{"id":592,"date":"2010-12-02T11:20:30","date_gmt":"2010-12-02T11:20:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/?p=592"},"modified":"2014-06-02T17:20:50","modified_gmt":"2014-06-02T17:20:50","slug":"which-james-bond-film-is-best-part-four-the-modern-era","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2010\/12\/02\/which-james-bond-film-is-best-part-four-the-modern-era\/","title":{"rendered":"Which James Bond film is best? Part Four: The Modern Era"},"content":{"rendered":"

Part three is here<\/a><\/p>\n

GoldenEye (1995)<\/h3>\n

w.<\/strong> Jeffrey Caine, Bruce Fierstein; d.<\/strong> Martin Campbell
\n\"\"<\/a>The one with:<\/strong> him out of Remmington Steele, him out of Sharpe, him out of The Comic Strip Presents, the wonky music, the tank chase
\nOverview:<\/strong> the radical reinvention which we were promised in 1987 finally materialises. A new Bond, a new M, a new Moneypenny, gorgeous CGI titles, a crackerjack theme song \u2013 things are off to a good start. The contrast between this and Licence to Kill<\/em> couldn\u2019t be greater. The glamour, the fun, the charm are all back in full force, but this film knows how to ring the changes too. Whereas Licence<\/em> attempted to give us Bond as a rogue agent and fudged it, this film gives us a real turncoat in the form of 006 turned meglomaniacal villain. I still can\u2019t believe that in all the prelease press and TV coverage I saw, in all the interviews and previews, I entirely failed to notice that we hadn\u2019t had the villain introduced to us! The excellent tank chase also kicks off what will prove to be a quite rewarding trend, as for the next half-a-dozen movies, the stunt team attempts to find more and different vehicles in which to stage chases. With a magnificent debut from Judi Dench as M, top-drawer stunts and effects work, an astonishingly assured debut from Irishman Brosnan, and a clutch of bright supporting cast members including Robbie Coltrane, Joe Don Baker, Alan Cumming, Samantha Bond\u2019s spunky take on Miss Moneypenny and Famke Janssen quite beguiling as thigh-crushing Xenia Onatopp, this teeters on the brink of parody more than once, but never quite stumbles over it. Niggles? Brosnan\u2019s hair is too long, and the five o\u2019clock shadow isn\u2019t a good look for him \u2013 it was abandoned after this film; Trevelyan\u2019s evil plan makes no sense whatsoever; and the music is horrible, except for the already-mentioned theme song and the tank chase sequence. In general though, this is very assured and entertaining stuff, with a swagger and style which completely eluded the previous movie. As with Living Daylights<\/em>, a few scenes provide a veneer of emotion which hints at just a little more depth to the character \u2013 and that\u2019s all I really need. Takes its title from Ian Fleming\u2019s house in Jamaica (really!).
\nBest for:<\/strong> pre-titles sequence \u2013 and that\u2019s really saying something. Despite very stiff competition, this really is the last word in these sequences. The bungee jump off the dam is amazing; the gun battle in the weapons facility is brilliantly shot and combines action, humour and suspense with total control; the final stunt \u2013 freefalling after the crashing plane \u2013 is totally ludicrous, yet completely convincing; and the sequence sets up the big reveal which, when it comes, re-energises the middle of the film but which here manages not to be too clearly signposted. What a return to form! Hurrah!<\/p>\n

Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)<\/h3>\n

w.<\/strong> Bruce Fierstein; d.<\/strong> Roger Spottiswode
\n\"\"<\/a>The one with:<\/strong> all the Asian chopsocky (no, the other one), the climax on the enormous tanker (no, the other one), the remote control car, her out of Desperate Housewives
\nOverview:<\/strong> By now, the action movie had become a genre and it was films like Lethal Weapon, Robocop, Die Hard, Raiders and their various sequels that the Bond films were being compared to. The problem is that Bond really comes from a different tradition, in theory appealing to a much wider audience, but the crossover with action movies is clear to see. Where the best Bond films differ is that they have a little more plot, a bit more style, a bit more class than the average action movie. In his second outing, Brosnan is even more self-assured and makes the most of his brief appearances in the pretitles sequence (Brosnan himself never visited the location) and manages to carve out a recognisable figure amongst the mayhem, but Spottiswode is determined never to let the pace up for a second \u2013 even the briefing from M is delivered in the back of car, screeching through London. The one pause for breath is probably the highlight of the film \u2013 Bond, knocking back vodka, waiting for Paris Carver. This is followed by the excellent showdown with Vincent Schiavelli\u2019s eerie Dr Kaufman and the preposterous, but fun remote control car chase. In Saigon, things take a turn for the noisier, and the wall-to-wall gunfire makes it hard to pick out the moments of sly humour, character beats and grace notes, which may or may not be there. What ultimately sinks the film is the terribly shaky performance by Jonathan Pryce, hopelessly miscast as Elliot Carver and with no clue how to combine comic book villainy with any hint of gravitas at all. For sheer excitement and adrenalin, it does pretty much work while it\u2019s on, but as soon as it\u2019s over, there\u2019s nothing left. What is welcome is the arrival of David Arnold, who from now on becomes the Bond composer-in-residence, continuing John Barry\u2019s legacy and unafraid of a drum machine if it\u2019ll help. If only they\u2019d used k d lang\u2019s superb \u201cSurrender\u201d as the theme song<\/a> instead of Sheryl Crow\u2019s rather anonymous effort. Its title has nothing to do with Fleming or anything else.
\nBest for:<\/strong> pace. It will likely leave you out of breath, but if you\u2019re in the mood you\u2019ll probably enjoy the ride.<\/p>\n

The World is Not Enough (1999)<\/h3>\n

w.<\/strong> Neil Purvis, Robert Wade, Bruce Fierstein; d.<\/strong> Michael Apted
\n\"\"<\/a>The one with:<\/strong> the world\u2019s least convincing nuclear physicist, yet more skiing, the boat chase down the Thames, Basil Fawlty
\nOverview:<\/strong> A polar opposite of its predecessor, strong where Tomorrow Never Dies was weak, yet it lacks the coherence, urgency and drive of that particularly kinetic entry. Handing the megaphone to a \u201cproper\u201d director in the shape of Michael Apted, means in turn that he lets the excellent second unit, commanded by Vic Armstrong, take care of the action. More than usual, then, this feels like a faintly uninteresting family\/spy drama intercut with an unrelated but highly competent action movie. Another crackerjack pretitles sequence \u2013 the boat chase from MI6 to the under-construction Millennium Dome \u2013 gets the film off to a good start and Bond\u2019s busted shoulder is an interesting wrinkle, but try as I might I can\u2019t bring myself to really care about Elektra King, Renard and whatever it is they\u2019re trying to do. Even the kidnapping of M seems low-key, perfunctory and without any real resonance or impact. I admire the way The World Is Not Enough<\/em> tries to take the espionage storylines of From Russia With Love<\/em> or On Her Majesty\u2019s Secret Service<\/em> and bring them up to date; I think it\u2019s a good idea to try and create a Bond girl with more depth who can actually hurt our hero emotionally (Elektra, of course, not Christmas Jones); I think Bond is at home in these exotic European locations \u2013 I just remember how underwhelmed I was by it when I first saw it. Even Robbie Coltrane\u2019s Zukovsky is markedly less fun second time around. Its title is Bond\u2019s family motto, according to On Her Maj<\/em>.
\nBest for:<\/strong> goodbyes. Q\u2019s farewell is genuinely touching. Who could have known that Desmond Llewellyn would be killed in a car crash months later?<\/p>\n

Die Another Day (2002)<\/h3>\n

w.<\/strong> Neil Purvis and Robert Wade; d.<\/strong> Lee Tamahori
\n\"\"<\/a>The one with:<\/strong> the hovercraft, Bond goes rogue (no, the other one), Halle Berry, invisible car
\nOverview:<\/strong> Oh god, where to start? This was the twentieth \u201cofficial\u201d Bond movie, released in the fortieth anniversary year of the first movie and the fiftieth anniversary year of the first book, and was intended to be a celebration of the entire franchise, with nods and winks to most if not all of the preceding movies. But whereas the previous three films, for better or worse, each had a strong sense of identity, a clear mission statement (make Bond fun, make Bond energetic, make Bond work as drama) this one fires off wildly in every direction it can find. Like Octopussy<\/em>, it never finds a coherent style or tone, and like Octopussy<\/em>, some very good sequences don\u2019t make up for some truly appalling ones. Unlike Octopussy<\/em>, though, which shuffles up its various styles and plots, Die Another Day<\/em> splits neatly down the middle. The hovercraft chase in the pretitles, while not in the same league as the TWINE<\/em> boat chase or GoldenEye<\/em>\u2019s attack on the weapons complex, is fun, novel and shot with Vic Armstrong\u2019s customary wit and verve. Bond\u2019s capture, torture and escape is genuinely shocking and demonstrates both our hero\u2019s vulnerability and his prowess far more effectively and cinematically than that dodgy shoulder in TWINE<\/em>. Most of what happens in Cuba is fine and the partnership with Jinx is fun. The MI6 scenes are brilliantly nostalgic and effective and John Cleese makes the Quartermaster\u2019s role his own \u2013 such a shame he didn\u2019t return. And then Bond leaves for Iceland and the whole film falls to bits in spectacular style. Graves\u2019 dual identity is stupid, the battle of computerised cars is boring and stupid, the CGI ice-surfing scene is unconvincing and stupid, the fight on the plane is confusing and stupid and the invisible car is the stupidest thing I\u2019ve ever seen. Toby Stephens, if anything, is more ill-at-ease than even Jonathan Pryce, Rosamund Pike is a total blank and Madonna\u2019s presence only serves to irritate. Michael Madsen is clearly being set-up as a new returning character, but it was not to be. Once again, time for a rethink.
\nBest for:<\/strong> fight (found weapons). That fencing scene might be the best fight since the elevator in Diamonds<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Casino Royale (2006)<\/h3>\n

w.<\/strong> Neil Purvis, Robert Wade, Paul Haggis; d.<\/strong> Martin Campbell
\n\"\"<\/a>The one with:<\/strong> the black-and-white opening, the poker game, black Felix Leiter (no, the other one), Bond\u2019s balls, the unresolved storyline
\nOverview:<\/strong> As with Timothy Dalton taking over from Roger Moore, most of the creative team remains in place, but the presence of a new leading man reinvigorates everyone. Artfully expanding Fleming\u2019s slender 1952 novel with a new opening sequence setting up the conflict and a new coda which adds additional layers of complexity and emotion, Purvis and Wade create a magnificent debut for this \u201creimagined\u201d James Bond, with a little bit of a dialogue polish from \u201cproper\u201d screenwriter Haggis, and with the blessed Sir Martin Campbell calling all the shots, not just shooting the dialogue scenes and then going home for an early night while the second unit films the fights and explosions, this is the most complete and coherent Bond film since \u2013 well, GoldenEye<\/em> actually. Michael G Wilson had pitched \u201cyoung Bond\u201d to stepdad Broccoli many times in the past, but the older producer had always vetoed this on the basis that audiences wanted to see an experienced and capable Bond. But, by joining Bond\u2019s story at precisely the point where he is transitioning from rookie to veteran, Casino Royale<\/em> manages to have its beefcake and eat it too, with a simply stunning performance from Englishman Craig anchoring the whole thing. On first (and indeed subsequent) viewings Craig make me believe totally that this guy could seriously fuck people up, while actually making me care about his emotional problems. It\u2019s a remarkable accomplishment. The monochrome opening, bereft of over-the-top stunts, is an apparently low-key way to begin, but as a statement of intent it\u2019s compellingly clear. And when the film does explode into action, standards are as high as ever, but tellingly, it\u2019s some of the non-whizz-bang-crash scenes which linger longest in the mind \u2013 Bond and Vesper on the train, Le Chiffre \u201cscratching Bond\u2019s balls\u201d, the meeting with Mathis. If I have a quibble, it\u2019s that the constant double-crossing and rug-pulling in the final third pulls me away from the emotional story, which does get a little soapy at times. But really, it\u2019s only in Venice that the three demands of action, plot and emotion get in each other\u2019s way. The rest of the time, it\u2019s to its enduring credit that all three mesh perfectly.
\nBest for:<\/strong> chase (on foot). The parkour chase is not only hugely exciting, it\u2019s not only fresh and new, it simultaneously defines Daniel Craig as the Bond we know and love and also very much as a new and individual take on the character. Again and again S\u00e9bastien Foucan leaps nimbly over some wall or other obstacle, which Bond simply barrels straight through. Rarely before has the character been given such singularity of purpose. At once, instantly Bondian, yet you can\u2019t imagine any of his predecessors doing it in quite the same way.<\/p>\n

Quantum of Solace (2008)<\/h3>\n

w.<\/strong> Neil Purvis, Robert Wade, Paul Haggis; d.<\/strong> Marc Forster
\n\"\"<\/a>The one with:<\/strong> all that oil (no, the other one), Bond goes rogue (yet again), fights in the new Jason Bourne confus-o-cam style, the unresolved storyline (again)
\nOverview:<\/strong> For the third time running, a new Bond\u2019s stunning debut has been almost completely ruined by trying to turn the second film into an amped-up, all-action sequel in a different genre entirely. This time, not only are we propelled from demented action sequence to demented action sequence as quickly as plot demands allow, but the action sequences themselves are shot so wildly and cut so quickly that it\u2019s rarely possible to decipher what is actually going on. I suspect that some splendid stunts are being performed in the opening car chase and in the scaffolding gun-fight which follows, but it\u2019s hard to say for certain. When it does quieten down, during the opera for example, it\u2019s still more confusing than compelling. Apparently functioning as the middle of a trilogy, this retrofits much of the actions of Casino Royale<\/em>\u2019s villains as the work of a larger and more sinister organisation, but by the end of the film these plot strands remain unresolved, and with the Bond rights once again in limbo at the time of writing, it seems they will stay unresolved for a while longer. Also of note is the rather distasteful repeated motif of Bond executing people whom M wished to question, consistently written and played almost as if Bond is a character in a fifties sit-com who has eaten his boss\u2019s sandwich. I half-expect Judi Dench to start saying \u201cWhy I oughta\u2026\u201d Is it too much to hope for the taking of human life to be given a little more significance? Are we supposed to know who \u201cYusef\u201d is from Casino Royale<\/em> and be impressed when Bond doesn\u2019t kill him at the end? I couldn\u2019t care less. It is at least short \u2013 at 106 minutes it\u2019s the shortest ever, curiously immediately following the longest ever. The title comes from one of the short stories in For Your Eyes Only.
\nBest for:<\/strong> sacrificial lambs. The death of Mathis is genuinely affecting, especially when recalling his conflicted loyalties from the previous movie (and I do remember that).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Part three is here GoldenEye (1995) w. Jeffrey Caine, Bruce Fierstein; d. Martin Campbell The one with: him out of Remmington Steele, him out of Sharpe, him out of The Comic Strip Presents, the wonky music, the tank chase Overview: the radical reinvention which we were promised in 1987 finally materialises. A new Bond, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[25,11],"tags":[55,19],"class_list":["post-592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-at-the-cinema","category-culture","tag-james-bond","tag-reviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5JY5l-9y","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=592"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1483,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592\/revisions\/1483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}