The Best of BOND; Let's get this over with - Page 3

I've been making my way through all the movies again, having not seen some of them in over twenty years. I got around to Moonraker a few days ago. I'd been wondering whether my dislike of it was exaggerated. Well I didn't think this was possible, but it's even worse than I remembered.

The transition from one sequence to another is completely disjointed; there's no logic in what follows from what, there's no plot reason for going from this location to that location...it's just a matter of finding the next good location for an action sequence. Bond escapes from a situation, and goes halfway around the world, where someone inexplicably starts chasing him again. Then Jaws makes a funny face and falls from a great height. It's actually the jokiness that bothers me the most. Besides Richard Kiel being forced to turn Jaws into a clown, there are jokey musical references to other films. The whole thing has the air of being made to appeal to kids. In fact, if you watch the half-hour doc on the DVD, they talk about getting letters from kids asking why Jaws couldn't be a good guy; lo and behold, Jaws becomes a good guy. And they as much as admit that making Moonraker instead of For Your Eyes Only was an attempt to cash in on the success of Star Wars.

The performances are awful (especially from the admittedly gorgeous Lois Chiles). Action sequences end badly, especially the centrifuge bit. If the centrifuge is controlled from a booth above, how does Bond shooting a dart from inside the car make it stop? And the hovercraft gondola? No. But perhaps the movies' greatest sin is that it's boring up until the point that it turns completely stupid, which is once they get into space. Who knew laser pistols were commonplace in 1979? Or that the United States had a detachment of marines outfitted with maneuvering spacesuits with laser cannons? Not to mention that Drax's master plan is a carbon copy of Stromberg's in The Spy Who Loved Me, substituting underwater for outer space.

Derek Meddings and John Barry seem to be the only ones on task; the effects, especially the miniature work, are superb, and the score is memorable and atmospheric. Everyone else was overdosing on the stupid pills.

Sorry to get long-winded, but I hate this movie. People love to dogpile on On Her Majesty's Secret Service, but Moonraker is the real pile. The definite low point for the series, especially coming off the excellent The Spy Who Loved Me, certainly the height of Moore's reign in the role.

I guess that's my perspective because I grew up in the 70's, when everybody thought On Her Majesty's Secret Service was horrible. How they could think that after sitting through Live and Let Die, I'm not sure. I think it really did just catch a lot of flack for not starring Connery. People must have assumed that he'd play the part forever, and at the time, he must have seemed crazy to give it up. In retrospect, it doesn't seem to have hurt him.

I love Pleasance's Blofeld, myself. He's got the crazy eyes. Plus, at least his version has earlobes. I have to agree, though, that the whole Japanese disguise thing was wrong-headed and embarrassing. Maybe if they'd actually succeeded in making him look remotely Asian, it wouldn't be so bad. All they did was give him a Vulcan haircut.

What bugs me about Tomorrow Never Dies is that there's a section in which Bond becomes a complete moron. He walks right up to the bad guy, tells him his name, says he knows what he's up to, and announces that he's going to stop him. A few minutes later, some thugs show up and ask Bond to go with them. So he does...and he walks out in front of them, allowing them to sucker punch him.

Remember when Bond was a spy? He'd give a fake name, have a cover for being there, gather information on the villain's plot. Yeah, they did away with that. British Intelligence just sends him in to blow shit up now.

I just watched Never Say Never Again for the first time since its original release. If we count that film, it throws many wrenches into the machinery. Worst theme song, for one. I may have to call in sick tomorrow.

Too mellow? Have you seen both films lately? Never Say Never Again is practically sleepwalking. Thunderball ends with dozens of men having an underwater battle with spearguns. Never Say Never Again ends with a two-man underwater wrestling match.

And I'm sorry, but any film that ends with the lead winking at the camera has to go.

Even if Never Say Never Again had all of the official Bond touches, it would still be hamstrung by being a remake. They didn't even change the names of the supporting characters. Everything I like in the movie is in the first half-hour; the stuff about Bond's career being in a downturn, and getting back into condition is all good. In fact, I wish the rest of the movie had made more of an issue of his age. I quite like Barbara Carrerra, but Kim Basinger, as she so often does, sucks. Max Von Sydow, while utterly failing to be bald, would make quite a good Blofeld with more screentime. And I have to admit that it's cool to see SPECTRE back in the game. I really wish McClory would stop being such a pissant and just charge for the use of that stuff.

I fully agree about the score. I like Michel LeGrand's score for Richard Lester's The Three Musketeers, but he utterly fails on this film. And as I said, the opening theme song makes me violently ill. It makes Madonna's Die Another Day sound like Mozart. Awful.

Also, whoever thought it would be cool to replace Bond and Largo's bacarat showdown with a glorified game of Missile Command needed to be kicked really, really hard.

It's certainly not among the worst overall. But it's not particularly good.

Sure, but Austin Powers is a better Bond film than Octopussy. That's not exactly putting the bar out of reach.

So that means, by extension, that you think Octopussy is better than Thunderball. You're just full of disturbing little revelations in this thread, aintcha?

The fact that Bond spends the climax of Octopussy dressed in a clown suit is symbolic of what was wrong with the Moore years.

I just rewatched For Your Eyes Only, and that's a Moore Bond film I like. The only thing that really doesn't work is the music. Bill Conti, who I normally like, went all disco here. First of all, it dates the movie badly, and secondly, isn't 1981 a little late to be flogging that horse anyway? The theme song is merely bland, but I hate that they put Sheena Easton in the opening credit sequence. Sure she's hot, but that's what music videos are for.

Here we saw the beginning of reigning in Bond's libido, reducing him to one woman, in the person of Carole Bouquet. But hell, look at her; I'd concentrate too. She's not much of an actor, but I guess when you're flawlessly gorgeous, talent is just dead weight. Besides, Julian Glover and Topol can pick up the slack.

What's really nice after the embarrassment of Moonraker is that the jokiness is toned way down. It's a lot easier to build tension when you don't have bad guys who go down like Wile E Coyote every other scene.

Interesting bit #1: Charles Dance shows up in a tiny nonspeaking role as a generic glowering thug. He does indeed glower brilliantly.

Interesting bit #2: There's a sequence with two minisubs that's eerily similar to the business in The Abyss eight years later. I've never accused Cameron of undue originality.