Ranking The Bond Movies & Quick Ratings of Movies I've seen this Summer
Men in Black III-***/4-A little generous. Started off pretty lousy, but then ended very strong.
Bernie-***/4. Opposite of MIB3. Great start...eh finnish.
The Campaign-** 1/2/4 Could've been a lot better. Some of the jokes were a little too middle for an R movie.
Safety Not Guaranteed-***/4-Awesome. Real and funny.
Moonrise Kingdom-***1/2/4-Wes' best since Rushmore.
The Dark Knight Rises-****/4-Amazing. Perfect coda for a perfect trilogy.
The Avengers-*** 1/2/4-The perfect popcorn movie. Great performance from the whole cast.
Ranking The Bond Movies
Keep in mind, I love every one of them. But since I'm ranking them...
The Bleh
23. Man with the Golden Gun-On paper, this has one of the coolest plots of the whole series, yet the execution is "bleh".
22. Moonraker-It's probably not actually that bad considering they never tried to take this one seriously.
21. Die Another Day-Speaking of trying. An invisible car? Madonna as an actress?
20. A View to a Kill-Great song. Mediocre movie.
19. Tomorrow Never Dies-Has a lot of good moments, but forgettable.
18. The World Is Not Enough-Denise Richards destroys an entire movie by herself.
The Good
17. Octopussy-The plot is very confusing, but more watchable then any of the ones above.
16. Live and Let Die (tie)-A solid first entry for Moore. It was a good way to distance himself from Connery. Not Aston Martin, no Walther PPK, just a man in blazers banging out one liners. The influence of black cinema is also really cool. Jane Seymour (the mom in Wedding Crashers) is gorgeous. Decent plot. Strong villains. One of Moore's best.
15. Diamonds are Forever-Easily the worst Connery film. But seeing how it's better than almost half of everything else says a lot about Mr. Sean.
14. Quantum of Solace-Gets a bad rep. Even though I saw this opening night, I didn't really "see" it till about a year and half later. It's much weaker than Casino Royale, but very important to the Craig series and the Quantum organization.
13. License to Kill-I'll get more to Dalton later. But the movie is probably the darkest of the bunch.
12. You Only Live Twice-Cheesy at times. I mean, do you think Sean Connery would really pass as an Asian? Still awesome though.
11. For Your Eyes Only-Probably the most cerebral of the Moore collection. Underrated Bond girl and a complex and serious story. This was the first after Moonraker, so the reason for the more serious route should be obvious.
11. For Your Eyes Only-Probably the most cerebral of the Moore collection. Underrated Bond girl and a complex and serious story. This was the first after Moonraker, so the reason for the more serious route should be obvious.
The Great
10. On Her Majesty's Secret Service-Who knows how good this would've been with Connery but Lazenby still did pretty good. Arguably the best story of a Bond movie.
9. Dr. No-Has it's flaws, but an great villain, "the" Bond girl, and an introduction to Mr. Bond. Very nice.
8. Thunderball-I like Thunderball more every time I see it. Including inflation, this is the most successful movie of the series. A little bit too long and the underwater scene drags, but still one of the classics.
The Elite
7. GoldenEye-Everything about this movie is perfect. Released 5 years after the Cold War ended, it was arguably the best time for a Bond movie to ever come out. Thus it made for one of the stronger plots in Bond history, a brilliant opening act for Pierce, and one of the grittiest pf the series. The score keeps the film at perfect balance and Famke is easily the sexiest villain of all time.
6. The Spy Who Loved Me-Easily Moore's best film. I don't think it was Moore's fault his Bond was so poor at times. That culture on the 1970s and early 1980s had a lot to do with it. He was like the good looking dad in the 70s who loved to wear sport coats, play golf, and hit on his daughter's friends. Nothing wrong with that...but it wasn't always Bond. This, however was. And what made it even better was that it was Fleming's shittiest novel (which even he admitted). The whole Mad-Man-blowing-up-the-World scenario does very well.
5. The Living Daylights-As far as Bond's go, Connery will always be the best. But Dalton is a damn close second. Nobody has ever played as close to the real Bond as he did. In terms of acting, Dalton in TLD is probably the best single performance as Bond yet. The plot is great, the Bond girl is realistic and sexy, but the complaints about weak villains is pretty dead on. Also wasn't the biggest fan of the Gladiator-esque scene in the desert. Though it executes it brilliantly, this tone wouldn't work for every Bond movie. Sometimes you need a little more sexy. But this is one of my favorites.
4. Casino Royale-Craig's performance nips at the heals of Dalton in TLD. But the case could still be made for Craig's performance in CR as the best outing of all the movies. Every thing works in this movie, even the ending which some say drags a bit too long. Eva Green's natural and stunning beauty makes her one of the great Bond girls.
2. Skyfall-Where the old Bond meets the new. The few complaints (if any) of Casino Royale were that it lacked the classic Bond elements. When many thought Bond was becoming too much like Bourne, Skyfall returns these classic elements. There's on going gimmick in the movie how the old ways simply work best and by god are they right. Watching this movie is like discovering Connery for the first time. Fucking incredible.
1. Goldfinger-The best. Simply. No argument. Set the standard for what we know today. By far and away the best opening sequence. Great theme song. Great bad guy. Great henchman. A dead woman smothered in gold paint. A Bond girl named "Pussy Galore". This isn't just a classic Bond movie, it's a classic film for the ages.
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