Except he went right into action after she was shot, basically taking down everyone easily.
Right. Something that we all know Bond is capable of doing.
They just needed him to be less "meh" about the whole thing, try to do soemthing other than the nothing he did, and then not have him soundly beat that many people just a few moments later. It made the scene that much worse... but the way he was just so "I don't care" about the whole thing, added with watching the sniper assassinate someone that, for all we know, was innocent is just not Bond to me.
Top Ten Bond - 10:Goldfinger 9:Thunderball 8:The Spy who Loved Me 7:For Your Eyes Only 6: Casino Royale 5:The Man with the Golden Gun 4:Quantum of Solace 3:Licence to Kill 2:Goldeneye 1:The Living Daylights
I felt Casino Royale droops a fair bit after Le Chiffre gets shot in the noggin, then picks up a fair bit with Vesper's demise, then droops again before Mr. Bond confronts Mr. White (a kind of min-version of the RotK's drawn out multiple endings).
The stealthboat section of TND somehow feels somehow more unnecessarily drawn out than the slightly better final confrontations in GE and SF.
I start falling asleep when we have the ski chase in TWINE and Die Another Day falls off a cliff as soon as Bond escapes from Royal Navy custody.
As sorely missed as the tragically killed Aki is, I really like the volcano base infiltration and battle in YOLT.
'Alright guard, begin the unnecessarily slow moving dipping mechanism...'
Dr. No
1st half - 9/10 (iconic introduction. clean. perfect.)
2nd half - 9/10 (great villain and meltdown)
From Russia With Love
1st half - 6/10 (slow but builds context)
2nd half - 9/10 (riveting throughout)
Goldfinger
1st half - 8/10 (one solid scene to the next)
2nd half - 9/10 (bond gets really crafty in captivity)
Thunderball
1st half - 8/10 (full of classic moments, sharks, camp and cool villains)
2nd half - 6/10 (bloated and predictable)
You Only Live Twice
1st half - 8/10
2nd half - 8/10 (great movie all around)
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
1st half - 7/10 (kinda slow but still solid intro for Lazenby)
2nd half - 9/10 (excellent chases, climax and finale)
Diamonds Are Forever
1st half - 6/10 (okay, this is kind of interesting)
2nd half - 4/10 (things get stupider)
Live and Let Die
1st half - 7/10 (starts kinda ordinary but builds up)
2nd half - 8/10 (things get quite interesting and fun)
The Man with the Golden Gun
1st half - 7/10 (starts out as a pretty interesting plot)
2nd half - 4/10 (turns into a total joke)
The Spy Who Loved Me
1st half - 6/10 (slow but has its moments)
2nd half - 7/10 (like the first half but better moments)
Moonraker
1st half - 5/10 (pretty perfunctory)
2nd half - 7/10 (now things are interesting)
For Your Eyes Only
1st half - 6/10 (feels kinda typical)
2nd half - 7/10 (i like the mountain climbing climax)
A View to a Kill
1st half - 5/10 (zzz...)
2nd half - 7/10 (things get grandiose and intense)
The Living Daylights
1st half - 7/10 (could have used cleaning up but still good)
2nd half - 9/10 (good story and strong set pieces dominate)
License to Kill
1st half - 7/10 (kind of like generic miami vice but still good)
2nd half - 9/10 (everythings amazing once pam bouvier and sanchez come in)
Goldeneye
1st half - 6/10 (formula. good, but could have used some cleaning up)
2nd half - 8/10 (strong climax and ending the whole way through)
The World Is Not Enough
1st half - 7/10 (definitely a very different kind of bond film)
2nd half - 6/10 (denise richards and pointless violence)
Die Another Day
1st half - 8/10 (north korea plot, fast pacing, nice action. not bad)
2nd half - 5/10 (too much cgi, plot is weak, gets kinda boring)
Casino Royale
1st half - 9/10 (action-heavy but its amazing action. love the parkour)
2nd half - 10/10 (the drama, romance and other elements truly develop)
Quantum of Solace
1st half - 8/10 (energetic exciting lightning fast film)
2nd half - 8/10 (is pretty much the same way throughout)
Skyfall
1st half - 8/10 (amazing perfect first half hour, middle kind of drags)
2nd half - 8/10 (the chases are thrilling and the third act is memorable)
How old are you? Are you physically in good shape? Because I'd beat you senseless for that!! You pussbuckett, you pisspot, you douschebag!!! Let's go, you dumass! Urinate on my favourite Bond of the 21st Century?? Mano e mano, let's do this! I will crush you, and hear the lamentation of your women!
Did I sound convincingly invested there? I was going for severe. )
Okay, some folks don't like the bridge scene- I get that. But I loved it it totally.
It's not just the bridge scene, it's a lot of things.
The desert lair was gone all too soon
The henchman is absent in the 3rd act
Franz was not developed as a character
Bond's "dark secrets" weren't anything interesting
Bond and Swann's relationship develops very little in the third act
Franz's lair was really easy to destroy
Franz's MI6 trap was easily thwarted
The MI6 trap wasn't an exciting climax
Bringing back Vesper and "Think on your sins" was so corny.
Franz's airplane was easily shot down
Franz is on the ground begging to Bond
Franz was easily stopped
How old are you? Are you physically in good shape? Because I'd beat you senseless for that!! You pussbuckett, you pisspot, you douschebag!!! Let's go, you dumass! Urinate on my favourite Bond of the 21st Century?? Mano e mano, let's do this! I will crush you, and hear the lamentation of your women!
Chill out bro. You've been watching too much Conan the Barbarian.
I agree with almost all of Julius MD's points above, but Spectre still remains one of my favorites.
(although I find most of MD's list of first/second half of each film to be waayyyy off the mark, but I'm certainly not gonna pick a fight with him. ) )
My current 10 favorite:
1. GE 2. MR 3. OP 4. TMWTGG 5. TSWLM 6. TND 7. TWINE 8.DN 9. GF 10. AVTAK
In most cases, I find the second half to be better than the first half. I absolutely love GE from Cuba onwards, and AVTAK really takes off when bond hits the USA.
Movies like Octopussy are great all the way through.
From looking at all the bond movies, there is only one instance for me where the first half is better than the second half. And that is, shock, TSWLM.
My reasons:
I LOVE Egypt as a location, and the Egypt scenes are just so cool.
Stromberg's intro where he kills the girl and the 2 scientists is excellent.
The final climax in Liparus/Atlantis drags way too much for me.
Interestingly enough my lowest ranked films all seem to start well and finish poorly, so for me it's DAD, YOLT, DAF and TND that all kinda suck at the end.
Totally agree about Goldfinger, that film nose dives once Bond goes to Kentucky. I disagree about Skyfall though, I think its one of the few Bond films that keeps building momentum and its second half delivers, it only slightly lags after Silva is captured.
All of the Brosnan Bonds suffer from the better set up and weaker payoff. Purvis and Wade are particuarly bad at this.
Skyfall and Spectre both languish in the second half, but this seems to be more of a Mendes thing, as all his films dribble down to what he thinks is a deeply personal climax but is often instead a predictably small ending. Of the two, Spectre is more interesting because at least it isn't a redux of Straw Dogs. It's no surprise that Mendes likes Live and Let Die so much, as it has the same problem, as does The Man with the Golden Gun.
Both The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill were better in the set up than the payoff.
I'm tempted to put Octopussy and A View to a Kill on the list, but they're both equally weak from start to finish.
Totally agree about Goldfinger, that film nose dives once Bond goes to Kentucky.
This is why the film has dropped significantly in my rankings. Yes it's iconic and sets the tone for a great formula - but when I look at the 2nd half "nose dive" - then rate the first half, while some of it is great (the golf game, the PTS, Auric's factory etc.) there isn't much else going on apart from bad green-screen sets!!
All of the Brosnan Bonds suffer from the better set up and weaker payoff.
I agree with this for all of Brosnan's films except GE. I think the first half is really slow and the second half is very exciting. It has the only decent climax of any of Brosnan's films, and I think the Arecibo Observatory is one of the best locations in any Bond film.
I love the first half of TND and can't stand the second half. I even like Paris more than I like Wai Lin. I think TND has the biggest difference in quality from the first half to the second. I never cared for the first half of DAD, even though it is better than the second half.
Totally agree about Goldfinger, that film nose dives once Bond goes to Kentucky.
This is why the film has dropped significantly in my rankings. Yes it's iconic and sets the tone for a great formula - but when I look at the 2nd half "nose dive" - then rate the first half, while some of it is great (the golf game, the PTS, Auric's factory etc.) there isn't much else going on apart from bad green-screen sets!!
What are the "green screen" sets in the second half?
All of the Brosnan Bonds suffer from the better set up and weaker payoff.
I agree with this for all of Brosnan's films except GE. I think the first half is really slow and the second half is very exciting. It has the only decent climax of any of Brosnan's films, and I think the Arecibo Observatory is one of the best locations in any Bond film.
I love the first half of TND and can't stand the second half. I even like Paris more than I like Wai Lin. I think TND has the biggest difference in quality from the first half to the second. I never cared for the first half of DAD, even though it is better than the second half.
I'm not a huge fan of Goldeneye in the first place, but I thought the Arecibo Observatory was weak. Not only did I recognize it from those kids science magazines in grade school, but it just seemed a let down -- too ordinary. I want a real lair, like the one in You Only Live Twice, not some rusty telescope built with a government grant. The fact that they didn't bother to even provide a set is one of the reasons Goldeneye felt like a cable TV movie to me (and the same can be said of the dam at the beginning).
Though I liked Wai Lin a lot more than Paris, who came across more as a whiny prom date than a savvy billionaire's wife, I agree that TND started out much stronger than it finished. It gets especially tedious after the parking garage sequence.
I'm not sure why modern Bond films struggle so much with the third act. They should be a no-brainer. Maybe it's budget. But they all limp along. The only Bond film of the past 30 years that pulls it off -- to me -- is Casino Royale, which ends on a more personal note, but then, it's a more personal film. People keep mistaking the bit with LeChiffre for the climax of the story, which it is not (nor is it in the novel). But then Casino Royale, like On Her Majesty's Secret Service, is much more of a drama than an action film, so the ending's justified.
Totally agree about Goldfinger, that film nose dives once Bond goes to Kentucky.
This is why the film has dropped significantly in my rankings. Yes it's iconic and sets the tone for a great formula - but when I look at the 2nd half "nose dive" - then rate the first half, while some of it is great (the golf game, the PTS, Auric's factory etc.) there isn't much else going on apart from bad green-screen sets!!
What are the "green screen" sets in the second half?
Talking about the first half. What I'm saying is that to me, the 2nd half is bad, and only certain elements from the 1st half are good. So overall I find the film a bit average.
Totally agree about Goldfinger, that film nose dives once Bond goes to Kentucky.
This is why the film has dropped significantly in my rankings. Yes it's iconic and sets the tone for a great formula - but when I look at the 2nd half "nose dive" - then rate the first half, while some of it is great (the golf game, the PTS, Auric's factory etc.) there isn't much else going on apart from bad green-screen sets!!
What are the "green screen" sets in the second half?
This is why the film has dropped significantly in my rankings. Yes it's iconic and sets the tone for a great formula - but when I look at the 2nd half "nose dive" - then rate the first half, while some of it is great (the golf game, the PTS, Auric's factory etc.) there isn't much else going on apart from bad green-screen sets!!
What are the "green screen" sets in the second half?
Talking about the first half. What I'm saying is that to me, the 2nd half is bad, and only certain elements from the 1st half are good. So overall I find the film a bit average.
GF has never ranked high for me, but for me the second half is what really makes the film IMO. The fort knox raid is so cool, as is the oddjob fight and Goldfinger's meeting explaining his plan to his investors.
What are the "green screen" sets in the second half?
Talking about the first half. What I'm saying is that to me, the 2nd half is bad, and only certain elements from the 1st half are good. So overall I find the film a bit average.
GF has never ranked high for me, but for me the second half is what really makes the film IMO. The fort knox raid is so cool, as is the oddjob fight and Goldfinger's meeting explaining his plan to his investors.
In classic lit critical terms the 'hero' has to succeed by his own efforts which is arguably not the case in GF.
Of that of which we cannot speak we must pass over in silence- Ludwig Wittgenstein.
I'm very surprised how many people hate the Severine scene in SF. It's one of my favorites. Everyone saying Bond should have done something. What exactly? Maybe Silva was bluffing wit the game. Then he shoots. Bond isn't at an advantageous position here. I thought it brought a shock factor and a great scene overall. I also loved the second half.
Now Spectre, great first half. Felt like an old school Bond film. Then we get to this awesome hyped up Spectre lair. Very old nostalgic feel to the whole setting. Even with uniformed henchman and Blofeld. And within minutes Bond breaks out, shoots a few henchman. Kaboom. Lair gone. Felt very rushed and wouldn't have minded a huge lair sequence being the finale.
It was a huge Yes! Turned into a "that was it?" I feel like they brought it back to London just so they could wrap the C and mi6 storyline.
I'm very surprised how many people hate the Severine scene in SF. It's one of my favorites. Everyone saying Bond should have done something. What exactly? Maybe Silva was bluffing wit the game. Then he shoots. Bond isn't at an advantageous position here. I thought it brought a shock factor and a great scene overall. I also loved the second half.
I don't hate it as much as other people do. But then I don't care for the film overall as much as most other people do. I could picture Connery in the same situation, but he'd probably have a slight look of disappointment on his face.
I'm very surprised how many people hate the Severine scene in SF. It's one of my favorites. Everyone saying Bond should have done something. What exactly? Maybe Silva was bluffing wit the game. Then he shoots. Bond isn't at an advantageous position here. I thought it brought a shock factor and a great scene overall. I also loved the second half.
It's lame. There's only a sense of tragedy that she dies, and Bond's flippancy -- mostly Craig's delivery of the line -- robs it of any poignancy. If there seems any, it's only because the audience reads into it.
This is why the film has dropped significantly in my rankings. Yes it's iconic and sets the tone for a great formula - but when I look at the 2nd half "nose dive" - then rate the first half, while some of it is great (the golf game, the PTS, Auric's factory etc.) there isn't much else going on apart from bad green-screen sets!!
What are the "green screen" sets in the second half?
Green screen in the 60's. )
That's what I was thinking, too. Maybe people get caught up in the aesthetics and can't get past them. I know I feel partly that way with the low production values of Goldeneye.
Comments
Right. Something that we all know Bond is capable of doing.
1. GE 2. MR 3. OP 4. TMWTGG 5. TSWLM 6. TND 7. TWINE 8.DN 9. GF 10. AVTAK
They just needed him to be less "meh" about the whole thing, try to do soemthing other than the nothing he did, and then not have him soundly beat that many people just a few moments later. It made the scene that much worse... but the way he was just so "I don't care" about the whole thing, added with watching the sniper assassinate someone that, for all we know, was innocent is just not Bond to me.
The stealthboat section of TND somehow feels somehow more unnecessarily drawn out than the slightly better final confrontations in GE and SF.
I start falling asleep when we have the ski chase in TWINE and Die Another Day falls off a cliff as soon as Bond escapes from Royal Navy custody.
As sorely missed as the tragically killed Aki is, I really like the volcano base infiltration and battle in YOLT.
1st half - 9/10 (iconic introduction. clean. perfect.)
2nd half - 9/10 (great villain and meltdown)
From Russia With Love
1st half - 6/10 (slow but builds context)
2nd half - 9/10 (riveting throughout)
Goldfinger
1st half - 8/10 (one solid scene to the next)
2nd half - 9/10 (bond gets really crafty in captivity)
Thunderball
1st half - 8/10 (full of classic moments, sharks, camp and cool villains)
2nd half - 6/10 (bloated and predictable)
You Only Live Twice
1st half - 8/10
2nd half - 8/10 (great movie all around)
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
1st half - 7/10 (kinda slow but still solid intro for Lazenby)
2nd half - 9/10 (excellent chases, climax and finale)
Diamonds Are Forever
1st half - 6/10 (okay, this is kind of interesting)
2nd half - 4/10 (things get stupider)
Live and Let Die
1st half - 7/10 (starts kinda ordinary but builds up)
2nd half - 8/10 (things get quite interesting and fun)
The Man with the Golden Gun
1st half - 7/10 (starts out as a pretty interesting plot)
2nd half - 4/10 (turns into a total joke)
The Spy Who Loved Me
1st half - 6/10 (slow but has its moments)
2nd half - 7/10 (like the first half but better moments)
Moonraker
1st half - 5/10 (pretty perfunctory)
2nd half - 7/10 (now things are interesting)
For Your Eyes Only
1st half - 6/10 (feels kinda typical)
2nd half - 7/10 (i like the mountain climbing climax)
A View to a Kill
1st half - 5/10 (zzz...)
2nd half - 7/10 (things get grandiose and intense)
The Living Daylights
1st half - 7/10 (could have used cleaning up but still good)
2nd half - 9/10 (good story and strong set pieces dominate)
License to Kill
1st half - 7/10 (kind of like generic miami vice but still good)
2nd half - 9/10 (everythings amazing once pam bouvier and sanchez come in)
Goldeneye
1st half - 6/10 (formula. good, but could have used some cleaning up)
2nd half - 8/10 (strong climax and ending the whole way through)
The World Is Not Enough
1st half - 7/10 (definitely a very different kind of bond film)
2nd half - 6/10 (denise richards and pointless violence)
Die Another Day
1st half - 8/10 (north korea plot, fast pacing, nice action. not bad)
2nd half - 5/10 (too much cgi, plot is weak, gets kinda boring)
Casino Royale
1st half - 9/10 (action-heavy but its amazing action. love the parkour)
2nd half - 10/10 (the drama, romance and other elements truly develop)
Quantum of Solace
1st half - 8/10 (energetic exciting lightning fast film)
2nd half - 8/10 (is pretty much the same way throughout)
Skyfall
1st half - 8/10 (amazing perfect first half hour, middle kind of drags)
2nd half - 8/10 (the chases are thrilling and the third act is memorable)
Spectre
1st half - 8/10 (really entertaining classic Bond)
2nd half - 6/10 (weak climax, story totally falls flat
Did I sound convincingly invested there? I was going for severe.
Okay, some folks don't like the bridge scene- I get that. But I loved it it totally.
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
The desert lair was gone all too soon
The henchman is absent in the 3rd act
Franz was not developed as a character
Bond's "dark secrets" weren't anything interesting
Bond and Swann's relationship develops very little in the third act
Franz's lair was really easy to destroy
Franz's MI6 trap was easily thwarted
The MI6 trap wasn't an exciting climax
Bringing back Vesper and "Think on your sins" was so corny.
Franz's airplane was easily shot down
Franz is on the ground begging to Bond
Franz was easily stopped
Chill out bro. You've been watching too much Conan the Barbarian.
I agree with almost all of Julius MD's points above, but Spectre still remains one of my favorites.
(although I find most of MD's list of first/second half of each film to be waayyyy off the mark, but I'm certainly not gonna pick a fight with him.
1. GE 2. MR 3. OP 4. TMWTGG 5. TSWLM 6. TND 7. TWINE 8.DN 9. GF 10. AVTAK
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
From meteor to finish I would rate it a 5/10.
-Meeting with Blofeld is anti-climatic. He tells a redundant, but unrelated story about visiting Madeline's father.
-Watching security camera footage of a scene from earlier in the film. Pointless and doesn't move the story along.
-Blofeld's author of your pain theory is hard to believe.
-Blofeld being Bond's "brother" is even harder to believe. Drop the digging into Bond's past and deliver some cool action instead.
-I can respect the torture scene was taken from a continuation novel, but that doesn't mean it's fun to watch.
-Madeline's dress is awful looking. I realize Blofeld picked it out, but c'mon...
-C vs M is rewrite of Casino Royale PTS
-Too bad they demolished the Mi6 building. I rather liked it.
-Anti-climatic shooting down Blofeld's helicopter.
1. GE 2. MR 3. OP 4. TMWTGG 5. TSWLM 6. TND 7. TWINE 8.DN 9. GF 10. AVTAK
Movies like Octopussy are great all the way through.
From looking at all the bond movies, there is only one instance for me where the first half is better than the second half. And that is, shock, TSWLM.
My reasons:
I LOVE Egypt as a location, and the Egypt scenes are just so cool.
Stromberg's intro where he kills the girl and the 2 scientists is excellent.
The final climax in Liparus/Atlantis drags way too much for me.
1 - Moore, 2 - Dalton, 3 - Craig, 4 - Connery, 5 - Brosnan, 6 - Lazenby
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
"Better make that two."
Skyfall and Spectre both languish in the second half, but this seems to be more of a Mendes thing, as all his films dribble down to what he thinks is a deeply personal climax but is often instead a predictably small ending. Of the two, Spectre is more interesting because at least it isn't a redux of Straw Dogs. It's no surprise that Mendes likes Live and Let Die so much, as it has the same problem, as does The Man with the Golden Gun.
Both The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill were better in the set up than the payoff.
I'm tempted to put Octopussy and A View to a Kill on the list, but they're both equally weak from start to finish.
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
This is why the film has dropped significantly in my rankings. Yes it's iconic and sets the tone for a great formula - but when I look at the 2nd half "nose dive" - then rate the first half, while some of it is great (the golf game, the PTS, Auric's factory etc.) there isn't much else going on apart from bad green-screen sets!!
"Better make that two."
If you're going to play hardball, then I'm going to have to disown TLD completely due to the Mujahideen thing.
1. GE 2. MR 3. OP 4. TMWTGG 5. TSWLM 6. TND 7. TWINE 8.DN 9. GF 10. AVTAK
I agree with this for all of Brosnan's films except GE. I think the first half is really slow and the second half is very exciting. It has the only decent climax of any of Brosnan's films, and I think the Arecibo Observatory is one of the best locations in any Bond film.
I love the first half of TND and can't stand the second half. I even like Paris more than I like Wai Lin. I think TND has the biggest difference in quality from the first half to the second. I never cared for the first half of DAD, even though it is better than the second half.
Though I liked Wai Lin a lot more than Paris, who came across more as a whiny prom date than a savvy billionaire's wife, I agree that TND started out much stronger than it finished. It gets especially tedious after the parking garage sequence.
I'm not sure why modern Bond films struggle so much with the third act. They should be a no-brainer. Maybe it's budget. But they all limp along. The only Bond film of the past 30 years that pulls it off -- to me -- is Casino Royale, which ends on a more personal note, but then, it's a more personal film. People keep mistaking the bit with LeChiffre for the climax of the story, which it is not (nor is it in the novel). But then Casino Royale, like On Her Majesty's Secret Service, is much more of a drama than an action film, so the ending's justified.
Talking about the first half. What I'm saying is that to me, the 2nd half is bad, and only certain elements from the 1st half are good. So overall I find the film a bit average.
"Better make that two."
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
GF has never ranked high for me, but for me the second half is what really makes the film IMO. The fort knox raid is so cool, as is the oddjob fight and Goldfinger's meeting explaining his plan to his investors.
1 - Moore, 2 - Dalton, 3 - Craig, 4 - Connery, 5 - Brosnan, 6 - Lazenby
In classic lit critical terms the 'hero' has to succeed by his own efforts which is arguably not the case in GF.
It was a huge Yes! Turned into a "that was it?" I feel like they brought it back to London just so they could wrap the C and mi6 storyline.
I don't hate it as much as other people do. But then I don't care for the film overall as much as most other people do. I could picture Connery in the same situation, but he'd probably have a slight look of disappointment on his face.