movies but this one really stood out to me and I wonder if it was the inverse when people watching all of the movies saw Goldeneye for the first time. I give The Living Daylights a four out of five. Maybe it's just the excitment of getting out of the Moore era but this film really did it for me and I can't wait to see how License To Kill fares.

 

007 Journals: A View To A Kill

Well we finally made it. The end of the Roger Moore era. It's been an up and down roller coaster ride of enjoyment level, but then again so was Connery. So right away the first problem here is that Roger Moore was too old to return. This was the point where even he realized, from what I understand he found out that he was older than Tanya Roberts's mother and that was what made him decided it was time to hang up the boots after this film. I've loved Roger Moore as Bond and he's a great actor, but watching him age more and more as the films went on was just kind of a bummer. Luckily Moore was able to hide it enough with his great performances but I'm happy to know that I will finally get to move onto Timothy Dalton after this. Though I could end up regretting that thought after I see those movies, but I'm not there yet, so let's focus on A View To A Kill (terrible title).

This film is pretty hit and miss for me. First thing to mention is that I feel this is more of a darker toned Bond film. Not all the way through but there are some very mature moments. There's some use of squibs for gun shots which is something you don't see much in these Bond films. You also get one of the more mentally unstable villains who treats his henchman as disposable tools. He literally starts machinegunning a large group of his own workers. Honestly it's a nice change of pace from a lot of the campiness that happens in the Moore era. The story however is one of the worst. Everything revolves around microchips, which I give them credit for a little modernization, but the whole scheme is really ludacris for a microchip manufacturer. Now there are mentions of KGB ties and somehow his henchwoman May Day is able to pick up a man over her head as if she's a genetically modified freak but none of it makes sense. I  guess he does deal with adrenaline injections into horses so maybe May Day is using it as well? I don't know it's not really explained. So Zorin's plan is to detonate some explosives at a fault line and cause Silicon Valley to flood, therfore destroying microchip production plants so he will have the biggest stockpile to sell. This is such a bad plan, especially considereing the places in Silicon Valley are the people who would actually be buying his chips. Though there is a large market in the rest of the world so I guess it doesn't matter too much, but the plan just seem way to super villain for a man like Zorin, but he is insane so I guess I'll buy it.

So did I happen to mention that Zorin is played by Christopher freaking Walken? I had no idea that he played a Bond villain, and he's great. Not to mention he rides around in a sweet blimp. Though when is ever Walken not great? If you want a villain that is supposed to be completely insane, then they got the right actor. Roger Moore is old but is still a great James Bond. I echo the review of Never Say Never Again that I wish they were playing up the aging secret agent angle and the Dalton movies could have been a relaunch but it's played by the numbers once again here. Tanya Roberts is absolutely gorgeous. I mean really. Shes beautiful. I feel like I should just keep talking about how pretty she is because her performance was completely the opposite of her looks. She's the most unbelievable character in the film and her acting is pretty cringe worthy. It's okay though because she sure is pretty! Right guys? Grace jones plays May Day and she is kind of hit and miss for me. She sometimes comes off trying too hard, almost as though she's performing on stage instead of on film, but when she works she works well.

Even though this film is about the same length as the average Bond movie ( about two hours and eleven minutes I think?) it actually has a very quick pacing. This is one I wouldn't have an issue giving a rewatch (and I feel like I need to) because it moves very fast. There's not a lot of slacking around and pretty much everything that is happening is tightly edited and serving the plot in some way. Not every thing happening on screen is that great though. Right in the beginning there is this really awkward fake butterfly dance, followed by Bond chasing May Day, leading to later May Day doesn't immediatly recognize Bond at Zorin's party, even though she got a pretty good look at him at the restaurant. There's a lot of weird jokes, such as a possible guy sleeping with a prostitute in the back of a truck? On top of that though there are some decent action scenes and some great stunt work. It seems obvious that Terminator 3 stole the fire track ladder stunt from this movie. I also liked the fight on top of the Golden Gate Bridge but the bad guys playing hot potato with the TNT was kind of silly. My favorite scene is easily the elevator trap though. Great tension and is an awesome idea for a trap.This isn't a geat Bond film but it's not bad. I give it three out of five stars and it's one I definitly want to revist, especially for Walken who makes the movie worth it alone. Now I'm ready to say goodbye to Roger Moore and hello to Timothy Dalton.

007 Journals: Never Say Never Again

Okay, so I assume that everyone reading this probably knows what the story is with this movie, but if not let me explain it quickly. Long before Dr. No (the first Bond movie) was made Ian Fleming and his friend Kevin McClory decided to write a James Bond screenplay. It might have been a stage play I'm not sure, there are multiple stories. Well that script was called Thunderball. However the movie was never made. Cut to a later point in time and Ian Fleming was like "Hey, I need to write another Bond novel. Well I have this Thunderball story lying around. How about I turn the script into a book and just chop off McClory's name? Perfect! Thunderball written by Ian Fleming!"  Then James Bond became a blockbuster movie franchise. Well after we get four movies deep someone gets the bright idea of "Hey, why don't we do that Thunderball novel next?" Well that was an issue since McClory would obviously have a lawsuit against the Broccoli's (the producers of the Bond film franchise). So their solution to this potential law suit was to make McClory a producer on Thunderball which locked up the rights to the story for ten years. He would clearly forget about it by then right? Wrong. After ten years McClory took the case to court and as part writer of the story he won the rights to make a James Bond film and the rights to the characters of Bond, Moneypenny, M, Q, and Blofeld to be used in his movie. This also locked up the use of Spectre until recently, which is obvious given the new movies title. So what did McClory do with his rights? Well naturally he remade Thunderball and even got Sean Connery back who said he never wanted to a Bond movie again. Word is he agreed to do it because of his hate for the Broccoli's, and because of his ridiculous salary he was offered. The films title reflects Connery's previous claims of never doing Bond again. This film came out the same year as Octopussy and is not considered part of the Bond canon or the EON film series. So how does Never Say Never Again compare to Thunderball?

Honestly, I like this movie a lot more. Now this film breaks the Bond formula more than ever and does more to feel like a movie of it's time. There's no opening credit song clad against dark naked ladies, there's no gun barrel sequence, and the movie goes out of it's way to be more adult than previous films. This, I believe, is the first actual sex scene in a Bond movie. We normally see them getting into or out of bed where the deed is implied but this time we see some mid action scenes, even though it's just a girl leaning in and out of door way in ecstasy. Since watching the Roger Moore films and just seeing him get older and older it really makes me appreciate this movie as a true aging Bond story. Connery is still great as Bond, even though his commitment to this film may be questionable, and plays the older secret agent role very well. Honestly I kind of wish this was included in the EON line of films and they could have just rebooted with Dalton after this. Roger Moore's only fault was just sticking around for too long. Also it would have been the second time that Connery had come back after someone else had taken the role and hand it off to the next actor. Alas that is not the case.

The cast is really great for this film. You kind of take what you can get from Connery at this point but honestly I don't feel like he's phoning it in that much. There is the very stiff dance sequence but otherwise he seems to be trying harder this time around. Even in the action scenes. Kim Basinger is the Bond girl this time around marking the first time an Oscar winner has had a role of a Bond girl. She's maybe my least favorite performance in the movie but that doesn't mean she's bad. There's just some stiff competition. Klause Brandauer is worlds better as Largo than Adolfo Celi, who's only real defining characteristic is an eye patch. Klause brings the right amount of crazy you want in your Bond villain. He seems maniacal and always just on the brink of snapping and become a crazed killer. He has personality that was sorely missed in Thunderball. We do have another new Felix, who is played by a black actor for the first time but not the last and this is my favorite Felix to date even though I did think that if Bond was older shouldn't Felix be older as well? He seems pretty young and buff in this film. However I will say the versions of M and Q in this film are just so bad and sound like non-British actors trying to do the thickest accents. One thing to note is that Rowan Atkinson is in this movie! Mr. Bean and Johnny English himself had his fourth role in this unofficial Bond film, though it is a small part it was still exciting to see him on screen.

So why do I like this movie more than Thunderball? Well the problem with Thunderball wasn't it's story but more the execution. The movie is boring. There were so many long winded underwater scenes and not enough action. Editing was Thunderball's worst enemy. This film has no problem there. We don't get bored underwater and there are some great action scenes. The motorcycle chase and the opening scene stand out. Not to mention there is real tension in this movie. I just didn't but it in the previous version but now I actually felt like Bond and Largo were toying with each other and you were waiting for one to act. I guess this probably comes from Connery having a better actor to bounce off of. As different as this film was from the EON series, it does still have some of the Bond tropes such as cramming in the thing that's most popular at the time. I didn't look into it but I have a feeling that style of motorcycle was probably new at the time and hey, you know what else was popular? Video Games! So let's have Bond in an out of place video arcade inside of an adult casino and he can play a game with Largo. Honestly though, that game part was pretty cool. So is it an amazing Bond film? Not by any means. Is it better than Thunderball? In my opinion it's leaps and bounds better. Should you watch it? Absolutely! What do I rate it? Honestly I give this film a four out of five. I'd also like to mention that this film was directed by Irin Kershner who you may know for directing a little sci fi film called The Empire Strikes Back.

EDIT: I forgot to mention Barbara Carrera in the cast. She was a fun character that basically seems like a woman completely turned on by murder. She kind of pops in an out but I always found her time on screen to be enjoyable and her performance is just someone having as much fun as possible. Not to mention she is beautiful.

007 Journals: Octopussy

Well we are far into Roger Moore's tenure as Bond and I feel like a lot of his movies have been hit or miss and very few in betweens. The last movie, For Your Eyes Only, was overall pretty boring and while it had some decent moments didn't really do much for me. Roger Moore is looking older and older (this film is no exception) and I feel like it would be working if they were playing up an aging James Bond story but since they aren't I just have to craft story for myself in my head. Now going into Octopussy I didn't really know anything about this film and I will tell you I had few hopes during the beginning. The cold open I was actually fine with. Bond having a portable plane in a trailer was pretty fun and the whole action scene was pretty great. Though I feel like I need to point out that plans can't use the same fuel as cars so that ending joke just left me scratching my head. What came after the cold open however involved a man on the run in a clown suit and was just really really hard to swallow. Luckily it gets better after that.

Now I have been on record saying that I'm not a fan of silly James Bond jokes and excessive gadgets but for some reason Bond hiding in a gorilla and clown suit really didn't bother me. Yeah the clown suit was a little much but it was contextualized well enough that it didn't bug me. Honestly my biggest complaint is the plot of the film. It is kind of hard to follow and understand why everything is happening and what everyone is doing until the film ends. The plot, once you know what is going on, is just fine but it takes too long to let the viewer in on it. Like a lot of other Bond films we have what could be the plot of two different movies happening simultaneously but they end up winding together. One involves the smuggling of diamonds and jewelry. The other involves a Russian general wanting to start an invasion. It gets kind of convoluted but ends up becoming understandable at the last second. This could have been seen by some as "Oh that's just good writing, they keep you guessing" but to me it's just kind of sloppy and could have been tightened up.

What doesn't disappoint in this film are the performances. Roger Moore has always been great but in this film I feel like he's put in a little more effort than his last few Bond films. This is the second time Maud Adams has played a Bond girl which to my knowledge is the first time a actress has made two Bond appearances as a Bond girl and it could have come off more strange if this film was not so long after The Man With the Golden Gun that Maud Adams had aged enough to look different. I felt like her role as Octopussy (I'm sorry but there is no way that name doesn't filthy) than she was in her previous outing. My favorite character in the movie however was Kamal Khan played by Louis Jourdan. He plays the character so suave and is a fantastically overconfident Bond villain. I would have liked to have seen a lot more of him in this movie because he stole almost every scene he was in. General Orlov was your stereotypical Russian military character that we see many times over in the Bond series, and while I felt he was played as if he was the most Russian, I found him to be entertaining.

Octopussy was honestly a surprise for me. With how the Roger Moore films have been progressing I honestly felt like it was just going to be getting worse and worse until we reached Timothy Dalton but Octopussy I found to be rather enjoyable. It's not perfect by any means and definitely not my favorite but it belongs in the top mentions of the Roger Moore era. There were some great action scenes including a good old fashioned gun fight at the end. I also really enjoyed the bidding war scene where Bond and M are bidding on the jewel egg. There are some odd choices though such as Bond's partner using a tennis racket as a weapon. Bond also uses all of the gimmicks you see in a bazaar as weapons. A guy is swallowing a sword? Let me borrow it for a quick sword fight. Oh you have hot coals? Better throw some guys on it. I also find it really tiring that Mi6 seems to uproot the entire Q branch just to meet Bond in the field and give him a couple gadgets. Although this time we had Bond using a gadget to zoom in on a busty woman's chest so I guess that was new. Honestly this movie has so much stuff that I normally don't like about a Bond movie but for some reason this time I was highly entertained. I'll give Octopussy a four out of five. Also how can you not love a fight between the circus and terrorists?!

007 Journals: For Your Eyes Only

Well this is a movie that I have been struggling with. Moonraker very quickly killed my momentum with these films and with Roger Moore. At this point Roger Moore is just getting older and older (because that's how life works) but it just keeps showing more and more. Honestly it does kind of feel like we are just getting to Bond toward the end of his career. At this point there have been so many movies and we have seen the character evolve. We once again get references to him being married previously with the cold open starting at his dead wife's grave. So maybe it makes sense to keep going with Roger Moore but honestly I feel like the Dalton films should have been a reboot. Even the Brosnan movies could be considered a reboot because we get no mention of Bond's past or his dead wife at that point. I guess that's something to address when we get there though. For now though we focus on Roger Moore's fifth outing as Bond.

Honestly I've been thinking about this movie since I finished it and I feel really conflicted about this one. Moonraker was a really bad James Bond film. Maybe even just a bad film in general. This was actually supposed to be the next Bond film after The Spy Who Loved Me but because of the success of Star Wars we got Moonraker instead. Well Moonraker was of course a financial success but was not well received by critics so the humor and silliness of the series was toned down for this film. At least that's what they claimed but this film still had a lot of jokey moments that brought it down for me. Honestly the whole opening with a faceless Blofeld (who we haven't seen since Diamonds Are Forever) was only saved by the great helicopter stunt. Other than that it seemed rather pointless o bring the character back at all. I honestly thought he was dead after Diamonds Are Forever and I was happy with that. I guess, due to the lawsuit with McClory, Albert Broccoli decided to officially kill off Blofeld early on to prove that the series didn't need Blofeld to be successful but I feel like this could have been accomplished by ignoring the character completely.

So the idea for this movie was to make it feel more grounded in reality. The template was to look at previous successful films such as From Russia With Love and On Her Majesty's Secret Service. This shows mostly in the way that the plot is a direct copy of From Russia With Love. It all revolves around two different sides from the Cold War trying to get a device involved with deciphering codes. While the film rips off the plot of one of my favorite (so far) Bond films it just doesn't pull it off anywhere near as well. Almost this entire movie really feels like "been there, done that" and because of that I really just felt bored most of the time. Even a lot of the action scenes feel repeated. This is at least the fifth time I feel like I've seen Bond on skis. This isn't a bad film by any means but I definitely feel like I would have enjoyed it more if I wasn't watching in a marathon. So saying that I will state that this review reflects my current viewing and that I could come to like this movie a lot more in the future but currently it just seemed like another cookie cutter Bond movie. None of the villains were memorable but what was memorable was the fact that they got the upper hand on Bond numerous times which fits into my point of view of this being an older Bond. He's just not on top of his game anymore.

While most of the bad guys were forgettable there were actually some great characters in this movie. Columbo is an amazingly fun character in the vein of Kerim Bey. Melina is  serviceable Bond girl and I couldn't get over how much she looked like Liv Tyler but her acting was kind of flat. I will say due to HD there is a moment where you get to see her butt when they get pulled away underwater. Score. Q also had an expanded role in the film, basically taking place for M's absence as Bernard Lee was very ill at the time and died shortly after. While I did miss M I did love having more Q this time. Even though I loved some characters I have to point how pointless the character of Bibi was. She contributed nothing to this movie and her acting was so painfully bad. She had no reason to be in this movie. The faceless Blofeld stand in honestly did a better job than her. Even when she's present at the end fight and has the chance to be a damsel in distress she isn't even utilized for this reason. Just a pointless character.

This film wasn't all bad. There were some decent action scenes though some were hindered by the older Roger Moore. A lot of great stunt work which just always looks so good in these older movies with actual actors vs the modern CGI that would be used today. The plot is good because it's based on another great Bond plot, but that is it's true failing because we have seen it before. While it wasn't as good as From Russia With Love it is a serviceable plot and much better than the previous Moonraker plot. Honestly everything about this is better than Moonraker so that's a plus. My biggest gripe with the movie is just how bored I felt so for my ranking I'm going to give it a two out of five but I definitely want to come back to this movie after I get some distance from the series because I feel like in a bubble I might enjoy it a lot more.

007 Journals: Moonraker

Hey, you know what was popular and exciting in 1979? Star Wars! Now up until this point Thunderball was my reference point for the worst James Bond film. That has since changed. Now I know there a lot of people who love this film, whether ironically or not. Since everyone pretty much knows what's up with Moonraker I thought I would take a little different approach to it. I'll still include a review but I will say no matter how you look at it, this is a bad movie and is most definitely a representation of the time it's made. Everyone knows that this was a direct response to what the phenomena Star Wars became. Now I was born in the late eighties and therefore was not around when this movie released. I have heard a lot about the legacy of this movie so I knew the sort of things I would see but I didn't know what to expect. I would also like to point out that I am on record as saying I am not as big a fan of the campiness of the Bond series. I came to this with fresh eyes for the first time in 2015 and my thoughts will reflect it as such.

Now this film was coming off of The Spy Who Loved Me which is a film I enjoyed very much. It had a couple over the top moments but still manged to pull off a fairly serious spy movie. We even saw Bond with a little aggressiveness as he excessively executed Stromberg with multiple gun shots. Moonraker pretty much immediately throws out all seriousness. I thought maybe I was going to enjoy my time during the cold open. It's a great stunt, all done with real stunt actors, that involved Bond jumping out of an airplane and trying to snatch a parachute off a bad guy. Then out of nowhere Jaws is there too. Now I thought Jaws was kind of awkward in the previous film but overall I loved him. He felt imposing and like a slasher movie villain. An unstoppable force. This time however he's played up for comic effect. Every encounter he has with Bond ends with him almost dying but surviving miraculously and brushing himself off. It felt so much like a cartoon that this could have easily have been a Loony Tunes movie and is the Bond film that has the most felt as such. It is happy to note that Jaws finds love in a busty blonde as we all hope to one day.

Now Roger Moore was the oldest actor to play James Bond and in his fourth outing I am really starting to notice his age. Granted he does look good for his age but he does seem a little more tired this time around. Luckily he is still charming as 007 but it's becoming less believable when he seduces every woman he comes across, and I do mean every woman. I don't think there's a woman that he has a serious interaction with in this film that he doesn't bed. It's almost becoming a parody of itself at this time. Honestly what hurt this movie the most for is how much it sticks to the Bond formula which is something that has just happened too many times in a row . I know that's what a lot of people like about these early movies and I'm not saying it can't work, The Spy Who Loved Me was very much a by the numbers Bond film but it was just pulled off so much better. Honestly all of the Roger Moore films have felt similar and maybe if I was watching them with years separating them I would feel differently but I find it hard to imagine living in a world where Star Wars has happened and then seeing this and feeling it was even close to the same level.

Honestly I never felt so bored watching a movie and really the only other movie in the series that felt this boring was Thunderball but I feel like I could give Thunderball another shot. Moonraker not so much. I'm not sure if they were aiming to replicate Grand Moff Tarkin with Drax but he was just as flat as anyone could be. I don't think I ever noticed him without his arms crossed or behind his back throughout the entire movie. He was monotone and deadpan through his entire performance and just not believable as a Bond villain. Not to mention his plan was identical to the previous villain Stromberg only instead of creating an underwater society it was a space one. Drax is easily my least favorite Bond villain to date.

If I wanted to get into the specifics of this movie I could be here all day. I'll just throw out a lot of the obvious low points. The special effects, Bond's boat is ridiculous (and turns into a hover craft), a pigeon takes a double take look at Bond driving a boat on land, the cookie cutter plot, aging Roger Moore, Jaws as comic relief, out of place laser fight, Bond using a shotgun as a sniper rifle, the nonsensical falling into the right locations, hard tonal shifts, Bond suddenly becoming a cowboy, bad green screens, and giant fake snake. There are so many more but I figured I should mention what I did like about the movie. The fight with Drax's samurai ally was pretty brutal and fun with them just destroying a glass room. I also liked the reveal of the space station. It was some nice cinematography and miniature work. Honestly that's about it. I know this movie falls into the "so bad it's good" category for a lot of fans but for me it was just bad. I give Moonraker a one out of five.

007 Journals: The Spy Who Loved Me

Live and Let Die was a high moment for me with the Bond films. Roger Moore's first outing was great and highly entertaining. The Man With the Golden Gun was a little low for me. It had some great moments but overall was a campy mess that is barely surpassed by it's great opening and closing. The Spy Who Loved Me brought things back up for me but one thing I have to point out is that this is the same movie as You Only Live Twice, which luckily was a movie I also liked. Both films start with something being stolen (a spaceship and submarine) by a villain who plans to start World War 3 and each film ends with Bond rescuing captives and two armies battling at the enemies fortress. However even though You Only Live Twice has the iconic Bond villain Blofeld in all of his Dr. Evil glory, I liked The Spy Who Loved Me a lot more.The villain was great and honestly Bond was pretty cold blooded in the way he shoots him multiple times but at least he was able to dispatch this villain this time instead of letting him get away like Blofeld. Bond actually has a couple cold blooded moments as he lets another guy just fall off a roof as well. Came as kind of a shock for Roger Moore's Bond but this movie just takes a slightly darker tone.

Now first thing I want to talk about is the competing agents aspect of the plot. I love the idea that Bond has a Russian rival who is even a female. Barbara Bach is beautiful but her acting is very stiff. I never really believed her as a spy but the script was written well enough that it didn't really matter. For an added bonus we have a side plot that Bond had killed her lover on a previous mission which really adds to the dynamic of their relationship and when it's brought up is a great moment, but sadly I don't feel like they do enough with it but the ending is satisfying with Bond just being suave. Even if it is a little ridiculous it was an added pleasure that I enjoyed. Some of my favorite parts of the movie however were the back and forth tactics they used against each other in Egypt and working together to fight Jaws. Okay now let's talk about him! I know he's a big fan favorite for henchman and I love the idea of Jaws. He's basically a slasher movie villain. An unstoppable giant with a gimmick that makes no sense. Metal teeth would be a huge inconvenience but I was willing to buy it. This guy really is treated like Jason Voorhees for most of the movie. When he first appears it's always dark with flashes of colored light and we get string music ques. He even attacks people like a vampire and honestly the slow movement towards someones neck just always looks awkward to me. This man also literally tears apart a van with his bare hands. I would love to see how Jaws would be handled today where everything would probably feel a little more real and natural. This version was a great henchman and he truly felt imposing but sometimes it was hard not to see it as just a little silly.

Stromberg is a pretty interesting villain and marks Roger Moore's first super villain. His plan is to start World War 3 so everyone will destroy each other with nuclear missiles and he can start a new society under water, as he is a reclusive obsessed with the sea. This is why it's dangerous for the world to have socially awkward billionaires. He has a pretty impressive lair on the water and honestly when some underwater stuff started happening I was getting a little worried and remembering how boring Thunderball was but this time it was all well edited and actually had exciting action scenes. In fact there were a lot of good action scenes in this movie. The underwater battler, the fights with Jaws, but the most impressive was the car vs helicopter fight. This is something you don't see a lot of in today's film making. This would have probably been CG if made today but you can't be the camera shots of the car riding under the helicopter or them driving/flying side by side. There was some great cinematography in this film but during that action scene is where it stood out to me the most. The ending battle of the armies was also the best one to date but it does feel a little repetitive at this point.

Now this film isn't perfect by any means. The submarine car is pretty ridiculous but they go all in with it and make it look pretty believable so I'm willing to forgive it. I did like how we don't hear Q tell Bond what it does but we see him showing him from Barbara Bach's perspective. Jaws is a great henchman but just a little on the goofy side as far as the scene direction. This might also be one of the most schizophrenic scores I've ever heard where it goes from serious orchestral score to 70's synthesizer out of nowhere and just feels out of place. I think Barbara Bach was one of the prettiest but worst acting Bond girls.A scene at the end where a motorboat launches out of the tanker looks really silly and could have been edited better, Did I mention that Jaws also bites a shark to death? Actually that was awesome in a really dumb kind of way. Although this was one of my least favorite cold opens because that parachute is absurd. The ending stinger of them in the escape pod naked is also a little cartoonish. Overall I give The Spy Who Loved me a four out of five. This is one of the good ones and the silly factor doesn't it bring it down that much.

007 Journals: The Man With Golden Gun

When I read up about The Man With the Golden Gun I saw phrases like "lowest point" and "worst Bond film" so I wasn't expecting a whole lot going into this movie. I try to keep an open opinion about each movie despite knowing their legacy and I feel like I've done a good job of that so far. I will say I was a good way through this movie and really wondering what everyone was talking about. Everything was going smoothly. Then one scene literally turned the entire film upside down and it was a steep downhill drop until it smooths out again in the last twenty minutes. It all starts with Bond grabbing and squeezing a sumo wrestler's butt during a fight. What?!

Okay, let's start positive. There is a lot I love about Golden Gun. For one more Roger Moore as Bond who I've come to love in the role. Second, Christopher Lee is a great Bond villain. I had no idea he was in this movie and I love the very idea of it, I just feel like he was wasted and wished he was in a better Bond movie. I honestly think the plot was overly written as well. The idea of an assassin that is at Bond's skill level is even more interesting if you remove the solar energy subplot. It literally has no purpose in the film and Scaramanga doesn't even explain his place in it all until the final confrontation, of which he flat out says (with a smile on his face) that he is ignorant to science and has no interest other than selling. It all just seemed forced in there. Scaramanga is a great villain and even though Knick Knack creeped me out as much as the Leperchaun did as a child he is a great henchman. I just would have rather have seen a lot of Bond vs Scaramanga because spy VS. assassin is a much more interesting story. The scenes with Bond and Scaramanga talking back and forth at the end were easily my favorite part of the film.

Both Bond girls in this movie are beautiful but Agent Goodnight is a ridiculous name (in keeping with other ridiculous Bond girl names. I'm looking at you Christmas) and she is honestly the worst agent I've ever seen. She is barely a step above damsel in distress. I miss Tracy from On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Scaramanga's mistress was a much more interesting character and I honestly felt bad when she was killed off. She served the plot and it was a role played  well by Muad Adams. One thing I should note is that this is the first time that Bond has blatantly used sex as a spy tool to the extent you later see in Casino Royale and I thought that was interesting. This is also something that I have failed to mention in any of my previous reviews but I love Bernard Lee as M. He has been better and better with each film and really shines in the scenes where M is just tired of Bond's shenanigans. He's great as M and I love his few scenes in this film probably more so than any of his other appearances.

Okay, I've said enough good things about this movie, now lets get into the bad. First off, the sumo wrestler fight is just a ridiculous idea and was probably thought of on set. Just have Bond grab his cheeks and give him a wedgie. Well that was a terrible idea fellas. While not necessarily a bad thing but I did notice this was more of a risque Bond movie. A lot more naked women barely covered and with the HD upgrade to these films you see a lot more nipples that were before hidden behind grainy or dark video that are now clear as day. Go back and watch Diamonds are Forever for full nipple on Plenty O'Toole. Some of these movies could probably get an R rating now if they were re-rated. The horrible cherry on top of this film is the return of the most stereotypical and awful character in a Bond film (the first time a side character has made two appearances I believe) is the American sheriff J.W. Pepper. Holy shit they just had to bring this guy back again. Running into Bond on his vacation feels right out of a Loony Tunes cartoon and it is just awful. Not to mention he gets crammed into another pretty good car chase (last time was boats I know) which is complete with a pretty impressive stunt where the awe is completely crushed by the presence of slide whistle! UGH!

Seriously the time from sumo butt grabbing to Bond vs Scaramanga almost kills this entire franchise and is easily the quickest drop of enjoyment in any film I've ever seen. The silly factor just goes out of control for too long and too close together for almost the entire middle of this movie. Luckily there are some great aspects of this film with the whole Bond vs Scaramanga plot line, but literally everything else could be cut out for a more enjoyable film. In good conscious I can only give The Man With the Golden Gun a 2 out of 5. Solid performances and there's a hint of a great film here but the middle drags it down.

007 Journals: Live And Let Die

Hey, you know what was really popular in 1973?  Blaxploitation films. Luckily Ian Fleming wrote a Bond film about a black cartel. Well we are in the thick of it now. The Roger Moore era. I have seen very few Roger Moore Bond movies, just bits and pieces of different films over the years, so this was my first time watching a whole film with Moore as the titular character. I know that the Moore films are where the franchise really starts to veer off into obscure humor and silly gadgets so I was going into this first movie expecting an immediate drop from the last one. Honestly though, I thought this movie was great. Now it's not perfect. There are a lot of things from the time period that stick out. For one, this movie takes place in Harlem and Louisiana and focuses on a black voodoo based cartel in the 70's. In one five minute span we hear the phrases jukebox (in reference to a radio), pimp mobile, cue ball, and honkey. This, more than the previous, really feels like a film reflecting what was popular at the time.

Honestly this film has two completely absurd moments that leave me with the biggest groan I've ever had. Let's just get those out of the way now. First is the alligator hopscotch scene. Oh man! This scene was going so well but I knew it was coming. Bond out on the rock is actually a great tense moment. The alligators and crocodiles were legitimately terrifying when they were crawling on the rock. I think it helped that I knew he was about to run across the backs because honestly I was waiting for it the whole time and when it finally happened it didn't seem as bad as I thought. But MAN was that not a good idea in a script. If anyone can tell me if this was in the book I'd love to know. The other moment, Kananga blowing like a balloon and exploding. HOLY SHIT WHAT A DUMB MOMENT. This honestly knocked an entire star off my rating alone. Whoever wrote this moment, even if it's Ian Fleming, bad writer! Stop that!

I loved Roger Moore as Bond in his first outing. He was a lot more charming and serious than I expected. This film wasn't as outlandish as I know the series gets so maybe that has something to do with it but so far I give a big thumbs up to Moore as Bond. He feels very earnest in his portrayal and lives up to what I would picture from the books just as much as Connery does. Also I will say that Solitaire played by Jane Seymour is my second favorite Bond girl after Vesper. She is beautiful, I love her character, and it blew my mind that she was the mom Kitty in Wedding Crashers. Like wow! Really all of the performances in this movie (the serious ones anyway) are fantastic. Yaphet Kotto is a great Bond villain and plays right into the role. Honestly all of the worst performances come from the over Americanized stereotypical southern police that are after Bond during the boat chase. That is some embarrassing stuff.

The plot is fairly solid for a Bond villain. Kananga is producing heroin that he is going to give out for free and this will drive his competitors out of business, thus allowing him to start charging and run a monopoly. Honestly makes sense in a crazy sort of way. I also love that he's seemingly a modern man but still believes in old voodoo traditions so much so that he even keeps a taro card reader on hand. This is where the film gets a little interesting. Are we supposed to believe that Solitaire really has powers and that Bond steals them by sleeping with her? Are James Bond films now incorporating supernatural elements? Honestly the film doesn't really lean too hard either way and I'm inclined to believe that it's all just people believing in superstition and over thinking. I also want to point out that there is only one gadget in this film and it's awesome. Bond's watch has a magnet and the face spins and turns into a saw. It's all plausible enough and I love when they keep it simple.

While I do think the film is pretty great there are some up and down moments. There's a lot of little things that kind of bug me like just some sketchy performances from smaller characters, the obvious racist undertones, and just those two outlandish moments I mentioned before. Also it was impossible not to notice how much Ford sponsored this film because almost every car was the same. Aside from Oddjob I think this is the only real appearance of a henchman with a gimmick, of course referring to the man with a metal arm. Other than that, Moore is actually really suave as Bond. There is also an amazing boat chase in this film that is actually pretty lengthy. Now that I think of it there are two great chases in the film because even the chase in the double decker bus is rather entertaining. I also loved the score and that Paul Mccartney song is one of the best Bond songs. Honestly I liked this film worlds more than I would though so I'm going to give it a four out of five. Great but not perfect.

007 Journals: Goldfinger

So Bond had been wildly popular with the first two films so now it was time to make their first blockbuster James Bond film and this time with a budget bigger than the last two films' combined. Enter Goldfinger. Now just a heads up, this was the first film I took notes for so this could be a little more in depth or nitpicky, but either way it will probably be a longer read than my previous articles. Right away I will say Goldfinger exceeded my expectations even more so than the last film. Now I knew I was moving into Bond blockbuster territory and we are getting into the more silly aspects of Bond, with all of the crazy gadgets and even more rampant womanizing. Let's just get this out of the way now. The misogyny in this movie is at an all time high. Bond uses a woman as a human shield (I let that one slide since she was a bad guy), but then slaps a woman on the ass and says "Man talk", and then he turns a lesbian (though never stated as such but in the novel she was) by forcing a kiss on her. Not to mention the opening titles being scantly dressed gold painted women and the all blonde sexy female (probably all single too) airplane team. The general idea here was "Appeal to the bigger audience with more hot women!" Boy weren't the 60's fun to be a woman?!

The film opens with Bond seemingly enjoying a holiday but we are quickly introduced to Auric Goldfinger (great name), who may be one of my new favorite Bond villains. We learn right away that Auric is a man who doesn't like to lose and his evil scheme might be one of the best thought plans, though not the smartest executed. Auric is not a stupid Bond villain. I love the conversations and back and forth quips he has with Bond. He doesn't have that cheesy Bond moment where he tells his whole plan instead of killing him when he has the chance, although he does let him live in the laser situation but it's not to tell him his plan. He actually is very dismissive of Bond and they make him releasing Bond actually believable. He has an imposing bodyguard in Oddjob (the best character in Goldeneye for Nintendo 64) and his silence makes him even more menacing.

Auric's plan is to irradiate the US gold supply in Fort Knox in order to raise the value of his own large gold supply. Fairly genius if you ask me, it makes sense and could actually work. If only the execution was at all possible. I'll throw out the suspension of disbelief to a point. I'd accept them getting into Fort Knox almost any other way, even drilling underground I would have approved of. Flying planes around the area and nearby military base spraying an invisible knockout gas is probably at the bottom of my list of rejected plans. Watching everyone fall down (or in some extras' cases slowly lowering yourself down) immediately after the planes fly by is just ridiculous looking, even if it does just turn out to be a ruse. Everything that takes place after blowing the gate however I'm fine with.

The increased budget and production quality shines through in this film, and just the structure of the plot is better by design. There are way more location shoots this time around versus just using sets and just makes everything look way better. The opening espionage scene stands out and is, out of these first three movies, one of the better examples of Bond just doing spy stuff. Now I've made it clear that I'm not the biggest fan of the gadgetry in this series, and the car in particular is a little excessive in this film, but over all I was fine with everything they introduced. It was our first time getting James going down to Q's lab and getting his equipment run down. These were always fun scenes and even this first time was a great scene. All of the non-car gadgets get used to great effect, but I do have complaints that all of the car gadgets were used in one chase scene and then the car is quickly dispatched. I would have liked to have seen those get spread out a little more through the film because in rapid succession it just seems even more wacky. One thing about the car chase though is how real everything appeared. The stunts looked legitimately dangerous and convincing. Some of the extras diving out of the way even looked like accidents. We even get a car exploding (our second big explosion of the film) which just screams "Blockbuster's need more explosions!" Which raises the question, if they could afford to blow stuff up then why couldn't they afford some better green screens because some of the ones in the beginning at the hotel (why didn't they just shoot all of that on location?) are some of the worst green screens I've ever seen. On the other hand the laser scene actually still looks really good and that scene is tense even today. The famous "Do you expect me to talk?" banter, something I've seen parodied so many times, I expected to be extremely cheesy but actually that entire scene was great and everything just felt so honest. Very interesting to go back to something I know from pop culture and find it just as enjoyable as audiences probably did when it originally came out.

The Bond girls in this film are surprisingly completely inconsequential. Two of them are dispatched very quickly and contribute little to nothing to the advancement of the plot. However we do have one of the more iconic Bond girls, Pussy Galore. I'll never be able to get over that name. Pussy (really?!) is a pretty great character but she comes so late into the movie and honestly doesn't have a lot of screen time. I feel like more time to flesh her out would have been better. Her flip from loving (again more stated in the book) women to loving Bond feels very unearned and is just kind of rapey on Bond's part. Pussy (seriously guys) ends up being a redeemed and saving the day, which is great, but I just wanted more of her in the movie.

Now Auric is smart to a degree for most evil super villains. He never tells Bond his plan outright, he actually has a conceivable plan to begin with, but he does bring Bond along for the ride which instead he should have just left him in jail at his American base. Even Bond's allies make some questionable decisions. For instance they give him a tracking device in case of an emergency they can pinpoint his location, but then when he activates it they literally ignore it and assume that everything is fine and take the wait and see approach. All of this left me just shaking my head. They don't find anything wrong with James hopping oceans to America, but once he's being tracked just driving down a highway, well now it's time to figure out what he's doing.

It might sound like I'm picking this film apart but the truth is that I loved it. Goldfinger is known as THE Bond film and I don't think it's the best (Casino Royale) but if someone asked me which of the old Bond films would be the one to point out as a reference point then I would say Goldfinger. While it has a lot of just odd an silly moments, it has great production (I mean come on guys, Goldfingers rotating pool table and models alone) and is some of the most entertaining action of the Connery Bond films. So far two out of three have been just incredibly enjoyable to me and I'll give Goldfinger a four out of five star rating.

Journey Through the History of James Bond. 007 Journals.

My history with James Bond is a scattered one. I grew up in the Brosnan era and therefore he was my favorite Bond. That is until Casino Royale came out. I have seen every Bond from Brosnan to Skyfall but the earlier films escaped me for a long time. I had never seen a Sean Connery Bond film, seen bits and pieces of random Roger Moore films, and never saw either of the Timothy Dalton movies. Now I love James Bond. I've watched the Craig movies multiple times and same with the Brosnan ones but I felt it was time to rectify the gaping whole in my Bond knowledge.

So I started listening to a podcast that I am happy to plug, from the Nerdist network, James Bonding. It's a great podcast hosted by comedians with other film and comedian guests, and they watch all of the Bond films and talk about them. It's a great and fun listen where you can get some interesting thoughts on the films and some crazy trivia. For instance, I didn't know some of the movies had alternate theme songs that weren't in the films. Fascinating stuff. 

I became hooked on James Bonding and I decided to take matters into my own hands. I decided to watch all of the Bond films in order and write about my experience from the point of view of a twenty six year old watching them in 2015. So consider this the introduction to what I am calling my 007 Journals. I thought about taking an alternating order like James Bonding does but if I'm going to do this I want to do it right so I'm going from the first to the last. Hopefully I will finish up Skyfall before Spectre comes out and end the year on the newest one. So I hope you enjoy, I'm sure a lot of people won't agree with everything I have to say about these beloved films but hopefully some can agree and partake in the conversations as well.