Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Bond Films Part 1

Now that I've rated the actors, I'm going to start rating the films. I'll start with the worst and move up to the best.

21. Moonraker: This is a remake of an already bad film - The Spy Who Loved Me except that its about a madman intent on destroying the world and living in outer space instead of under the sea. (See #20) These two films represent the worst of Bond films. Producer Broccoli decided to go with Moonraker in 1979 due to the sudden popularity of space films - namely Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. 1979 was also the year of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Alien, and The Black Hole. Unfortunately, Moonraker's special effects were not up to the standards of these other pictures. Indeed, some of the space shots looked almost as bad as the B movies of the 1950's and '60's. More than that though, Bond never drives a car, Bond never even fires his Walther PPK. Instead, you get Star Wars-like laser blasts. Apparently, in 1979, we had laser gun technology which disappeared soon thereafter. Returning Jaws as the henchman was a bad idea. He was a stupid character in the previous film (Again, see #20). The "Bond girl" in this one is Dr. Goodhead (please!) played by Lois Chiles. She is so wooden as a superintelligent female astronaut that she rivals the ineptitude of Roger Moore.


20. The Spy Who Loved Me: This is another very cartoonish Bond film. Barbara Bach as Russian agent XXX (Yeah, I get it. The extra 'X' means she's superwoman.) is an absolute joke. The dialogue exchanges between her and Moore are absolutely laughable. I'm talking about having no chemistry and just going through the motions. This film introduces the most ridiculous of all Bond's nemesis', that being Jaws as he hulks around "chasing" Bond like Frankenstein's monster. Jaws can't even seem to be able to run so how he keeps catching up to and cornering Bond is beyond me. The plot is an evil scientist tries to create a nuclear war to kill everyone on Earth, while he and his "super race" can live safely under the sea.

19. GoldenEye: This debut of Pierce Brosnan is just plain boring. It has a convoluted plot. This is the first Bond film to come out after the Cold War. It appears the writer's weren't sure how to handle this. It relies on a gimmicky henchwoman, Xenia Onatopp to make it interesting. Unfortunately, she doesn't.

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