Octopussy
***Never seen this one before.***
Not convinced by the opening scene with the jet. Just a series of clichés.
The theme song is perfect… for a naff 1970’s British sitcom about two Middle Age divorcees getting together much to the disapproval of their adult children. Awful, never even heard of Rita Coolridge before.
009 dressed as a clown getting chased by identical twins… err ok… at least it wasn’t Bond, that would be majorly humiliating for the franchise.
Steven Berkoff as Orlov doing some of the worst ham acting I’ve ever seen. Beyond doubt the worst Bond villain. Maud Adams is about as talented as a bad soap opera actress. Jordan as Khan is bland and only stands out due to who he’s sharing the screen with.
Just when I thought the Gorilla suit was the lowest point in Bond history he’s then dressed as a clown. Love how it only took him a couple of seconds to put on all the makeup as well which then matches another clown exactly.
The “girls, selling themselves” line made me almost convinced Bond was going to be in amongst them in drag.
Good god, I almost appreciate Diamonds are Forever after this! The only solace I can take from this garbage is that I’ve never seen it before and therefore never had to watch it a second time for the review. What a disappointment after the nice change in style with For Your Eyes Only.
2/10

PSA: The Brosnan Bond films are on Netflix! Just in time for next week. Thank you to everyone participating!

The folks at Netflix have clearly been keeping an eye on the schedule in this thread.

Licence to Kill... another 6 for me.

I like this a bit more than The Living Daylights, although it feels less like a Bond flick as it veers towards action territory. The increase in violence, profanity and some of Kamen's music feel a little out of place. I like Sanchez a villain, but he too seems to play up to the action tropes.

Dalton feels more comfortable in the role, and once again I think they've done well not to overload the film with Bond girls. Both Pam Bouvier and Lupe serve the plot well and establish good chemistry with Bond. Q getting involved in field work also brought a smile to my face. Nice theme song too.

Dalton had a brief stint with two decent films, but never really left much of an impression on me as Bond.

A View to a Kill

Ski scenes aren’t anything new, looked a lot better in FYEO. Great theme tune by Duran Duran.

Bond and Moneypenny really look like they should be taking retirement.
Patrick Macnee as Sir Godfrey! 😊 A third star from The Avengers making an appearance (fourth if you count Joanna Lumley from The New Avengers. Very nice.

The taxi driver in Paris is almost as bad an actor as Steven Berkoff.
I think this is the first film were in virtually every stunt scene its completely noticeable it’s a stunt man, the guy/s don’t look anything like Moore. I know Connery and Moore didn’t do their own stunts but they normally film it well enough to make it less noticeable, here there are lingering shots throughout. Terrible editing.

It’s a poor film, like TMWTGG its only memorable for its villains. To be honest though even as a massive fan of Walken he’s nothing special here, he looks the part but most of his lines fall flat. He’s best when he’s alongside Grace Jones, the two have great charisma together.
Speaking of Jones, Mayday’s a great henchwoman even if she gets the Jaws heroic redemption treatment at the end.

Tanya Roberts doesn't impress. However the “Stacey Jump!” line for which she then does a bodyslam onto him down the Golden Gate Bridge, without a doubt, one of the best unintentional laughs in the whole series.

Overall, Moore’s long past his prime, in truth its probably a 3 or 4 but I also seem to remember watching this a lot as kid on TV (probably more than any of the others), at the time I didn’t realise how bad it was, maybe nostalgia is making me biased but I’m going with a very, very, very generous 5/10.

Extra justification for the risk on casting the brilliantly batshit crazy Grace Jones, surprised she didn’t break Moore’s spine during a fight scene! Also got some wonderful scenes with Patrick Macnee, shame he wasn’t a recurring character, plus that Durran Durran song is brilliant as well.

I just saw "For Your Eyes Only". Or how it was probably conceived "The Bond crew take a Mediterranean trip".

But first, the beginning... why that opening? It starts with Bond visiting the grave of his deceased wife, then he's called in for a supposed emergency and, once he goes in an helicopter, it turns out that Blofeld has boobytrapped the vehicle and is planning to kill Bond! But after a couple of attempts, Bond recovers control over the helicopter, snatches Blofeld and throws him into a factory chimney! Soooo... he's dead then? Just like that? The one villain Bond hates the most, taunting him the day he decided to go to his wife's grave, dead by Blofeld's own hand, just died in the opening scene of a movie unrelated to him? And considering the bad blood between the two, the "fight" scene left a lot to be desired. Leaving the "not killing Bond when having a clear chance" cliché aside, Blofeld did all of that operation alone, without a single bodyguard in sight to protect him in case Bond got free. Which, considering he's chairbound and carried no weapons on his chair, he probably should have. Also, I was expecting Blofeld to taunt Bond with the death of his wife, but he didn't. And Bond decided to kill him by throwing him into a chimney after a joking oneliner feels off considering he's the man who caused him so much grief. And in the end, this opening is completely pointless, because it has no bearing on the rest of the flick.

The actual film is pretty good. It's nice to see Bond going back to Cold War antics, plus we get to see a nice resort of locations. They surely had a lot of fun making the coreographies for both the regular background events and the actual fight scenes. And speaking of which, both the snow chase and the mountain assault were great, surprisingly tense, though the music is a bit too triumphant on the snow chase. The car chase in Spain was fun, considering Bond didn't have access to his usual gadgets, but it relied a lot in slapstick in the end. The villain's plan is quite simple yet effective. Just stealing a piece of tech to sell to the soviets. I like how both Bond and the russian general have to ally with local criminals to help them with their mission, and their encounter in the end was more like a professional meeting than anything resenbling hate, just two men doing their job. The actual villain is also pretty decent, but I feel he's underutilized in this. His right hand was quite a threat, and manage to make Bond genuinely angry. Bond's relation with Melina is sweet and all, but I was expecting Bond to push her away from the case. Which he tries, don't give me wrong, but after the opening scene, I was thinking that it could have tied to the death of his wife and innocent bystanders getting hurt around Bond. I would also like to point out the only case thus far of Bond having the chance of being with a woman and Bond rejecting her, though to be fair she was a minor, and the fact even Bond wouldn't go that low is a fun running joke considering how much of a womanizer he's been all throughout the series.

Overall, this is a mediocre movie, even if it gets better and better as the flick continues. A solid 6/10. Seriously, what was the point of the opening...

There was a film rights issue, essentially Kevin McIlroy owned the rights to Thunderball and thus allowed him to make a new version of it after 10 years, thus we got Never Say Never Again. I believe this allowed him access to Blofeld and SPECTRE as well. As a result Eon decided to finish off the character for good in the most humiliating way possible.
In the 90's McIlroy was going to make a third Thunderball titled Warhead 2000AD though I think 'Flogging a Dead Horse' may have been more apt.
He tried again in the 2000's as well as trying to do Casino Royal but then lost the case with his Sony backers. Eon then got all the rights back in the mid 2000's. Hence SPECTRE returning and the retconning of La Shriffe, Silva and Greene as being backed by SPECTRE.

I enjoyed the film, but yeah the opening is bad.

The all too brief Dalton era commences with one of my favorite Bond films, The Living Daylights. Watching it now, I got the same exact sense I got rewatching For Your Eyes Only, I was so happy and enjoyed it immensely. I’ve always been a Bond fan, and could watch any of them really, but certain ones just evoke the sense of fun and excitement of watching them back when I was young, and this film certainly did that.

I’ve always been protective of Dalton, who like Lazenby, I think gets dumped on somewhat just because of their short tenures. But I have to say, that Dalton is actually better than I remember. I always considered him the “serious Bond” coming of the more glib Roger Moore, but he actually has some funny bits in his initial outing. I cracked up quite a few times during just the opening after the credits: his devilish smile about their “pipeline” to the West, him slamming the hatch as Koskov screams. He definitely takes the proceedings more seriously than his predecessor, but I think that’s what makes the humor work, a needed release valve from the tension rather than a constant number of jokes and one liners that make it seem as if the stakes are not real.

Making him a one woman man also works to the benefit of the film as he and Kara share a sweet chemistry and the buildup of their relationship seems genuine. Evocative of the love montage from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the bits of them traveling around Vienna (gorgeous) and having fun at the carnival allow Bond to develop a deeper connection to his leading lady than we’ve seen in some films. Her eventual siding with Bond over the villain feels earned, and it’s nice the film allowed her to make that choice before she would have been forced into it.

As for the plot itself, I noticed several issues with it that escaped me when watching it years ago. I like the Cold War atmosphere and the introduction of a new head of the KBG that has a past with Bond. This would be the last such film as the series went on hiatus and the Cold War ended. I’m not sure why the head of the KGB is negotiating an arms sale with mercenaries or attending a trade conference other than it gives John Rhys Davies more to do, and he certainly is a welcome presence. There also seems to be some confusion to the timeline as he cancels the deal partly due to Koskov’s defection yet the whole purpose of the defection was to make sure the deal went forward. The defection itself also seems a really convoluted way just to kill Pushkin. These are minor quibbles and didn’t take me out of the plot but they are noticeable.

The action scenes are once again top notch including Bond’s assault on a moving Jeep in the opening, the safe house attack and the battle with Necros dangling from a cargo plane. The action is heightened by the music as both the instrumental versions of the theme song (one of my favorites) and Where Has Everybody Gone are quite infectious. Dalton seems equally at home with the action and the emotional aspects of the character. He can turn from the charming boyfriend to seething with rage at the death of a fellow agent without either of them feeling forced. He decided to wait when previously offered the role because he thought he was too young. I’m glad he eventually did take it because if you didn’t have to choose Connery, he would be my favorite.

I’m going to give The Living Daylights a 7/10. It’s been my personal pick for Dalton’s best for a long time and I don’t see that changing, but we’ll see after the next rewatch. To borrow from a friend, Dalton embodies Bond right from the beginning, an especially difficult task coming off the longest running actor in the role. I wish he had been given more time to make his mark on the franchise. Luckily, what we did get was pretty damn good.

Current Rankings:
1) On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
2) From Russia with Love
3) Goldfinger
4) For Your Eyes Only
5) The Living Daylights
6) The Spy Who Loved Me
7) Thunderball
8) Dr. No
9) Octopussy
10) Live and Let Die
11) You Only Live Twice
12) The Man with the Golden Gun
13) A View to a Kill
14) Moonraker
15) Diamonds are Forever

On to the Brosnan era with Goldeneye now. This is going to get a 7 from me.

This was the first Bond I can actually remember being released in my lifetime (LtK came out when I was about a year old). My introduction to it, of course, was the immense N64 game, which hogged many hours of my childhood. It was sort of weird coming to the film after the game, knowing how the plot worked and seeing where Rare embellished and expanded upon the movie.

Anyway, I've always liked Brosnan as Bond, and this has long been one of my favourites, but it's not striking the same chord this time round. It's got all the right ingredients, with some good stunts, locations and characters, plus a serviceable enough plot, but it doesn't quite come together as I remembered. The music is very hit and miss too. That said, I think the way Bond and Natalya are tied together to the entourage of villains is well done, and there's some interesting dynamics going on.

Although it doesn't quite live up to my memories of it, Goldeneye will always have a special place in my heart.

The Living Day Lights (***Never seen this one before.***)

I really liked the opening training mission scene in Gibraltar. The theme tune is ok, not quite on a par as View to A Kill but another nice 80’s New Wave track.

Not fussy on the new Moneypenny, seems a bit on the young side for the role? Now Felix Leiter has been played 5 other actors and never more than one film each, none have ever been anything special but John Terry seems really miscast here. Joe Don Baker is awful as Brad Whitaker. He’s a decent actor so I’m glad he gets to redeem himself later in Goldeneye as Jack Wade.  But it's not all bad... Maryam d'Abo is wonderful as Milovy and I like Jeroen Krabbé as the sniveling weasel Kosov.

Action set pieces are good but a little bit A-Teamish in parts especially towards the end. Overall, a good start for Dalton’s bond. He’s arguably the most talented thespian to play Bond but has the violent streak that makes him believable in the role. 7/10

Current Top 15:

1. On Her Majesty's Secret Service (Lazenby)
2. From Russia With Love (Connery)
3. The Spy Who Loved Me (Moore)
4. Goldfinger (Connery)
5. Thunderball (Connery)
6. For Your Eyes Only (Moore)
7. The Living Day Lights (Dalton)
8. Dr No (Connery)
9. You Only Live Twice (Connery)
10. Live And Let Die (Moore)
11. Licence To Kill (Moore)
12. Moonraker (Moore)
13. The Man With The Golden Gun (Moore)
14. Diamonds Are For Ever (Connery)
15. Octopussy (Moore)