Canon-Strike X: Bond, James Bond

[Asura]

We watched TND at the weekend, as for some reason I was keen to watch it. I think it's because someone earlier in the thread expressed that the villain was more relevant today? (or if that was me, then someone at my workplace said that)

Pryce really hams it up as the baddy and Brosnan has really settled into the groove as Bond.

Hatcher, erm, no. Just really wooden and a bit useless.

Hatcher is just a non-entity in the movie. She seems to suck the life out of the scenes she's in. Shame, because I don't think she's a poor actress; maybe just bad direction.

But about the villain, Elliot Carver - I always felt his motive wasn't quite there. He wants to influence world events to gain broadcasting rights in China and give supreme media dominance to his media empire, all of that's fine. But the movie doesn't really give you a sense of who he is, or what he wants to do with that power. It isn't about the wealth, because the film makes clear he's unbelievably wealthy already.

I kinda think he has a lot of personality (thanks in part to Pryce's performance) but not a lot of character.

and at Denise Richards efforts to portray a nuclear physicist.

Got us one of the best dad-joke Bond quips though:

Jones: "It's Dr. Jones. Doctor Christmas Jones, if you must know... And don't say anything. I've heard all the jokes."

Bond: "Sorry, I don't know any Doctor jokes."

[Neon Ignition]

Movie 20 - Die Another Day
The twentieth entry releasing on the fortieth anniversary, a feat that shows how much the output in the franchise has slowed since this era. The film contains references to every entry that came before it and marked the final appearance of all the existing cast bar Judi Dench. The film dialled every element up to eleven and in doing so has since received a lot of criticism but at the time was generally well reviewed and was easily the most successful entry in the franchise.







Does the film deserve its reputation or has the Craig era fuelled a harsher view of the film?

[Dogg Thang]

It’s atrocious. Pretty good opening and then descends into awfulness.

[QualityChimp]

TWINE is alright.
Some fun moments. Liked that rope jump.
Thought Begbie was pretty good as someone who feels no pain, so he hates the world.
Nice twist I didn't see coming.
Talking of coming, that final Christmas pun was awful, and that's me, the dad joke king, saying it's bad.

Talking of dad jokes, DAD is a joke.

I liked some bits.
The opening section is very good and the opening credits is the first time they're used to forward the plot as we see Bond being tortured. The theme is actually one of my modern faves, I love the kinda staccato way Madonna sings it.
The anti-Bond was quite a cool idea and the use of the TSWLM Union Flag parachute was clever.
I thought the ice scenes were particularly fun, with the Eden Project becoming an arctic base and the cars doing sweeping drifts on the ice was a great inspiration to one of my fave Stuntman: Ignition levels!
Rosamund Pike is absolutely smoking in the vest top.


For me, though, they overstepped the boundaries of spy thriller and went too far into sci-fi with invisible cars and whatnot.

Also, the over-reliance on CGI took a lot of the tension away.
Yes they've always used tricks in previous films to make the stunts safe but realistic on screen, but they really did twist-jump a car across a river, fly a tiny plane or jump from a roof.
Here we have Brosnan infront of a greenscreen surfing on a tsunami or shaking helicopter controls like early Star Trek in a totally unconvincing manner.

I'd been really looking forward to seeing a new Bond at the cinema, but I walked away really disappointed.

[Dogg Thang]

I don't even remember Pike in it. I remember green screen, a Korean Robocop, the invisible car and my eyes hurting from rolling so much.

[Asura]

The most positive thing to say about Die Another Day is that I loved the premise of the intro, and this doesn't get talked about enough.

The fact Bond gets captured at the end was the focus, but I liked how he got captured. The short version (I haven't seen it in over a decade) is that a soldier takes his photo on a phone, and emails it to someone, who uses their equipment to identify him. The point, here, is that people beat Bond by using everyday tech devices which, at the time of Goldeneye, would've been Bond gadgets, but by the time of Die Another Day, these were normal things that many of us just had in real life.

And it's true; we watched Tomorrow Never Dies at the weekend and it was fun seeing Q beaming that Bond's car would use the Global Positioning System for its navigation - because I remember, at the time, this was very high-tech. The GPS was only used, back then, by the military and merchant sailors, but by the time of this movie it had already become somewhat pedestrian, and today, it's just something we use regularly.

Though I remember being disappointed by the much-talked-about "spy car battle" in the middle of the movie; I think that could've been epic.

[Dogg Thang]

I think one reason we were all so disappointed is exactly because of that opening. Something in it felt very different, very fresh, like we were going down a different path and getting what could be a new take on how to handle a Bond movie. That the movie then swung so hard the other direction, trying to out-goofy the Moore movies was so jarring.

[Neon Ignition]

Ironically the opening was apparently a last minute change away from being set in Manhattan, the set up being altered post 9/11. It's a great opening as well and there are other sequences I like as well like the sword fight and the frozen lake chase. The Tsunami is poorly done, the culmination of the chase in the ice palace feels too much like a set and there are other creaky moments. Though it's effects heavy and much of it has dated I don't mind the fight on the plane at the end either. The film doesn't do enough with the opening premise of Bond being tortured for months and being a reluctant returnee to M, it moves past that too quickly. I don't think it's as bad as it made out though, it's a dopey kind of fun film that is the weakest of the Brosnan era but still contains elements that the subsequent films could have done more of. The invisible car is an interesting part of the film too more because it's so often complained about but I think it largely comes down to the effects and how it fits within this particular film rather than the concept itself which often seems to be the focus despite it being a very real tech.

[wheelaa]

I'm not sure I know the superlatives to describe how woefully pathetic the entire Brosnan Bond era was, remains, and will forever be. The only redeeming note is Goldeneye, but that is in spite of Brosnan, not because of.

Sometimes there can be no justifcation. Sometimes you just have to accept there is no debate. Sometimes, this time, dog**** = dog**** and there is nothing more to say.

[Neon Ignition]

Movie 21 - Casino Royale
Aimed from the outset to address concerns that Die Another Day had scaled the action too fantastical, this new entry took a cold hard look at the success of contemporaries like Bourne and dragged Bond back to its very basics. We almost entered an era with Henry Cavill as Bond but with the future Superman being just 22 years old at the time, EON decided to veer to safer territory and cast their other top two pick, Daniel Craig. A stand alone reboot for the character, later latched into by multiple entries to create a bigger arc, the tale of Bond's first 00 mission and his defining relationship with Vesper became the new most successful entry in the series.







Where does Casino Royale stand in the lineage of Bond and does it prove the Bond franchise needs canon resets?

[teddymeow]

It's very possible that CR is my favourite Bond film.

Craig is just a phenomenal screen presence! The pre-credits scene in B&W, the opening credits with that song by Chris Cornell, Eva Green (), Mads Mikkelsen (), Jeffry Wright, the Aston Martin DBS V12 (), the visceral fight scenes (only a 12?!).

Yeah, it's my favourite.

[teddymeow]

It's very possible that CR is my favourite Bond film.

Craig is just a phenomenal screen presence! The pre-credits scene in B&W, the opening credits with that song by Chris Cornell, Eva Green (), Mads Mikkelsen (), Jeffry Wright, the Aston Martin DBS V12 (), the visceral fight scenes (only a 12?!).

Yeah, it's my favourite.

[QualityChimp]

Yeah, what Teddy said.

Right from the start, James is a badass.
He offs the traitor without hesitation, juxtaposed with his first kill.
Then he's trailing a bomb maker, but not being amateur, like his finger-in-ear colleague, then he manages to keep up with the parkour bomber.
CD was saying he was scared of heights before Casino Royale, so the crane stunt is one of the stunts he's most proud of.

Theme: Although I dislike the title - he's a bloody spy, nobody should know his name - it's a real belter with the perfect balance of loud and quiet. All the more poignant after Cornell's passing.

I like how Bond doesn't have a massive brawl, he plays poker to defeat the mastermind.
Gadgets, but not a gazillion of them.

Eva Green is properly stunning in this. Just jaw-droppingly gorgeous. All Bond girls are attractive (even Grace Jones has her fans), but Green is something else.

I was saying earlier, there's something to like in every single Bond film, even Quantum of Solace or Die Another Day, but every so often, everything comes together and it's even better than the sum of its parts and Casino Royale, against all odds, is brilliant.

[QualityChimp]

Guys, I have to tell you that I love Casino Royale even more after going to Secret Cinema.
It's one of the most memorable things I've done.

As a grown-up, it's so rare that you get a surprise, so my friend and I had no idea what to expect and we were genuinely nervous-excited. We were sent information via a brilliant Universal Exports website and given a colour code to recognise our fellow agents. I was blue, so got some blue framed fake glasses and a blue handkerchief for my suit.

Once you're in there, no two person's evening goes the same.
I'll spoiler the next bit as, if they ever do it again, I'd do it in a heartbeat and urge others to go too.

->Open Spoiler<-

My friend ended up doing an exclusive mission with "Vesper" doing double-agent stuff and I went to "Madagascar" to find a contact watching the pit fighting (people not snakes!).
However, there were lots of other locations like a Russian trains station, bar in Venice, airport terminal and London underground with a secret entrance to Q's base (with an Aston Martin in it!).


You end up doing various missions and tailing their cases until it's revealed that they've gone to Casino Royale.


You go into the venue and there's a band playing on one side, a massive red curtain on the other and in the middle is the poker table from the film.

There's a massive shootout and someone tries to escape via helicopter:


Then the curtains raise, revealing seats and a giant screen swings down and begins a countdown whilst everyone gets to a seat, the countdown stops at 007 and then Casino Royale starts, but the whole thing is enhanced by actors.

In the opening parkour chase, they have multiple actors dressed like the bomber, flipping, running, climbing and jumping.
When Bond enters the embassy, loads of guards appear in the aisles and when it explodes, there are massive pyros!


When Bond drives his newly-won Aston Martin around the block, a real Aston Martin drives around!
When Vesper is huddled in the shower, the actress is in a stream of water all the way from the ceiling.
In the poker scenes, look-a-like actors are saying the lines at the same time as the screen around a raised poker scene.

I got real shivers watching Casino Royale again last week when the theme started as it was sad to hear Cornell's voice again, but I also had flashbacks to this amazing night.

I did Stranger Things a few months later and that was brilliant too.
Sadly, the next ones (if they happen) will be Dirty Dancing and Bridgerton, but Secret Cinema is so good, I was genuinely toying with doing the Dirty Dancing one!

https://www.instagram.com/p/CUdFVqkrHSr/

[Neon Ignition]

Royale is a great film, it grounds Bond but hits the right notes and its pacing is absolutely on point. Green absolutely dominates her role too given she was just 23 when she went toe to toe with Bond and not for one second does she feel ill at odds with him. It's an excellent showcase and a great stage setter for an opening refreshed world that the sequels failed to learn the right lessons from.