Even though there have been 23 James Bond films from Eon Productions, you’d be hard pressed to call any of them sequels. Aside from a few references from film to film, each installment has been a one-off film and you wouldn’t have had to see any of other Bond films in order to understand what was going on in which ever film you happened to be watching. That changed with Quantum of Solace. Bond had unfinished business at the end of Casino Royale and that business was the driving force behind Quantum of Solace. It is not unreasonable then to call Quantum of Solace a sequel to Casino Royale.

Quantum of Solace is regarded as the weakest so far of the Daniel Craig Bond films, only having scored 60% on Rotten Tomatoes, and anecdotal evidence reveals similar results. I would say that in my opinion, while it isn’t as good as Casino Royale or Skyfall, it’s still a very fine film. The technical film making is not great. There are several jump cuts, and the cinematography might be among some of the worst in the series, but the story is compelling and the action sequences are riveting.

There are several things that I like about Quantum. First off, it harkens back to the Connery days with a SPECTRE-like organization, but this one is called Quantum. This is an organization that is attempting to manipulate world events so that their political an economic power can be increased. But unlike the science fiction-esque underground lairs and holding the world for ransom over stolen nuclear weapons, this organization operates in a much more modern way that is behind the scenes and in the shadows. They manipulate and orchestrate rather than annihilate. As the story progresses, Bond learns more about them and learns first hand how deadly and sinister they can be, and he learns how much power they wield, even within MI6. Finally, he learns that Vesper was within their grasp and powerless to keep them from manipulating her to do their bidding.

That leads my to the next aspect of this film that I find to be quite good. Thematically, it’s one of the strongest Bond films. It’s about revenge and redemption and duty, and how those things don’t necessarily have to be mutually exclusive. M takes Bond off the case because she believes, rightly, that Bond is motivated by revenge. She is mistaken, however, when she assumes that his motivation will prevent him from dispassionately doing his duty. This proves to be a tragic misjudgement when she sends Ms. Strawberry Fields to bring Bond back to London. Bond convinces Fields that he’s doing the right thing, and she ends up dead (similarly to Jill Masterson in Goldfinger), covered from head to toe in oil, with oil filling her lungs. Bond finds redemption for himself as well as for Vesper when he solves the case and returns to M’s good graces. The point is proven when M tells Bond that she wants him back, and is response is, “I never left.”

This film continues Bond’s humanization as well by continuing to show is burgeoning alcoholism and his tendencies towards hubris. He also shoots first and asks questions later (in a stark contrast to Timothy Dalton’s Bond), and that trait gets him into more trouble with M. Clearly with Daniel Craig, Bond is no longer Superman. He has flaws, and he has depth like we haven’t seen. Previous films have attempted to create depth within Bond, but none to the degree with which the current film makers have.

The villain in Quantum of Solace is unfortunately one of the weak links in this film. Dominic Greene is Quantum’s equivalent to Bloefeld, and he certainly has a sinister side to him, but he’s ineffectual as a villain. It could be because Matthieu Amalric isn’t a terribly imposing force as an actor. It could be that there are so many other moving parts in this film that threaten Bond aside from Greene. Whatever the reason, he’s not a memorable villain. In fact, he’s probably most comparable to Blofeld from Diamonds Are Forever, which saw Bloefled at his least threatening and imposing.

The same is true for the Bond girl in Quantum of Solace. Camille Montes is out for revenge against General Medrano, who Greene is trying to get into power in Bolivia so that he can gain access to Bolivia’s water rights. General Medrano had her family killed when she was young, and she’s been looking for revenge ever since. Unlike the revenge seeking Melina Havelock from For Your Eyes Only, however, she plays a much more minor role for most of the story, and her character loses a little focus throughout the film. She is a very atypical Bond girl who doesn’t affect the film the way most Bond girls do, and she’s a much more minor character than any Bond girl since Honey Ryder.

The fact that the villain and the Bond girl are forgettable certainly works against this film. There are films in the series where one or the other is forgettable, but rarely that the case for both. Also, the structure of the screenplay isn’t as strong as the other Craig Bond films. This film focuses a bit more on the action and a little less on the story, and I can understand why critics and fans are a little more down on this film than Craig’s other efforts. However, I found it to be very entertaining and would rank it very close to the top 10 in the series.

 

In many ways Casino Royale represents a rebirth of the Bond franchise. Not only do we have a new Bond in Daniel Craig, but Casino Royale is an origin story. There is no longer any ambiguity about why Bond seems to get younger as time marches on. There is no more continuation of Bond moving from Cold War to Post-Cold War. This is a new character who has just been promoted to 00-status in MI6, and his inexperience shows throughout the film and is a major factor in how the story develops.

This is also the strongest debut by any Bond in the series. Daniel Craig took to the role immediately and he owns the role from the prologue through the end credits. He has a presence not seen since Sean Connery and is the most complete Bond since Connery as well, while also utilizing the strongest elements of Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan without any of the silliness of Roger Moore. What I liked about Timothy Dalton was that he was a more serious and brooding Bond, which was more similar to the character from the books. The problem with Dalton was that he never felt fully engaged as the character. Craig has that same brooding, but feels much more invested in becoming Bond. Pierce Brosnan carried himself with a calm sophistication, and Craig certainly has those attributes as well but he plays them more subtly. There are scenes in Tomorrow Never Dies and GoldenEye where Brosnan goes out of his way to show Bond as unflappable, whereas Craig shows that same unflappability in a more effortless way. Connery has always been the most well-rounded Bond, showing equal parts sophistication and brutality and equal parts humor and emotion. Craig, while having some understated moments of humor, is much more tapped into his emotions than any of his predecessors. One way we see that with Daniel Craig is Bond’s reliance on alcohol. Every Bond has had his martinis and champagne socially, but for the first time we see in Casino Royale  Bond using alcohol as a crutch and to take the edge off. This is a guy who potentially has a drinking problem, and that helps humanize him with a tangible weakness  that is more obvious than any of his predecessors.

Another sign of the series’ rebirth is the lack of familiar Bond motifs. He has a cool car in this film, but it doesn’t have any weapons attached to it. There is also no Q in this film, and other than his high tech first aid kit, there are no high tech gadgets to help Bond along his way. He has to rely totally on his wits and guile if he wants to seize the sword. We are also reintroduced to Felix Leiter, who is now an African American CIA agent, and becomes an indispensable ally to Bond once again.

One thing that Casino Royale does that had eluded most of the Brosnan films is that it finds a balance between action and story. As the series moved through its fifth decade, the action sequences had to be taken to another level to compare with other espionage series like Mission: Impossible and the Bourne films. This film does that, but not at the expense of the story. Yes, there are some long and intense action sequences like the foot chase through the construction site that ends up in a foreign embassy and the chase on the runway of the Miami airport. However, the story is deep and intriguing. International terrorism financier Le Chiffre has lost a fortune due to Bond’s interference and has to set up a high stakes poker game  in order to win back the money that he owes the terrorists he recently financed. Bond, being an expert poker player, is entered into the contest so that he can win the tournament and thus offer immunity to Le Chiffre so that they can find out who he’s financing and who the bigger players are behind him.

The pacing of the film is also interesting in that most of the first half is non stop action, and then the poker tournament slows the pacing way down, but it’s no less intense. That’s because the story is intriguing and the characters are engaging. Le Chiffre is under the threat of the terrorists so his motivation is clear, and unlike other Bond villains, he has something  to fear himself. Bond also shows his human side by allowing his hubris to lead him to making a bad bet that temporarily takes him out of the game until Leiter comes to his rescue.  There are some action sequences sprinkled in, like Bond chasing the terrorists in the stairwell, and after he’s poisoned and has to use the defibrillator on himself, but for the most part, the second act is all about the story.

Speaking of Le Chiffre, he’s the best, most memorable Bond villain since Karl Stromberg in The Spy Who Loved Me. He has many of the best elements of Bond villains in that he has the ability to outsmart Bond and he has sophistication to match his ruthlessness. However, Le Chiffre has the added element of fearing for his own skin like no other Bond villain before him. This unique attribute helps to make Le Chiffre one of the great villains of the series, as his desperation makes him willing to resort to anything, including masochistic cruelty, to get what he needs.

Vesper Lynd is the Bond girl in Casino Royale, and she’s one of the top Bond girls in the series. Like Le Chiffre, what makes her such a great Bond girl is her depth. She’s much more than just a pretty face, and her issues help to propel the story into places that it wouldn’t have gone if it weren’t for her particular character issues. She isn’t as independent as Domino or Melina Havelock or Anya Amasova, but her role in the story is compelling and has a nice twist at the end. She turns out to be braver than almost any Bond girl in the series, and she’s certainly the deepest character of any Bond girl.

What Casino Royale offers that most Bond films don’t is depth. There’s depth of character and depth of story that only the very top Bond films like Goldfinger, From Russia With Love, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and The Spy Who Loved Me have had. This is not only a great Bond film. This is a great film that even someone who is not a fan of the Bond series could enjoy.

I will say this about Pierce Brosnan as Bond. Aside from George Lazenby, whose first Bond film was also his last, Brosnan went out on a higher note in his last film than any of his other predecessors. Die Another Day is a stronger swan song than Diamonds Are Forever (Sean Connery), A View to a Kill (Roger Moore) and Licence To Kill (Timothy Dalton), however it’s still only an average Bond film at best, and is probably the weakest of Brosnan’s films. As has been the trend in some of the immediate predecessors to this film, Die Another Day suffers from missed opportunities and unrealized potential.

In a way this film is emblematic of Pierce Brosnan’s tenure as James Bond. He had a promising start with GoldenEye, but an ultimately weak finish with Die Another Day. I had never seen this film before, and I was excited by the way it started with Bond getting captured by the North Koreans and spending 14 months being interrogated and tortured. It started out as one of the darker Bond films, perhaps the darkest since Live and Let Die and the edgiest since The Living Daylights. Like we’ve seen a couple of times, Bond goes rogue in order to settle a score as well as saving the world. Bond actually has an edge to him in this film that has not been seen in any of the previous Brosnan films. Unfortunately the second half of the film is plagued with an invisible car, a plot that is filled with holes and characters that we ultimately don’t care enough about.

That leads me to the most obvious piece of unrealized potential in this film and that is with the Bond girl. Halle Barry plays Jinx, an NSA agent who allies with Bond to stop Gustav Graves and Zao from accomplishing their plan of harnessing the sun’s energy through the Icarus satellite to use as a laser that can be used to destroy entire regions on Earth. Halle Berry is a good actress. She won an Oscar for Best Actress for her role in Monster’s Ball and she won a Golden Globe for her performance in Introducing Dorothy Dandridge. She’s been nominated for several other awards, and has had a successful enough career to show that that she knows how to act, and is much more than a sex symbol. Casting Halle Berry as Jinx was as close to a no-brainer as there could have been. And yet, she falls flat. When we first see her emerging from the ocean in her red bikini, it brings back memories of Honey Ryder in her white bikini in Dr. No. We quickly learn that she’s a spy like Bond, and the potential is there for her to be one of the great Bond girls. Only she isn’t. Her acting is subpar at best, and she proves to be incapable of taking care of herself. Other than killing an unarmed doctor at the genetics clinic in Cuba, the only fight she wins is against another woman, and she needs Bond to rescue her on multiple occasions. The filmmakers gave her a strong facade, but ultimately she’s a weak character who doesn’t carry effectively carry the torch left behind by the likes of Pussy Galore, Domino, Anya Amasova, or Melina Havelock. That’s not to say that she’s a bad Bond girl, because she’s not nearly as weak as Dr. Holly Goodhead or Stacey Sutton. She’s just average, but she should have been so much more.

                          

The villains in Die Another Day are very solid. Bond has three adversaries in this film and each presents unique challenges for 007. They all are literal or figurative shapeshifters as archetypes, as Zao and Gustav Graves literally switch bodies through genetic engineering. Miranda Frost us an archetypal shapeshifter in that she appears to be an ally at first, but turns out to be the enemy that betrayed Bond to the Koreans initially and then ultimately to Zao and Graves. They’re plot of the Icarus machine and using the sun’s energy to create the ultimate weapon is classic Bond. It uses elements of world domination sought by the best Bond villains as well as elements of Sci-Fi to give it the plausible threat of being able to really destroy the world. They’re not the most memorable villains in the series, but they work well in this film, and are among its strongest aspects.

As this was Brosnan’s swan song in the role, I think it’s worthy to look at it with the passage of time and come to the conclusion that Brosnan was not a bad Bond. None of his films reached the iconic status of those of his predecessors, but that wasn’t entirely his fault. Brosnan played the role well and brought a certain panache to it that no one had before. Not Connery, not Lazenby, not Dalton, and certainly not Moore. Pierce Brosnan played Bond with style, but without the silliness of Moore, the edge of Dalton and the wit of Connery. Other than Lazenby, Pierce Brosnan was probably the flattest of Bonds but he still brought great personality and sophistication to the role. I think ultimately the problem with Brosnan’s Bond was that he didn’t have the material that the others had. Other than GoldenEye which did 82% on Rotten Tomatoes, none of his other films did better than 57%, with The World is not Enough bottoming out at 51%.

No, Brosnan’s main sin was his timing. He became Bond when action films were heavy on explosions and light on story. The great Bond films of yore had intriguing stories that kept the audience interested between action sequences, and the Brosnan films lacked that. You can’t blame Brosnan for that, however. The blame for that should be focused on directors Roger Spottiswoode (Tomorrow Never Dies), Michael Apted (The World is not Enough) and Lee Tamahori (Die Another Day). One other thing to consider is that Albert Brocolli died after the release of GoldenEye. He had produced every Eon Productions Bond film up to that point, and it’s possible that the franchise was slightly rudderless without his leadership.

There would be a 4-year hiatus between Die Another Day and the next Bond film with the next Bond. That would be a total reboot, and the franchise would once again find its way.

James Bond aficionados will know where the title of this film comes from. Bond himself mentions during the film that it’s his family motto. We actually learn this during On Her Majesty’s Secret Service when George Lazenby’s Bond goes to meet with the genealogist to discuss Blofeld’s genealogy, and he has found the Bond family crest. He points out to Bond the motto written across the front in Latin which translates to “The world is not enough”. There are also a couple of subtle reminders of Traci Di Vicenzo and some other previous Bond motifs, so in some ways, this film is paying homage to the films that came before it as the franchise approached its 40th anniversary.

The thing that I noticed with this film is that there isn’t anything special about it. It’s a fine film, but it breaks the trend of Bond actors hitting their stride with their third film, as Sean Connery did with Goldfinger and Roger Moore did with The Spy Who Loved Me. Both of those films clicked on all cylinders and Connery and Moore respectively took their performances of Bond to new levels. The World is not Enough, while better than Tomorrow Never Dies isn’t as good as GoldenEye and Pierce Brosnan hasn’t grown in the role the way that his predecessors did. And it’s not like they didn’t give him ample opportunity in this film. As mentioned above, there is a subtle reference to his dead wife. He’s also betrayed in this film by the woman he’s sworn to protect. He’s fighting an injury to his shoulder that isn’t utilized nearly enough, and the film makers missed all of those opportunities to create drama and tension in the film.

The reason for that could be that he started out from a stronger position. He had 35 years and 16 films from which to study the character before he ever even uttered one line of dialogue, shot one bullet or seduced one woman. His debut was certainly stronger than the other two, but he hadn’t evolved by his third film the way the other two had. It could also be because the material wasn’t as good. Both Goldfinger and The Spy Who Loved Me are transcendent and iconic films that transcended not only the franchise, but the genre itself. They’re two of the best known films of all time and The World is not Enough doesn’t measure up to those films.

Is it unfair to say that a film doesn’t measure up to two of the greatest films in the history of the genre and two of the most well-known films of all time? It does when we’re talking about Bond. The bar has been set very high and it’s incumbent upon the newer films to keep the standard.

So what’s going on with this film? Where did it hit? Where did it miss?

It’s got a more defined Hero’s Journey than the previous Brosnan films, but not as strong of a storyline, at least not as strong as GoldenEye. The premise is strong as Bond is sent to protect an Oil baroness Elektra King, whose father Sir Robert King was assassinated, presumably by the terrorist Renard, who some time earlier had kidnapped Elektra, though she eventually escaped. Over the course of the film Bond discovers that Elektra is behind Renard’s plans to blow up a Russian nuclear submarine in the port of Istanbul so that her oil pipeline will become the primary pipeline supplying Asian oil to the Mediterranean. There’s some really good Hero’s Journey material going on here as Elektra starts out as an ally and a lover and then shapeshifts into a shadow or enemy. She has all the makings of a great Bond girl when we first meet her. She’s independent, confident and determined to carry on her family’s legacy, despite her father’s assassination and the threats on her own life. But then she morphs into the villain who was behind the assassination of her father and has played Bond, M and all of Mi6 for fools. It’s a nice twist that isn’t seen often in Bond films, other than perhaps Kristatos in For Your Eyes Only and Koskov in The Living Daylights, where perceived allies turn out to be enemies.

The action sequences in this film also continue to be outstanding, but not particularly memorable. The exception being boat chase on the Thames that brings back memories of From Russia With Love, although the chase in this film is far superior to that one thanks to advances in film making techniques, as well as the more modern vehicles.

The film did miss, though, on a variety of levels. As mentioned above, the film makers missed a lot of opportunities to create dramatic tension in the film by not utilizing enough of the tools they gave themselves. For example, Bond injures his shoulder at the end of the boat chase. It’s injured so badly that M will not clear him for duty, so Bond seduces his doctor in order to get the necessary clearance. The injury is supposed to be pretty significant and should serve as a major obstacle to Bond accomplishing his mission, but it’s hardly mentioned. In fact, it is mentioned at one point when Renard has captured him and tortures his shoulder, but then it’s hardly mentioned at all aside from that. I would have suggested that they either use it effectively or don’t use it at all. A ton of dramatic tension could have been created, especially when Bond is trying to escape from the sinking submarine, if the pain in his shoulder was actively keeping him from physically doing the things he needed to do. I can imagine the incredible tension that would have occurred with bond underwater, near drowning and unable to turn the porthole wheel, but having to summon the strength from deep down within in order to do so. He also spends plenty of time fighting where his shoulder doesn’t bother him at all, but the pain is brought up when it’s convenient for the film makers to do so and ignored when it’s inconvenient. That injury needed to be a major hindrance throughout the film. If you’re an aspiring writer, you should learn from this mistake. Either use it effectively or don’t use it at all.

Aside from the physical limitations that the filmmakers could have put on Bond in The World is not Enough, there were also plenty of mental scars that could have created dramatic tension, but the opportunities were missed. Elektra asks him at one point of the film if he’s ever lost anyone close to him, but he doesn’t answer. Then later when he discovers that she’s betrayed him, his reaction is similarly muted. The World is not Enough is not the only film where this is an issue. James Bond is an incredibly deep character and precious few of the Bond films have explored that depth. The films that have explored it are among the best in the series. Most of the other films don’t even make such attempts. However, this film teases us with openings for it, but does not deliver and that’s the worst method of all.

One other area that this film misses in is the Bond girl. Like the physical and emotional limitations it looks as though there is potential here for greatness, but it’s ultimately missed. Elektra King starts off the film in the archetype of the Bond girl but as mentioned earlier, she shapeshifts into the villain. The actual Bond girl in The World is not Enough is Dr. Christmas Jones (a chuckle as I type the name) played by Denise Richards. Now it’s enough of a stretch to think of Denise Richards playing a nuclear physicist, but she plays it in way that didn’t even meet my low expectations. There’s no denying that Richards is a beautiful woman, and might be one of the most beautiful Bond girls ever, but her acting is atrocious and she’s just not believable in the role. It brought back memories of Dr. Holly Goodhead from Moonraker, but the sad part is that it looks like Denise Richards is trying to make it work. She just didn’t have the ability.

One final thing that should be pointed out was that this was the final film with Desmond Llewelyn as Q. Llewelyn first appeared in From Russia With Love in 1963 and he appeared in every Bond film until 1999, a total of 18 Bond films. He had the double duty of serving as Bond’s mentor as well as his foil and he was one of the most beloved characters of the entire series.

Overall this is another Bond film of missed opportunities. It’s another Bond film that followed the style of the 90’s where story was sacrificed for action and for some reason, film makers were unable to create a film that had quality in both. Is it an entertaining film? Yes. Is it close to being one of the best Bond films? Not by a long shot.

Tomorrow Never Dies was the first Eon Productions Bond film to be produced without Albert Broccoli, who passed away after the release of GoldenEye. Broccoli left behind a legacy that continues to this day and he helped to create a film genre that has become Hollywood’s most lucrative, and he created a tent pole franchise to which all others should be measured. But the franchise moved on without him, and the first film to be released after his death is a decidedly mixed bag of terrific action sequences and sloppy storytelling.

It actually starts off with a very good hook. In fact, Tomorrow Never Dies has one of the few prologues that sets up the rest of the film. Bond is surveying a terrorist arms bazaar, and that’s where we see Henry Gupta purchasing a GPS encoder that will help to set in motion the series of events that will eventually have Bond spring into action. The action in this sequence is awesome, as Pierce Brosnan continues his polished version of Bond, and never seems to be stressed out as the bullets fly around him, and he’s forced to steal a Russian jet so that it’s nuclear weapons won’t go off when the military ordered air strike hits.

A few scenes later, the GPS encoder is used to lure a British battleship into Chinese waters. A stealth battle ship then sinks the ship and shoots down a Chinese MiG, so that the two sides blame each other and international tensions can be lifted bringing the two countries to the verge of World War III. Behind all of this is Elliot Carver, a British media mogul who leads the next morning’s paper with the headline about British sailors being murdered and is manipulation these international events in order to expand his global media empire. M tells Bond that he has 48 hours, the amount of time that it will take the British fleet to reach the South China Sea, the investigate what’s going on and prevent a possible war.

This is classic Bond material, and sets up a story with incredibly high stakes that should be dripping with tension. The main problem with this film after that, to be perfectly frank, is a poorly written script. Much of Carver’s dialogue is on the nose and over the top. Jonathan Pryce took the over the top feel of the dialogue and took it even further in his acting. It almost felt like Pryce had been waiting his whole life to play a super-villain, and he was going to get every last drop out of it that he could. And I love Jonathan Pryce as an actor. Don’t get me wrong, but his acting in this film feels like the stereotypical super villain acting from an Austin Powers film or an SNL sketch. There are moments where he turns down the camp, and his character actually does become more menacing, but he’s so overblown throughout the majority of the picture that it’s just too hard to take him seriously as a villain.

And that is ultimately where the film fails. There are a lot of moving parts to a Bond film, but they can survive a lot of imperfections. One thing a Bond film cannot survive is a weak or ineffectual villain. Without a strong villain the rest of story falls flat. That’s really true of any film of any kind. The most important role is the one of the antagonist. Without the antagonist there is no conflict and without conflict there is no story. That’s Storytelling 101. It’s basic. It’s the one thing that has been consistent in all Bond films. Not every villain has been memorable, but every villain to this point has been effective. Elliot Carver is the least effective villain to this point in the series. Even the henchman Stamper is flat and uninteresting. Then when the plan comes more into focus and Carver’s main plan is to control the flow of information world wide feels too abstract. It’s an interesting idea, but they had to do too much explaining through dialogue which was famously satirized in The Incredibles when they talk about villains doing too much “monologuing”, which is exactly what happened in this film.

The Bond girl situation in Tomorrow Never Dies is interesting as well, as it uses motifs from earlier bond films with mixed degrees of success. At first it seems like Teri Hatcher is going to be the bond girl playing former Bond girlfriend and current wife of Carver, Paris Carver. But like Andrea in The Man With the Golden Gun, she is killed by her lover when he realizes that she’s betraying him to Bond. What’s unfortunate about it is that she’s killed before we really get a chance to care about her so that her death does little to create an emotional response or to advance the story. In fact, the would-be assassin Dr. Kaufman is played in a comedic way by Vincent Schiavelli, who is a comic character actor that you’d recognize as soon as you see him. What follows Bond’s discovery of Paris’ body is a bunch of witty banter between Bond and Kaufman while Paris’ dead body lies on the bed. Even Bond’s reaction to the site of his dead lover is muted, and considering Bond’s history of losing women he was unable to protect, whether it was Traci or Andrea or Jill Masterson, there was a missed opportunity for Bond’s darker side to emerge in a much more emotionally powerful way.

The motif of the second Bond girl harkens back to The Spy Who Loved Me and Anya Amasova. Like Amasova was an agent for the Soviets, Wai Lin is an agent for this film’s adversarial government the Chinese. Bond didn’t kill her lover in the beginning, but they’re competing to solve the conspiracy at first, before eventually working together. Played by martial arts master Michelle Yeoh (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) Wai Lin is a strong Bond girl who clearly turns out to be Bond’s equal, until he rescues her during the film’s climax. But for the most part, she has moments where she rescues him, where she outsmarts him, and where he could not possibly do without her. She might not be the most beautiful Bond girl, but she’s the best fighter and the most resourceful and most independent of any Bond girl, and she deserves to be rated in the top ten of any Bond girl list.

One of the fun things about Tomorrow Never Dies is that there is a lot of not-so-subtle sexual innuendo, especially in the first act of the film. Moneypenny interrupts Bond’s linguistics lesson that was more of a romp and proceeds to tell him that she always found him to be a “cunning linguist”. Then there’s a scene a few minutes later when it’s revealed that Carver is now married to Paris, a former girlfriend of Bond’s, M tells him to “pump her for information”. As if that hammer that hit us over the head wasn’t heavy enough, Moneypenny then responds, “You’ll just to decide how much pumping is needed, James.” It’s all a reminder that if nothing else, this is a franchise that refuses to take itself too seriously and that attitude has helped keep the series from becoming too pretentious and has allowed it to remain popular.

Overall, this is a film that missed the mark in a lot of places, but makes up for it with some of the best action sequences in the series. What I think this film is, is a great example of 90’s film making where action films especially lacked any story and whatever story there was, was there to get you from one action sequence to the next. Clearly, the Bond franchise was not immune to a trend that would plague most action films in the latter half of that decade. Ultimately it’s a shallow film  that has decent entertainment value but little else.

After a six-year hiatus that saw the Bond franchise get entangled in legal issues, script issues and casting issues, Bond finally returned in 1995’s GoldenEye. Producers originally wanted Pierce Brosnan to replace Roger Moore ten years earlier, however Brosnan was unavailable due to his contract with the television show Remington Steele. But with the long hiatus between Bond films, Timothy Dalton resigned from the role, and the producers finally had the man they wanted all along. GoldenEye is also the first Bond film to be released after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, however Russians still serve as the main villains in this installment.

To me, GoldenEye feels like the first modern Bond film. The film making is more sophisticated, the action sequences are more realistic and the acting is less campy. As a genre, Action films were starting to become much more sophisticated in the late 80’s and early 90’s, so it was incumbent upon the Bond film makers to keep up. In a lot of ways this is a very serious action film that still maintains some of the Bond “camp”.

Pierce Brosnan made his Bond debut in this film, and it was equal to the debut of Timothy Dalton in The Living Daylights. Not as brooding as Dalton, Brosnan seemed more influenced by Sean Connery in the way he portrayed the role. He carried the role with a subtle sophistication that he pushed in ways that were subtle yet over the top. For example, after he beats up one of the deck hands on a yacht that he’s investigating, he casually wipes his forehead with a towel. It’s a very funny moment with good comedic timing. But later in the film, after bowling over all of Moscow in a tank, he dapperly straightens his tie in a moment that feels a little more forced. Brosnan seems to give Bond a little more ego than the other actors did, and he plays the role with an arrogance that, while not unbecoming, is a tad off putting and makes him feel less human than did Dalton or Connery or even George Lazenby for that matter.

Brosnan played this installment almost in a more “athletic” way than any of his predecessors. There is a lot more running and stunt work than we’ve seen before, and, perhaps due to the nature of the story, Bond is much more militarized in GoldenEye. In the opening sequence, and then throughout the film, we see Bond constantly firing automatic weapons and taking out enemy soldiers several at a time. This is the exact opposite of the Bond that Dalton played and much more in line with Roger Moore’s Bond. In fact, the only other time I can think of Bond using a machine gun is in Octopussy when he fires it while riding down a banister. There may be other examples, but I can’t think of any at the moment.

This military Bond does help to create one of the iconic sequences in the series, and that is of Bond driving the Russian tank down the streets of Moscow as he chases General Ourumov. It’s a terrific chase scene with a lot of over the top action. Many of the car chases throughout the James Bond series are iconic or revolutionary in some way, but this chase took it to a whole new level, and it’s one of the aspects in this film that helped usher the series into a more modern age.

Story-wise, this film is decent but not great. This is the first Bond film to not take any of it’s material from any of Ian Flemming’s novels, and it doesn’t have as strong of a Hero’s Journey as the truly great films in the series do, but it’s an engaging story, as Bond attempts to find out who stole the Russian weapon GoldenEye, and what they plan on doing with it. The story cleverly uses the fall of the Soviet Union to serve as a backbone to the premise of a rogue Russian general trying to sell state secrets for money. But there are also some strong thematic elements to the story as well that help to add depth to it and make it so engaging. Ultimately, this is a story about loyalty and it’s rewards, as well as how you’ll get your comeuppance if you don’t show it. It’s a powerful theme that not only adds depth to the story, but to the characters as well. In fact, it is an instructive theme to use because everyone in this film, be they major or minor characters, shows varying degrees of loyalty, and they all are rewarded or punished based on that.

One of the things that separates Bond films from other action films are the motifs that have been used over the decades. The cool cars, the gadgets that always save Bond at just the right moment, the sinister villains, the quirky allies, the sexy Bond girls. This film has all of them. There is the exploding pen that saves Bond just before the climax. The watch with the laser that allows him to escape the train as it’s about to blow up, and the ever stylish Aston Maritn has been replaced by the product placement of a BMW, but it still serves the same purpose. His quirky ally in this film is CIA agent Jack Wade, played by Joe Don Baker, who you might remember played the villain Brad Whitaker in The Living Daylights eight years earlier. He is a much more fun-loving character this time, and is a good counter balance to the serious way in which Brosnan played Bond.

There are three villains in this film that Bond has to deal with. General Ourumov and his sidekick Xenia Onatopp seem to be the main players for the body of the film. Onatopp is a sadistic killer who brings herself to orgasm with every hike in the body count. Ourumov is an alcoholic man passed his prime, but looking to get the big score that has always eluded him. But the brains behind the organization is former agent 006, Alec Travelyan. We meet him with Bond in the opening prologue, and he appears to be killed by Ourumov. However, we learn that his loyalties lie somewhere other than the Queen, and he steals GoldenEye in order to destroy London with an electromagnetic pulse that will also freeze the world’s financial markets and cause world wide chaos. In fact, when Bond gets to his lair in Cuba, we’re almost taken through a time warp to the 60’s. Alec’s lair is under a lake where they control the satellite that will do the damage. There’s an army of armed guards, and when I first saw it during this viewing, part of me was waiting for Blofeld to appear with his cat. Again, this is a motif that only Bond can pull off consistently, and this version was given a contemporary look, but it was classic Bond through and through.

GoldenEye has a Bond girl in Nitalya Siminova who probably has one of the best character arcs of any Bond girl. She starts out the film as a shy and meek computer programmer, but grows in to a woman who can not only take care of herself, but ends the film as Bond’s equal, holding a helicopter pilot at gunpoint in order to make him rescue Bond from the collapsing satellite antenna. She might not be the best or most memorable Bond girl in the pantheon, but she does displays the most growth and feels like perhaps the most realistic Bond girl in the series.

There is one more point I want to make about GoldenEye and that is that it is of its time. The mid-90’s were perhaps the high point of the politically correct era, and this film reflected some of those attitudes. Whether it’s Moneypenny playfully threatening Bond with a sexual harassment charge or M (now played by Judi Dench for the first of 7 times) telling Bond, “I think your a sexist, misogynist dinosaur.” We are clearly in a new era of how Bond deals with and relates to women and sexual politics. He only sleeps with Natalya, and even then only after they’ve been through a lot together in a more traditionally cinematic  relationship. The times are changing, and Bond is changing with them.

Overall, GoldenEye is a strong debut for Pierce Brosnan, and that debut raised hope in audiences and critics that the franchise was headed for new heights. They would be, for the most part, disappointed.

Licence To Kill to me represents a missed opportunity for the Bond franchise. It’s not a bad film. I would rate it somewhere in the middle of the pack, but after going darker and edgier in The Living Daylights, they regressed somewhat more to the silly and absurd in Licence To Kill. The film starts out in a very promising way with Bond and longtime CIA partner Felix Leiter working together to arrest the notorious drug smuggler Franz Sanchez (played with ruthless guile by Robert Davi). Sanchez is set up to be the stereotypical sadistic drug lord, brutally killing his enemies in terrifying ways.

Unfortunately what follows is a laundry list of things that are so implausible, they take the audience out of what should have been an outstanding film.

-After capturing Felix Leiter, Sanchez lowers him into a shark tank, where he is attacked by the shark. Not only does he very improbably survive, but they take his body back to his home, where he is discovered hours later by Bond, still alive and moaning.

-During the climactic chase scene, Bond gets the big rig to go up on its side wheels to avoid getting hit by a missile fired from a hand held rocket launcher. As if that weren’t enough, the big rig later pops a wheelie in order to get through some flaming wreckage.

Those are the most egregiously implausible moments, but there are others spattered throughout the film. While watching this film, it actually felt like we were moving back into the Roger Moore days of the series. I believe that’s very unfortunate because underneath all of that absurdity is a film that is dark and edgy and sinister. I’m sure that the filmmakers felt the need to add all of the silliness in order to keep the film from getting too heavy, but they over reached.

Timothy Dalton brought his brooding style back, and the premise of the film also turns him vengeful. He wants revenge for what happened to Felix, and for the murder (and implied rape) of Felix’s wife, and Bond’s obsession with this revenge interferes with other agencies’ attempts to get to Sanchez. Dalton’s portrayal of Bond is again top notch, and he continually straddles the line between heroism and villainy. It’s actually in interesting look at the human psyche and how good people can do bad things when they’re pushed beyond their limits. We see bond genuinely happy for his friend and his friend’s wife. Then when that happiness is ripped away by an evil man, Bond fights that evil with more evil of his own. He becomes as ruthless as Sanchez in order to bring him down, but the filmmakers missed yet another opportunity by not keeping the audience guessing as to whether Bond would permanently go to the other side. In fact, when Q shows up to help him, we know that, even though he’s technically a rogue agent now, he’ll end up back in Her Majesty’s good graces at the end. That should have been a constant question throughout the film that would have kept the audience guessing.

As mentioned above, Licence To Kill has a terrifically ruthless villain in Sanchez. Robert Davi is very good in this film with an under played and subtle sadism that is ruthless and maniacal. What’s even better is that Benicio Del Toro plays his psychotic henchman Dario, who serves as a great adversary to Bond and threatens to and ultimately reveals Bond to Sanchez. I think Sanchez is an under rated villain in the Bond pantheon and his character really helps keep this film afloat.

There are 2 Bond girls in this picture. The first one we meet is Lupe Lamora, Sanchez’ girlfriend, who ultimately falls for bond. She’s definitely a damsel in distress, but she provides Bond with valuable information and assistance as he’s trying to infiltrate Sanchez’ cartel, and she serves as a nice foil to the other bond girl, Pam Bouvier. Pam is much more proactive, and her jealousy of Lupe certainly humanizes her. She’s a slightly above average bond girl who has a subtle sexiness that lies just beneath a hardened military exterior. Bond tries to protect her, but she constantly reminds Bond that she needs no such caring from him, and she becomes his equal over the course of the movie.

    

Overall Licence To Kill is a mixed bag. It should have been one of the darker Bond films, and had that been the case, it probably would have been much more successful at the box office as well as with critics. But as it is, it serves as a cautionary tale for writers and filmmakers. Make sure that your story has a strong spine, and don’t try to be all things to all people. Just make a good film and the audience will find you. However, if you consciously try to make a film that pleases everyone, you will make a film that pleases no one.

I remember when I was a teenager and Timothy Dalton replaced Roger Moore as James Bond. I think I must have viewed it at the time with the same consternation that original Bond fans viewed Moore replacing Sean Connery 15 years earlier. I grew up with Moore as Bond. The Spy Who Loved Me and For Your Eyes Only were THE seminal Bond films for me during my formative years, and now the only person I had really known as Bond was being replaced by the guy that I only knew as Prince Barin from the crappy, er campy, 1980 version of Flash Gordon. Yes, I know now that he was Philip II in Lion in Winter with Peter O’Toole and Katherine Hepburn, and that he was Heathcliff in 1970’s Wuthering Heights. Give me a break. I was 16 in 1987. The point is that Dalton was the new guy, and to me at that time he could never live up to the legacy that Moore had created. Timothy Dalton was the guy who followed THE GUY.

Now with the benefit of age, experience and a film degree, I can confidently say that I could not have been more wrong with that assessment. I probably hadn’t watched The Living Daylights in its entirety since seeing it in the theater 26 years ago, and I remained down on Timothy Dalton as Bond… until last night. Now I wish Dalton had been in more Bond films.

After Roger Moore had spent 15 years trying to squeeze every bit of comedy and light-heartedness out of a professional killer, Timothy Dalton presented us with the true precursor to playing the role in the manner in which Daniel Craig has made so popular. In The Living Daylights Dalton gives us a professional Bond without losing the playboy core. Dalton’s Bond is brooding, intense and deliberate, and he doesn’t kill recklessly or needlessly. There is something simmering inside of Dalton’s Bond that feels like it could explode at any moment. Dalton played the role much more similarly to the way Ian Flemming wrote the character originally in his novels, and similarly to the way Danial Craig plays the role today. I suspect that audiences in the mid-80’s weren’t ready for that drastic a shift from the care-free Moore to the brooding Dalton. It might have worked better in the early 90’s, but pop culture in the late 80’s was not nearly serious enough for a brooding Bond, unlike the pop culture of the 90’s and even more so today.

The case in point of how the new Bond operates is near the beginning of the film where General Koskov is escaping the theater and Kara Milovy aims a rifle at him from a second floor window. Instead of shooting her, Bond shoots the rifle out of her hands. Knowing Bond’s reputation, we think he just can’t kill a pretty girl. However, he states later that he knows she’s not a professional sniper, and as he tells Saunders later in the scene, he only kills professionals. We’re 10 minutes into the film, and we’re already seeing Bond played with a depth that we have not seen to this point in the series.

As for the film itself, I believe that it’s right up there among the very best Bond films. Rotten Tomatoes as it rated as the #10 highest rated Bond film ever, and my humble opinion puts it very close to the top 5. It has a deep story with good dramatic irony, and it’s one of the best acted Bond films as well, with the possible exception of John Terry as Felix Leiter. He was pretty bad. However Jeroen Krabbe was very good as General Koskov, Maryam D’Abo was adequate as Kara Milovy, Joe Don Baker was his usual smarmy self as Brad Whitaker, and John Rhys-Davies made even a Russian likable as General Pushkin.

The story also has a well-structured Hero’s Journey, and it’s deep and rich with intrigue. The dramatic irony that they wrote in to the script keeps you guessing about who Bond can trust and who he can’t. The action sequences are some of the most sophisticated in the series to date. The climactic scene where Bond fights with Necros outside the cargo plane harkens to Octopussy, but feels a lot more intense. Then when Bond and Kara escape the plane crash by riding the jeep out of the back ramp of the plane, Bond seamlessly goes from intense to debonair when he sees the road sign pointing to Karachi, and he tells Kara that he knows a great restaurant there and that they can just make dinner. It’s a great example of Dalton humanizing Bond without crossing the line into the silly or the absurd.

I think what might keep this film from being ranked higher on most Best of Bond lists is that fact that neither General Koskov or Brad Whitaker are particularly memorable villains. Koskov is a charming, yet sadistic manipulator and Whitaker is a brutish war mongerer, but neither of them come close to reaching the iconic status of Goldfinger or Blofeld or Karl Stromberg. In fact, their henchman Necros has much more menace throughout the film. He’s an emotionless assassin who is as ruthless as he is efficient, and he represents a true challenge and a worthy adversary to Bond right up to the climax of the film.

Also, Kara Milovy is an average Bond girl. Certainly not as great as Honey Ryder or Anya Amasova, but no where near as bad as Holly Goodhead or Stacey Sutton, Kara Milovy lands somewhere in the middle of the pack when rating Bond girls. What’s interesting about this film is that Bond is much more monogamous than in previous films. Perhaps it was due to the burgeoning AIDS crisis at the time, but Dalton’s Bond was far less promiscuous than any of his predecessors. Yes, it is implied that he’ll sleep with the heiress after he lands on her yacht during the prologue, but the rest of the film has him feigning affection for Kara as he attempts to get information out of her regarding Koskov, and eventually falling for her. This film may have set the all time record for fewest women that Bond sleeps with at 2. With that in mind. Kara should have become a much deeper character than most of the previous Bond girls in the series and she does to a degree. She also straddles the line between damsel in distress and girl who can take care of herself, but she never fully enters either type. That ultimately is the problem with Kara. The film makers were never able to define what type of Bond girl she was going to be.

All in all, this is a fine film and a worthy edition to the pantheon of Bond films. It’s probably the strongest debut film for any Bond to date, surpassing Connery’s Dr. No, Lazenby’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and Moore’s Live and Let Die. This film has tight action, a well structured story and interesting and entertaining characters. It definitely should be added the list of Bond films to see again if you haven’t seen it for a while.