So, here we go:
#007: The Living Daylights (1987) Timothy Dalton's first Bond film is a bit of a letdown. Dalton, a fine actor in his own right, must contend with what any serious actor simply dreads: a comedy script. The screenplay, written for Pierce Brosnan (before he had to contend with a revival of Remington Steele), plays like a pseudo-Roger Moore film, and Dalton is simply not fit to deliver cheesy one-liners (ironically, GoldenEye, widely considered Brosnan's best film, features a screenplay written for Dalton). The Bond girl of the film, Maryam D'Abo, is fine in her first big outting, but the plot, expanded from a Fleming short story, can't hold under the weight of the big screen. Joe Don Baker, as a psychotic Army general, doesn't make things any better. The movie falls apart around Dalton, as he struggles through a movie meant for a different Bond. 007 helping the Mujadhin (who would, just 14 years later, manage to topple the New York skyline with two commercial flights) is just the icing on the horribly-ironic cake. Fortunately, Dalton would find his place in 1989's incredibly dark (yet monumentally unsuccessful) Licence to Kill.
#006: You Only Live Twice (1967) Just two years after the wild success of Thunderball, EON Productions decided to adapt the 11th James Bond novel for the screen. Hiring a new director (Lewis Gilbert) and bringing the film to an exotic locale (Japan), the producers were sure they had a success on their hands. Unfortunately, the person they hired to write the screenplay, Roald Dahl, had absolutely no versing in the Bond lore. Deciding to start almost from scratch, he crafted a Bond film unmatched by its predecessors -- in utter lunacy. To simplify matters, the movie is basically a bigger-budget remake of Dr. No -- the villain has an evil lair in a remote location, is in possession of a nuclear missile, and has an evil scheme to threaten the world. Everything else is a set piece; from the capture of two spacecraft in the pre-titles sequence to the destruction of the mastermind's volcano lair, everything is meant to make the audience go "Ooh!" This means that Bond is practically superhuman in this film, while the various henchmen and villains seem to have skipped Evil Villain School on the day the lesson was How to Be an Effective Killer. Even the main villain, Ernst Stavro Blofeld (played by Donald Pleasence, who was the second actor to take the role in the production following the hasty firing of Jan Werich), is a bit of a moron, as he deliberately invites Bond into his secret lair, parades him in front of the self-destruct button, and does not take the chance to kill his adversary -- even when the choice is glaringly obvious. The film, in fact, seems to be one of the first occurrences of that critically-hated colossus, the Bloated Summer Blockbuster.
#005: Diamonds are Forever (1971) Sean Connery's final official Bond film, DaF plays more like a 007 parody than a serious film -- which it was supposed to be after the dramatic cliffhanger at the end of On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Unfortunately, after the departure of new Bond George Lazenby, the producers decided to scrap everything they had set up in the last film, and took the Bond series to an entirely different level. I'm sad to say, this film easily matches -- and then transcends -- the utter lunacy of YOLT (see above). After supposedly killing Blofeld (in one of the most ludicrous pre-title sequences in Bond history), 007 gets sicked onto the diamond smuggling business and ends up traveling to Las Vegas. There, he discovers Blofeld alive and well, and planning to use a killer satellite to destroy any target on earth. I'd go into more detail, but it's just so ludicrous, you wouldn't believe it.
#004: Moonraker (1979) Again, a bigger-budget remake; this time of Thunderball, right down to the "Bond is Imperiled on Malfunctioning Machine" plot point, only this time, it's a G-force simulator. Other bits and pieces seem to be retreads of The Spy Who Loved Me: there, the villain was obsessed with the sea; here, space is his fancy. In his 4th Bond film, Roger Moore comes off worse than in the earlier flicks, as he seems to have become partially embalmed between 1977 and 1979. Moving creakily, the only facial expression he can easily make a raised eyebrow, Moore wanders through the film, encountering the occasional rehashed villain (Jaws, anyone?) apparently just so he can recieve his paycheck. Thankfully, this would be auteur Lewis Gilbert's last foray into the world of Bond, as John Glen, a far more competent director, brought Bond back to his roots in 1981's For Your Eyes Only.
#003: Die Another Day (2002) In this bloated action film (mostly based on the original Moonraker novel), Pierce Brosnan is captured by the North Korean military after killing the son of a general. Upon his release, Bond goes rogue in search of evil Korean henchman Zao, but ends up stumbling upon an international diamond conspiracy and gets reinstated into MI6, anyway. He then meets up with Halle Berry, a fellow agent on the trail of a diamond magnate, who ends up being the son of that general, alive and well. The rest of the film plays out like DaF on steroids, with Bond as himself, Halle Berry as Tiffany Case, and Zao as the junior half of (I kid you not) Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd. No wonder they rebooted the franchise.
#002: The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) In Guy Hamilton's final Bond directorial effort, James Bond (as interpreted by a lackadaisical Roger Moore) is targeted by shadowy assassin Francisco Scaramanga (this film's Embarrassed Actor, Christopher Lee). During his investigation of Scaramanga, Bond discovers that Scaramanga is after the Solex Agitator, a source of apparently unlimited solar energy. He then meets Mary Goodnight (Britt Ekland at her worst), a fellow British agent, and together, they go after Scaramanga, the Solex Agitator, and the assassin's manservant, a midget [!] named Nick-Nack (Fantasy Island's Hervé Villechaize). Did I mention there's a midget?
And, finally...
#001: A View to a Kill (1985) What can I say about AVtaK? A complete rehash of Goldfinger, the film is less about Bond and more about the extravagant ego of Cubby Broccoli. Roger Moore, in his final Bond film, is a zombified clown, rapidly decaying before our very eyes. Tanya Roberts (of Beastmaster fame) is entirely unconvincing as a geologist (Christmas Jones, anyone?), and is, by far, the most useless Bond girl ever. And Christopher Walken. Dear, dear Christopher Walken; how far have you fallen? Having gone from The Dead Zone straight into this steaming pile of crap, Walken is, by far, the most embarrassed Embarrassed Actor ever committed to celluloid. Hamming it up like there's no tomorrow, Walken's performance as industrialist Max Zorin stands out among all the other actors, but that's only because he does his usual Walken schtick, and it's guaranteed to keep you awake through every minute of this turd. Oh, sure, Duran Duran gives a heck of a theme song, but after that, what else is there keeping you from throwing your copy of AVtaK out the window?
Honorable Mentions: Octopussy (1983), Thunderball (1965), Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
And... that's all, folks.
EDIT: Um... I didn't mean to make two threads on the same topic. Could someone remove one, please? I'm sorry.
This post has been edited by Bond: 30 July 2007 - 02:22 AM