Never Say Never Again (1983)

An “unofficial” James Bond film in that Eon were not involved. Sean Connery, however, was. He reprises the 007 role in a remake of Thunderball. It’s quite interesting to see that 1965 film recreated with a fair few differences. 

Edward Fox plays the irate M. Pamela Salem makes for a rather bland Miss Moneypenny. Rowan Atkinson plays a comedic Foreign Office representative named Nigel Small-Fawcett. Kim Basinger is Domino and Barbara Carrera plays SPECTRE agent Fatima Blush. Max von Sydow is underused as Ernst Stavro Blofeld, with the real villain being Klaus Maria Brandauer as Maximillian Largo. Irvin Kershner directs.

There are some enjoyable action sequences, including a motorcycle chase and a tokenistic jet-pack interlude, but the ending peters out somewhat. The bomb doesn’t even have a countdown display, so that removes any tension. 

It looks lower-budget than the official Bonds of this period. But if you like the sillier aspects of 007, there’s plenty to enjoy.

No Time to Die (2021)

Famously much-delayed by the Coronavirus pandemic, the 25th James Bond film finally hit cinemas in September 2021 – five years after work on it first began. There was a lot of additional baggage because we knew in advance that it would be the final episode starring Daniel Craig. With plenty of threads to tie up, there was a lot it had to achieve to be a truly satisfying finale. Unfortunately, despite plenty of striking moments, it doesn’t quite deliver. 

On the downside there’s a somewhat muddled plot that lacks the graceful coherence of the storylines in Skyfall and Spectre. Some of the gimmicks are tired, too: a secret base on a remote island really wasn’t very original. And while it’s nice to see the familiar gang back together – with welcome returns for Jeffrey Wright (as Felix), Ralph Fiennes (M), Ben Whishaw (Q) and Rory Kinnear (Tanner), all of whom suddenly look a lot older – it’s odd that the roles of Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) and Blofeld (Christoph Waltz) seem to have been minimised. Other limitations include a silly Russian scientist played by David Dencik and a hammy main villain played by Rami Malek. The latter was unconvincing as Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody and is just as unconvincing here – especially when delivering his ponderous speeches. The whole film seems a little underwritten, and even a rival “00” agent (Lashana Lynch as Nomi) doesn’t quite come to life as a character. 

On the plus side, the action sequences are vivid and exciting, and Hans Zimmer’s musical score maximises the drama. Daniel Craig has a magnetic charm, if a little less sparkle than usual. And Léa Seydoux is fully believable as Bond’s on/off lover Madeleine Swann. The introduction of a child character (Madeleine’s daughter) also adds a new dimension to the series. The most entertaining section features an evening-gowned Cuban agent named Paloma (Ana de Armas), who briefly assists Bond with martial-arts kicks and a cheery energy that’s otherwise lacking in a rather dour 163 minutes. 

The shock ending – really not what I expected – raises some big questions about the future of the franchise. I wish the film hadn’t concluded the way it does, but we are assured that somehow or other James Bond will return.

Moonraker (1979)

The usual plot: a bad man wants to take over the world, and James Bond – aided by weapons, gadgets and beautiful women – has to stop him. The “twist” this time is that some of the action takes place in space. 

It’s difficult to believe Roger Moore can be running around on a space shuttle and in a space station, but that’s exactly what we see.

The pros:

• There are some genuinely funny moments.

• Roger Moore is as charming as he ever was.

• Lois Chiles is appealing as space scientist as Holly Goodhead.

• The special effects are fairly good – especially when you see the shuttles taking off.

• The Shirley Bassey theme is one of the better Bond songs.

• M (Bernard Lee) and Q (Desmond Llewelyn) are reassuringly excellent.

• Jaws (Richard Kiel) is terrifying when he poses in costume at the Rio de Janeiro carnival.

The cons:

• It’s plain silly when Jaws gets a girlfriend (Blanche Ravalec as Dolly), falls in love at first sight and instantly changes personality.

• The moment when the film briefly becomes a western (Bond wearing a poncho and riding a horse to silly music) seems misjudged.

• It’s not clear why any of this needs to have taken place in space. Surely the billionaire villain Drax (Michael Lonsdale) could have just protected his “master race” specimens in some kind of bunker and poisoned Earth from ground level. It suggests that the success of Star Wars (1977) meant they just wanted to make a film with sci-fi elements, no matter how far-fetched.

A View to a Kill (1985)

Roger Moore plays James Bond for the seventh and final time. He looks too old for the role (Q and Moneypenny aren’t getting any younger, either), but despite that it’s a better film than I recalled.

Christopher Walken plays Max Zorin, a demented tycoon who plots to flood and destroy Silicon Valley in order to control the world market in microchips. Grace Jones is his right-hand woman. Unfortunately, she is given almost no dialogue and so spends most of the film merely looking fashionable and angry.

There is a genuinely tense and dramatic finale at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, involving Bond dangling by a rope from an airship, which is not for vertigo sufferers. There’s also a surprisingly brutal scene in which Zorin sprays miners with machine-gun fire while laughing his head off.

Tanya Roberts plays a slightly weedy geologist called Stacey. And Patrick Macnee plays a horse trainer named Sir Godfrey Tibbett.

There are plenty of ridiculous moments, as you’d expect. The most absurd is a motorised iceberg that Bond uses as a boudoir in Siberia. Or maybe it’s when Bond quickly cooks a quiche.

I’m a little saddened that I have now seen all of the films, but at least there’s the forthcoming (much delayed) No Time to Die to look forward to.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)

After five films of Sean Connery as James Bond, George Lazenby steps in as 007 – smugly confident but not especially sparkly – for one time only.

The story gets off to a slow start with a fair bit of pottering around before the action kicks off. What is great in this film, however, is the girl Bond ends up falling for and even marrying. Unlike most of the females cast in these films, Diana Rigg is given a properly written role and a developed personality.

There are ludicrous moments, as always. The most absurd of these must be Bond walking around Blofeld’s secret base wearing a kilt and carrying a book on heraldry.

Telly Savalas is excellent as the villain: creepy but also oddly likeable. He brainwashes a bunch of young women wearing psychedelic clothes. And the action scenes – ski chase with machine guns, bobsleigh  chase, car chase in stock car race track – are exciting.

The tragic ending is so un-Bond-like that it seemed genuinely shocking.

Octopussy (1983)

“That’ll keep you in curry for a few weeks, won't it?” James Bond tells an Indian man, after handing him some money. This creaking Roger Moore film shows Bond badly in need of a re-think. As well as the usual racism and sexism, it’s largely played as a comic caper. Bond impersonates Tarzan at one point and dresses up as a circus clown for the dramatic bomb-defusing climax. Not only that, but in the countdown to detonation he wastes vital minutes applying the face paint. But even the “serious” parts are ludicrous. Bond drives a horse box with a fake “back end of a horse” that springs up to allow a small jet plane to unfold. He gets involved in an egg-related scam, with too much attention given to rare Faberge antiques. He travels across water in a fake plastic crocodile. He flies with Q into a hilltop palace using a Union Jack hot-air balloon. He dresses up in an ape costume. And so on.

On the plus side, Maude Adams is strong in the title role even if it’s unclear how much of a villain she really is. On the down side, Louis Jourdan is merely passable as an exiled Afghan prince and Steven Berkoff is utterly appalling as the cartoonish Soviet general Orlov.

You might hope this was it for Roger Moore as Bond, but he survived for one further film (A View to a Kill) – despite looking a little too old and weary for the role.

Skyfall (2012)

The third Daniel Craig Bond film is not only his best, but also the best Bond film overall. Directed by Sam Mendes, it’s pretty much perfect. The witty and dry dialogue is so much stronger than in previous episodes. And it’s visually stunning. The opening sequence (before the mind-bending titles over the Adele song) is a stunning piece of extended action in Istanbul involving a car chase through a crowded market, a shoot-out, a motorbike chase over rooftops, an absurd episode involving an excavator, a fight on the roof of a moving train, and, most dramatically, Bond being shot “dead”.

I’ve heard fans say that this film humanises Bond too much, with his family backstory and the “psychological” dimension, but for me that only makes it better. There’s even the first hint of homoeroticism in a Bond film. The villain teases him, only for 007 to counter “What makes you think this is my first time?”

It’s ideally cast, introducing the new Q (Ben Whishaw) and Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) plus the new Chairman of Intelligence (Ralph Fiennes) and an impressively nasty villain called Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem). Rory Kinnear resumes his role as Bill Tanner, getting the part just right. And Judi Dench is wonderful as M. When she starts reading a poem by Tennyson as Bond runs through the London streets to save her (the film is also a British tourism brochure), it’s deeply stirring stuff.

You Only Live Twice (1967)

Fifth time around for Sean Connery as James Bond.

Pros:

• The definitive Bond villain base, disguised within a volcano and featuring its own railway system and a lethal piraña pool.
• An exciting scene in which Bond pilots the autogyro “Little Nellie” and is attacked by four helicopters.
• Donald Pleasence is creepily convincing as Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the head of SPECTRE.

Cons:

• Plenty of racial stereotyping that culminates in a ludicrous scene in which Bond is made to be “Japanese”.
• Bond: “Why do Chinese girls taste different from all other girls?...Like Peking duck is different from Russian caviar. But I love them both.”
• A slightly tired feel. The Bond formula is well established already by this point and was possibly becoming a bit of a straitjacket.

For Your Eyes Only (1981)

There are a few unusual things about this James Bond film. For a start you see the performer of the song in the title sequence – in this case Sheena Easton. Secondly, the film ends with Margaret and Dennis Thatcher taking a phone call from a parrot they believe to be James Bond. Impersonators Janet Brown and John Wells play the pair, and it’s a genuinely funny scene, but it’s certainly not what you expect from a film in this series.

For Your Eyes Only is slightly grittier than the daft Moonraker, and it’s one of the more watchable Roger Moore films.

Topol is easy to like as the nut-guzzling Milos Columbo, while Carole Bouquet is fairly good as Melina Havelock. Julian Glover is the unspectacular villain Aristotle Kristatos. The subplot about Bibi Dahl (Lynn-Holly Johnson), the young ice skater, is somewhat baffling and could have been cut entirely.

The skiing and rock-climbing sequences are fairly exciting, as is the underwater battle in a sunken ship filled with corpses. Also good to see Bond and his girlfriend pottering about in a submersible.

As if all that wasn’t enough, some of the action scenes are accompanied by funky music.

Diamonds Are Forever (1971)

Sean Connery’s sixth and final James Bond film (not including 1983’s unofficial Never Say Never Again) is one of the weirdest in the series. The tone is completely different – an uneasy blend of comedy and drama that often falls flat.

On the plus side, Charles Gray is excellent as the icy, ruthless Blofeld. And there’s a dramatic Las Vegas car chase that features the classic “car on its side down an alleyway” sequence. I liked the plot element about a cassette of marching tunes that needs to be switched with a lookalike cassette containing the control codes for a satellite threatening to obliterate cities from space.

On the downside, the daft henchmen Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd are neither funny nor sinister and their scenes invariably jar with the rest of the film. And Jill St. John isn’t especially appealing as Tiffany Case.

The second half is stronger (from about the time Bond steals a moon buggy), but it’s unusually low on thrills. Even Bond almost being cremated alive doesn’t quite work because of the way the scene is edited.

I expect I will be singing the Shirley Bassey theme tune to myself for at least a week.

Thunderball (1965)

Sean Connery is James Bond for the fourth time.

SPECTRE steal a military jet and hide it underwater, then retrieve its two nuclear missiles and threaten to blow up Miami.

There are daft things in this film, but it’s still gripping. On the ludicrous front, there’s the fact that Bond is booked into the same health farm as a SPECTRE agent. It’s never explained, so you have to assume it’s just an astonishing coincidence. Then there’s the scene in which Bond escapes with a jet pack, conveniently stashed on a roof. Why did he use it on this one occasion but never before and never after?

I liked Domino (Claudine Auger) and the villain Largo (Adolfo Celi), and the acting was generally above-par.

The lengthy underwater fight scene was surprisingly brutal.

As usual, Bond’s asides when killing people are those of a psychopath.

(In 1983, Connery starred in a remake of Thunderball titled Never Say Never Again. This isn't considered an official part of the franchise.)

Dr. No (1962)

First James Bond film. All of the tropes are established:
• “Bond. James Bond.”
• Flirting with Miss Moneypenny
• “Shaken not stirred.”
• Women throwing themselves at him
• Car chases
• Exotic locations
• Mindless henchmen
• Odd, disfigured villain dwelling in lavish base

But there’s also an appealingly low-key quality. No helicopter explosions or dazzling special effects here. And the first half works well as a sort of detective story: an MI6 agent is killed and Sean Connery has to find out why.

The film gets stranger from the moment Ursula Andress emerges from the sea to collect shells. Suddenly it turns into more of an adventure story.

Parts of it are unintentionally comic – see the “dragon” (a tank with a blowtorch) and the nuclear decontamination showers – but overall it’s lively and entertaining enough to keep you hooked.

Goldfinger (1964)

Third James Bond film. Lots to enjoy this time around, not least a strong storyline with a clear narrative arc. The Aston Martin DB5 is iconic and looks stunning on those winding mountain roads. Shirley Eaton’s death by gold paint remains memorable. There are convincing villains in the form of the hat-throwing OddJob (Harold Sakata) and the blandly evil Goldfinger (Gert Fröbe). There’s an amusingly extended golfing scene that seems more about macho one-upmanship than anything else. There’s the absurdly named Pussy Galore (Honor Blackman) leading a daft flying circus of glamorous girls who drop poison gas from tiny planes above Fort Knox.

This line from Sean Connery stood out as jarring and extraordinary: “My dear girl, there are some things that just aren't done, such as drinking Dom Perignon ’53 above the temperature of 38 degrees Fahrenheit. That's just as bad as listening to The Beatles without earmuffs!” Clearly Bond was pitched at the parents, and not at the kids. He was still part of the old order.

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

Roger Moore’s third Bond film is probably his best.

Pros:
• A different kind of story arc. It seems to turn into a war film about two thirds of the way through.
• The Bond girl has a better-written role than usual. Unfortunately, Barbara Bach (later to marry Ringo Starr) doesn’t act that role very convincingly.
• Jaws is the most compelling henchman of them all and I like the fact that he survives, even if they ruined the character by turning this brutal killer into a soppy fool when he returned in Moonraker.
• In places, it’s like a horror film and there are a couple of genuinely frightening surprises.
• Iconic scene in which Bond skis off a cliff and opens a Union Jack parachute.
• Bond’s underwater car.
• Theme song “Nobody Does It Better” sung by Carly Simon.

Cons:
• Roger Moore is still ridiculous.
• The villain (Curd Jürgens playing Karl Stromberg) is killed rather too easily by Bond shooting him. I was expecting him to be sent down the shaft in his sci-fi sub-aquatic base to the shark tank so that he would suffer the same fate as his victims. Instead, Jaws gets that treatment so that they can have a Jaws vs. Jaws battle, which – brilliantly – henchman Jaws wins.
• The usual racism and sexism.
• Bond’s evident knowledge of marine creatures is never explained. Is he just an expert at everything?

Live and Let Die (1973)

The first Roger Moore film in the James Bond series is a slick effort. Roger tends to act with his eyebrows, and there’s a strange awkwardness about his manner. It’s as if he’s never quite right for whatever each scene demands.

The plot is easier to follow than usual and the baddie, drug lord Mr. Big (Yaphet Kotto), is one of the better villains. Jane Seymour is pretty but fairly weak as the Tarot-reading Solitaire. Oddly enough, it’s suggested that she actually can read Tarot cards – a hint of the supernatural (presumably a first in the Bond universe) that is backed up by the inclusion of a witch doctor and magical rituals elsewhere.

The speedboat chase is fun and the crocodiles-as-stepping-stones moment is a classic. The presence of Sheriff J.W. Pepper is an unfortunate blemish. He’s a “comedy character” who just isn’t funny. But he was apparently so popular that they brought him back again for The Man with the Golden Gun.

The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

Ninth Bond film and the second with Roger Moore, who, throughout the film, wears suits that are too big for him. Bond pursues the “Solex Agitator” device (tied into an interesting plot about the 1973 oil crisis) and arch-villain Scaramanga (Christopher Lee). It’s as racist and sexist as you’d expect from the vintage. That aside, what are the pros and cons of the film?

Pluses:
• M and Q’s base hidden in a wrecked ship in Hong Kong has brilliantly skewed angles with their own dream logic – superb set design.
• Christopher Lee is charming and convincing compared to most Bond villains. He could be the best of all. He certainly out-acts Roger Moore.
• The horror-funhouse in which Scaramanga traps his victims is imaginative and thrilling.
• This dialogue...
Bond: “But where is it collected from? You need the sun.”
Scaramanga: “Watch that mushroom-shaped rock. lngenious, isn't it?”

Minuses: 
• Britt Ekland is terribly weak as “Goodnight”, but the character is so underwritten that she isn’t given much to work with.
• The name “Goodnight” seems to exist only to enable a feeble pun at the very end of the film that isn’t worth the wait.
• Bond hits a woman again (see also From Russia with Love).
• Awful theme tune by Lulu: a breathless dash of a song.
• In one scene, Nick Nack throws countless wine bottles at Bond but no wine spills anywhere. Then Britt Ekland manages to clean up hundreds of shards of glass within minutes.
• The comedy character Sheriff J.W. Pepper returns from Live and Let Die and hasn’t got any funnier.
• A brilliant stunt in which a car corkscrews across a river is ruined by the pointless addition of a “whoopsie” sound effect. What were they playing at?!

Spectre (2015)

The opening sequence in Mexico City is one of the most exciting and visually striking you will ever see, with a glorious long, uninterrupted take without edits that shows James Bond prowling among the masked people in the Day of the Dead parade, entering a hotel lobby with his girlfriend, taking the lift to another floor, entering his room, leaving the room (and the girl) and walking along the top edge of the building to assassinate a terrorist. This flows into a scene with collapsing buildings and a dizzying helicopter fight. And all this before the titles sequence.

As in Skyfall, which this is nearly the equal of, there’s dry humour and the character has been refined to a perfect crystalisation of what Bond is about. Daniel Craig – in his fourth appearance in the role – absolutely nails it.

It’s visually stunning and the pacing is expertly handled. The villain (Christoph Waltz as Blofeld) is convincingly creepy and the Bond girl (Léa Seydoux as Dr. Madeleine Swann) is refreshingly unimpressed by 007 – for a while, anyway, until she inevitably falls for him.

Aside from Bond’s invincibility, the only thing that doesn’t ring true is the big meeting of SPECTRE agents. Would such a top-secret organisation really put all of its members in one room?

Really looking forward to the follow-up.

From Russia with Love (1963)

In the second James Bond film, Sean Connery is reasonably credible if you can accept his character’s psychopathic tendency to make wisecracks when his victims die.

The plot is typically incoherent. For example, the role of the Russian girl (played by Daniela Bianchi) turns out to be completely pointless as she never does any of the work SPECTRE hired her for. It’s rather shocking to see Bond hitting her, but then he was never supposed to be a nice guy.

There’s an utterly ludicrous scene set in a gypsy encampment: Bond gets to see two scantily clad women grappling with each other in a “fight to the death” before saving them and earning them both as his “reward”.

There are engaging moments: for example, the parts on the Orient Express have a certain tension. And Blofeld – face unseen, hands stroking his white cat – has an undeniably iconic quality.

But is it a good film? Not really.

Licence to Kill (1989)

The second and final Timothy Dalton Bond film is surprisingly good – almost a proper thriller. Unusually, the plot has an arc that you can actually follow: Bond chases a drug baron, Sanchez, who injured his CIA pal Felix Leiter (David Hedison) and murdered Felix's wife. Bond has his licence revoked, but – seeking revenge – goes rogue with the sexy CIA agent Pam Bouvier (Carey Lowell). In fact, Bouvier could be the strongest female lead in a Bond film since Diana Rigg in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) – a three-dimensional character for a change. Only the extended presence of the ancient Desmond Llewelyn as Q in “field operative” mode tips this over into ludicrous territory, although Llewelyn is always enjoyable to watch.

Timothy Dalton seemed unloved as Bond, but he has a certain charm that makes him watchable. And unlike Pierce Brosnan, who acts with his hair, he actually gets his lines out in a convincing manner.

The Living Daylights (1987)

Initially, I thought that the first film with Timothy Dalton as James Bond was perhaps even more ridiculous than the others in the series. There are exploding milk bottles, a man who looks like David Bowie who murders people with his Walkman and a chase down a snow-covered mountain in a cello case. But then I realised that they are all this ridiculous. 

Dalton – an unpopular Bond – is actually fairly strong in the part, even if his throwaway comments after killing people continue to reinforce the notion that 007 must be a psychopath. There’s only one Bond girl, as this was the era of AIDS consciousness, and Maryam d'Abo is weak in the role. Jeroen Krabbé is OK-ish as a troublesome Soviet general, although the same actor was more convincing when he played the villain in The Fugitive. Joe Don Baker is too "pantomime" as American military enthusiast Brad Whitaker.

Overall there’s a slightly low-budget feel about it, but that actually gives it a more appealing back-to-basics quality (it’s not all exotic locations and super-yachts). But the plot – regarding the KGB, arms dealers, drug dealers and the Mujahideen – is too convoluted and I’m still not sure it entirely made sense.