If the people in charge of Bond films don't get off their collective butts the number of MI films will surpass the total number of Bond films....
I‘m a 100% with you on this, I got the impression that in a way the makers of Bond became lazy/tired/lost interest of the franchise. These long gaps just aren‘t justified nor necessary.
I think he’ll die of pneumonia filming MI 19, but not before leathering a few villains with his walking stick (he can’t get too close cos the cataracts means he gets caught with the odd punch)
Sir Roger was 58 in 1985 when AVTAK was released, whereas Cruise is 56 now - arguably in better condition for his age than Sir Roger in Octopussy.
Sorry to correct you, but Moore was only 57 when AVTAK was released and 56 at the start of filming. Cruise is in better shape now than Moore probably ever was.
At the end of the day Bond 25 is under pressure regardless of the MI franchise. If the film is bad then that will be 2 in a row and the vultures will be circling regardless. The long breaks between films make this more of an issue. MI is really irrelevant if number 25 is not a good film
Did anyone else think Fallout was terrible compared to MI 3,4, and 5? Half the stunts are all elaborate and meaningless to the story and the other half are elaborate and computer rendered. I think Tom was just trying to show off. The dialogue is abysmal and one-note like it was written by a child. Some of the action is good, but it is interspersed with very boring characters and plot.
One thing I'll say is they brought back the nuclear threat. That's something Bond hasn't done in a while.
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Did anyone else think Fallout was terrible compared to MI 3,4, and 5? Half the stunts are all elaborate and meaningless to the story and the other half are elaborate and computer rendered. I think Tom was just trying to show off. The dialogue is abysmal and one-note like it was written by a child. Some of the action is good, but it is interspersed with very boring characters and plot.
One thing I'll say is they brought back the nuclear threat. That's something Bond hasn't done in a while.
The point is, it was still leagues ahead and far more entertaining than SPECTRE, and coming from a die hard Bond fan, that’s a concern. The MI films consistently deliver. Bond films are consistently inconsistent. And they always have been
I wouldn't say its leagues better. Spectre at least had better characters, dialogue, and acting (Henry Cavil) and less Scooby gang.
MI moved at a fast enough pace that one could overlook its flaws. Spectre, on the other hand, was so in love with itself that it crawled along, highlighting its own ineptitude (car chase, alpine plane sequence, the brother stuff). Fallout was slick and tense. Spectre was bloated and boring. Fallout is just more effective in its execution.
I don't see the threat. I personally would love it if every film at the multiplex was a spy thriller, I say there aren't enough.
I still think of Mission Impossible as a 1960s teevee series with Leonard Nimoy in its later seasons. That's the franchise. Tom Cruise somehow got the rights to update the franchise and has made it his own, but the concept could outlast him if he retired and the franchise would live on to be reinvented again. It's a trademarked name with proven market value.
I think in Cruise's films there are actually very few bits that are even reminiscent of the old series. I actually get more excited by the elaborate schemes when they do come along than I do by the stuntwork.
For example, that scene where Cruise climbs the skyscraper everybody talks about: this incredibly dangerous stunt is being done while the rest of the team keeps two sets of villains from meeting each other, by setting up two identical meeting rooms and wearing disguises. That sort of thing is exactly what the old teevee series would centre around every week, not stuntwork. Cruise's famous stunt was distracting the audience from a genuine Mission Impossible style plot!
To tell you the truth SPECTRE and M: I Rogue Nation were about on the same level really, with the reasonably fine movies peaking around the same time they're busting high tech desert facilities, both culminating into "meh" budget saving finales set around the London Thames in the dark. SPECTRE made almost 200 million bucks more.
M: I is healthy competition and has been around on the screens since the same decade as Bond's movie outings, they should not destroy each other but compliment each other depending on the mood of the watcher.
I think the next few Bond films can have some of the silly aspects of SPECTRE (including more of the SPECTRE syndicate or similar and places like that Moroccan crater facility) but keep Bond a grounded and fairly easily hurt person: tone down on lazy, contrived scripting around him (when he tries to break out of a big enemy facility, avoid having a convenient blow everything up barrel/pipe).
EDIT: After binge watching True Detective, I am also looking forward to seeing to Cary Fukunga's take on Bond - Mendes is really good at visuals and wide open, strange locations (especially with Silva's eerie ruined private island and Blofeld's desert villa crossed with spy base, but more lacking in the action and chase sequences, especially with SPECTRE outside the intro and Morocco sequence (when being the usurper of Quantum and all of its world spanning wealth & power, why were the SPECTRE enforcers mainly armed with pistol side arms in most action scenes?).
'Alright guard, begin the unnecessarily slow moving dipping mechanism...'
Did anyone else think Fallout was terrible compared to MI 3,4, and 5? Half the stunts are all elaborate and meaningless to the story and the other half are elaborate and computer rendered. I think Tom was just trying to show off. The dialogue is abysmal and one-note like it was written by a child. Some of the action is good, but it is interspersed with very boring characters and plot.
One thing I'll say is they brought back the nuclear threat. That's something Bond hasn't done in a while.
It's funny. I finally watched Fallout the other day (had missed it on cinemas) and, though not terrible, I thought it was definitely worse than Rogue Nation. Whereas Rogue Nation (5) managed to impress me and keep me guessing, I can only remember one gasp while watching Fallout and I felt all the twists were telegraphed almost from the beginning (had managed to keep away from spoilers).
On an aside note, I also thought Cruise was really beginning to show his age. I know it's the same with Craig and his wanting to show the grey hair and all for Bond, but Ethan Hunt felt and looked 10 years older than in the previous installment. Don't know what to think about how he will look ib 7 & 8...
"Enjoy it while it lasts."
"The very words I live by."
Did anyone else think Fallout was terrible compared to MI 3,4, and 5? Half the stunts are all elaborate and meaningless to the story and the other half are elaborate and computer rendered. I think Tom was just trying to show off. The dialogue is abysmal and one-note like it was written by a child. Some of the action is good, but it is interspersed with very boring characters and plot.
One thing I'll say is they brought back the nuclear threat. That's something Bond hasn't done in a while.
It's funny. I finally watched Fallout the other day (had missed it on cinemas) and, though not terrible, I thought it was definitely worse than Rogue Nation. Whereas Rogue Nation (5) managed to impress me and keep me guessing, I can only remember one gasp while watching Fallout and I felt all the twists were telegraphed almost from the beginning (had managed to keep away from spoilers).
On an aside note, I also thought Cruise was really beginning to show his age. I know it's the same with Craig and his wanting to show the grey hair and all for Bond, but Ethan Hunt felt and looked 10 years older than in the previous installment. Don't know what to think about how he will look ib 7 & 8...
Cruise really should let his hair show some grey. He looked great with a fully grey head of hair and stubble in Collateral.
On an aside note, I also thought Cruise was really beginning to show his age. I know it's the same with Craig and his wanting to show the grey hair and all for Bond, but Ethan Hunt felt and looked 10 years older than in the previous installment. Don't know what to think about how he will look ib 7 & 8...
I agree. And although Craig looks pretty weathered, at least he looks natural. Cruise has clearly had work done, which I think adds to the sense that he’s older than he’s pretending to be.
On an aside note, I also thought Cruise was really beginning to show his age. I know it's the same with Craig and his wanting to show the grey hair and all for Bond, but Ethan Hunt felt and looked 10 years older than in the previous installment. Don't know what to think about how he will look ib 7 & 8...
I agree. And although Craig looks pretty weathered, at least he looks natural. Cruise has clearly had work done, which I think adds to the sense that he’s older than he’s pretending to be.
Oh, yes. You could clearly see the Botox in the press interviews and premieres, but certain shots in the movie showed suspiciously flaffy skin in the neck/dewlap area.
"Enjoy it while it lasts."
"The very words I live by."
On an aside note, I also thought Cruise was really beginning to show his age. I know it's the same with Craig and his wanting to show the grey hair and all for Bond, but Ethan Hunt felt and looked 10 years older than in the previous installment. Don't know what to think about how he will look ib 7 & 8...
I agree. And although Craig looks pretty weathered, at least he looks natural. Cruise has clearly had work done, which I think adds to the sense that he’s older than he’s pretending to be.
Oh, yes. You could clearly see the Botox in the press interviews and premieres, but certain shots in the movie showed suspiciously flaffy skin in the neck/dewlap area.
Do people still go "under the knife" anymore? I thought it was all fillers these days. Apparently, that's why Cruise looks fuller faced than he used to. Can't say he looks much different, though, myself.
Craig, on the other hand, just looks plain weird, and has since SP. There's no way he would be cast for his first Bond film now, or at any time since 2011. His face is tight yet puffy, as though he's been squashed.
Conversely, I think Roger looked great up to and including OP.
I agree that Craig has looked a bit "off" on many occasions but just not after SPECTRE; it has been part of the discussion going back before SPECTRE. They most likely will manage to put him back together well enough for Bond 25. Diet, work outs, a little Botox, make up, lights, camera, action: Daniel Craig is James Bond 007. -{
Of course Tom Cruise is going to look significantly older now: his first Mission: Impossible was 23 years ago! Time just shoots by. Daniel Craig never looked very boyish, he looked rugged in 2001's Tomb Raider.
Both actors do look fitter and less wizened than the late Roger Moore started to look by Octopussy or A View To A Kill.
'Alright guard, begin the unnecessarily slow moving dipping mechanism...'
Yeah, he was like a Sunday jogger and Monday swim dude. Brosnan could get pretty pudgy for a movie star, but looked OK in Die Another Day. Tom Cruise, despite the cosmetic voodoo, is really into extreme sports.
'Alright guard, begin the unnecessarily slow moving dipping mechanism...'
No question, Cruise is a workout guy and of course an adrenaline junkie. Pierce was a naturally thin/wiry guy who hit the weights and bulked up for TND and then got a little bit of a middle age pot belly later on but still looked ok in DAD and has maintained his movie star looks even as an older man like Carey Grant. Craig, prior to bulking up for CR appeared to be another lean and wiry albeit more muscular than Pierce type. His less bulked up look in QOS and SF IMO was perfect for his version of the contemporary Bond IMO. At 50, I doubt Craig is the fitness fanatic that Cruise is and has gone back and forth between looking fit and pudgy since SP. A perfect example is at the 2018 BAFTAS where Craig's face looked notoriously like the Pillsbury Dough Boy while a couple of months later at the Opportunity Network Foundation Auction he looked like he just stepped off the set of SPECTRE. Hopefully, Craig will be able to get it together one more time for Bond 25 (the two month delay won't hurt either).
It's not really a weight issue for me - though I don't want him too muscular. It's more his age catching up with him. I can't look at him and think, "That's Bond", like i did in QoS.
As much as parralels between MI and Bond will always be drawn, to me at least they are poles apart, I enjoy all the mi films, but as the series has progressed they've turned into more pure actioneers than spy films, mi-1 was probably the most Bond like. Ethan Hunt is an all American hero, and with the help of countless rubber masks (which they themselves now poke a bit of fun at) he manages a bit of espionage. The most paralleled part is Hunts wardrobe.
Bond should continue to steer its own course, the huge action set pieces aren't as necessary these days (blofelds exploding lair in SP). A good story, some thrills a slick script and a good Bondian soundtrack is surely all we need. DC running along a train roof himself is very good, but I doubt he'd ever hang off a plane or scale a skyscraper, and neither should he, Cruise does it so well he should be left to it.
I can't look at him and think "That's Bond", period.
)
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"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
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I‘m a 100% with you on this, I got the impression that in a way the makers of Bond became lazy/tired/lost interest of the franchise. These long gaps just aren‘t justified nor necessary.
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Sorry to correct you, but Moore was only 57 when AVTAK was released and 56 at the start of filming. Cruise is in better shape now than Moore probably ever was.
One thing I'll say is they brought back the nuclear threat. That's something Bond hasn't done in a while.
The point is, it was still leagues ahead and far more entertaining than SPECTRE, and coming from a die hard Bond fan, that’s a concern. The MI films consistently deliver. Bond films are consistently inconsistent. And they always have been
Bond has a way better track record. Even the best MI's I wouldn't rewatch as often as Bond's worst outings.
MI moved at a fast enough pace that one could overlook its flaws. Spectre, on the other hand, was so in love with itself that it crawled along, highlighting its own ineptitude (car chase, alpine plane sequence, the brother stuff). Fallout was slick and tense. Spectre was bloated and boring. Fallout is just more effective in its execution.
I still think of Mission Impossible as a 1960s teevee series with Leonard Nimoy in its later seasons. That's the franchise. Tom Cruise somehow got the rights to update the franchise and has made it his own, but the concept could outlast him if he retired and the franchise would live on to be reinvented again. It's a trademarked name with proven market value.
I think in Cruise's films there are actually very few bits that are even reminiscent of the old series. I actually get more excited by the elaborate schemes when they do come along than I do by the stuntwork.
For example, that scene where Cruise climbs the skyscraper everybody talks about: this incredibly dangerous stunt is being done while the rest of the team keeps two sets of villains from meeting each other, by setting up two identical meeting rooms and wearing disguises. That sort of thing is exactly what the old teevee series would centre around every week, not stuntwork. Cruise's famous stunt was distracting the audience from a genuine Mission Impossible style plot!
M: I is healthy competition and has been around on the screens since the same decade as Bond's movie outings, they should not destroy each other but compliment each other depending on the mood of the watcher.
I think the next few Bond films can have some of the silly aspects of SPECTRE (including more of the SPECTRE syndicate or similar and places like that Moroccan crater facility) but keep Bond a grounded and fairly easily hurt person: tone down on lazy, contrived scripting around him (when he tries to break out of a big enemy facility, avoid having a convenient blow everything up barrel/pipe).
EDIT: After binge watching True Detective, I am also looking forward to seeing to Cary Fukunga's take on Bond - Mendes is really good at visuals and wide open, strange locations (especially with Silva's eerie ruined private island and Blofeld's desert villa crossed with spy base, but more lacking in the action and chase sequences, especially with SPECTRE outside the intro and Morocco sequence (when being the usurper of Quantum and all of its world spanning wealth & power, why were the SPECTRE enforcers mainly armed with pistol side arms in most action scenes?).
It's funny. I finally watched Fallout the other day (had missed it on cinemas) and, though not terrible, I thought it was definitely worse than Rogue Nation. Whereas Rogue Nation (5) managed to impress me and keep me guessing, I can only remember one gasp while watching Fallout and I felt all the twists were telegraphed almost from the beginning (had managed to keep away from spoilers).
On an aside note, I also thought Cruise was really beginning to show his age. I know it's the same with Craig and his wanting to show the grey hair and all for Bond, but Ethan Hunt felt and looked 10 years older than in the previous installment. Don't know what to think about how he will look ib 7 & 8...
"The very words I live by."
I agree. And although Craig looks pretty weathered, at least he looks natural. Cruise has clearly had work done, which I think adds to the sense that he’s older than he’s pretending to be.
Oh, yes. You could clearly see the Botox in the press interviews and premieres, but certain shots in the movie showed suspiciously flaffy skin in the neck/dewlap area.
"The very words I live by."
Do people still go "under the knife" anymore? I thought it was all fillers these days. Apparently, that's why Cruise looks fuller faced than he used to. Can't say he looks much different, though, myself.
Craig, on the other hand, just looks plain weird, and has since SP. There's no way he would be cast for his first Bond film now, or at any time since 2011. His face is tight yet puffy, as though he's been squashed.
Conversely, I think Roger looked great up to and including OP.
Both actors do look fitter and less wizened than the late Roger Moore started to look by Octopussy or A View To A Kill.
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Dalton - the weak and weepy Bond!
Bond should continue to steer its own course, the huge action set pieces aren't as necessary these days (blofelds exploding lair in SP). A good story, some thrills a slick script and a good Bondian soundtrack is surely all we need. DC running along a train roof himself is very good, but I doubt he'd ever hang off a plane or scale a skyscraper, and neither should he, Cruise does it so well he should be left to it.
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM