Some good and interesting selections there
@Killer Angel!
Now it's my turn. A lot of these I can't decide on the absolute best, so have compiled lists instead...
Favourite Bond Film: Here's my Top 5:
- Skyfall - I don't know what it is about Skyfall, but I honestly can't help but rate it as pretty much perfect... with the gritter tone of the Craig era, easily the most memorable villain of that era, a lot of character development for Bond himself in revisiting his childhood home, and even a last hurrah outing for the classic DB5, it just stood out in my mind as being fantastic. Certainly the best of the Craig films and I would say the best of the lot.
- GoldenEye - Just as Craig's Casino Royale really shifted the tone of the Bond series to something new, so did GoldenEye as the first of Pierce Brosnan's films, and at the time it did what Casino Royale did later on - it brought back some much-needed seriousness and maturity to the saga. Brosnan's Bond was cool-headed and capable, as was his enemy, a twisted reflection of him and what he could have become had his career turned out a bit differently. We also got a great chase scene involving a Russian tank, and Robbie Coltrane having a minor part as one of Bond's contacts and partners-in-crime. And the theme tune for that one is easily the one that sticks most in my mind for some reason.
- The Man with the Golden Gun - Easily the best and most memorable of the Roger Moore films for me, principally because it all was all boiling down to the duel between him and Scaramanga, which makes it vastly different from all the others of that era.
- On Her Majesty's Secret Service - Probably the 'Last Jedi' of Bond films, I can see why this one ruffled some feathers after Sean Connery's outings, but I personally quite liked all the subversions of the classic Bond tropes (Lazenby's Bond breaking the fourth wall, being less successful in endeavours than Sean's counterpart and ending up finally settling down with someone only for her to be murdered in a drive-by shooting). And, unlike Last Jedi, it subverts tropes without being outright stupid.
- You Only Live Twice - My favourite of the Sean Connery films, principally because of the complete change of setting to Japan and seeing Bond having to deal with a completely culture and different ways of subterfuge and assassination, such as the classic Ninja trick of pouring poison down a thread into the victim's mouth.
Favourite Bond Actor: I've just decided to rank them all here:
- Daniel Craig and Pierce Brosnan - I couldn't decide between these two really as the absolute best Bond... Craig's films are without a doubt the most mature of eras and his Bond is suitably hard to match, but his version did lose some of the quintessential English gentleman charm of the character, whereas Brosnan preserved that aspect of the character especially well, though his films, while starting off very well with GoldenEye, did start to get progressively worse (which I think prompted the shift to the Craig era).
- Roger Moore: Roger without a doubt got the smoothness, the suaveness and the sophistication of the character just right - he has the most gentlemanly appearance and mannerisms. It's just a shame a lot of the films he was in were in an especially camp era of Bond writing, but without a doubt it's the writers that are more to blame there than the main man.
- George Lazenby: As mentioned above, I like On Her Majesty's Secret Service for doing things a bit differently, and George Lazenby's Bond was very much part of that. He maintains Bond's cool-headedness and eyes on the prize, but he isn't afraid of the odd quip breaking the fourth wall.
- Sean Connery: Sean's Bond is undeniably a classic portrayal - smooth, suave and ruthless, as he should be - but I don't know, I just prefer a fair few of the others to his version.
- Timothy Dalton: I certainly don't think Timothy Dalton was a bad Bond by any means... indeed in other things I've seen he does bring some Bond charm to the mix. It's simply that he was only in two films, both of which were very distinctly average and unmemorable affairs for me, meaning his version really didn't get enough chance to shine.
Favourite Bond Villain: Again, here's my Top 5:
- Alec Trevelyan - Like Bond he's an Englishman (or at least raised as one) with a traumatic past who serves as a 00 Agent. Yet where Bond overcomes the memories of his past to focus on his duty to his country, Alec Trevelyan allows his bitterness to consume him, ultimately to his demise. Of course the best thing about Trevelyan (apart from Sean Bean's great acting of course) is that he's probably one of the few villains who is revealed early on in the films. His faked death prompts Bond to think he has lost a friend, but only a lot later does he find out that that same friend has become his enemy in without a doubt one of Bond's most personal showdowns, pretty much the Bond equivalent of Anakin and Obi-Wan's duel on Mustafar.
- Francisco Scaramanga - One of the late Sir Christopher Lee's great villain portrayals, the owner of the Golden Gun was also an ideal foil to Bond - every bit as cold, ruthless, capable and also suave and raffish, yet where Bond only kills where necessary for the greater good of UK security, Scaramaga kills for his entire living, a living that is profitable enough for him to afford a personal tropical island. Another black parody of Bond with a backstory you can feel a certain sympathy with, taking Bond on in a Western shootout turned up to 11 and topped with Sir Christopher's excellent-as-usual acting talent.
- Raoul Silva - The 'second-to-last rat standing' is one of the many things I like about Skyfall as my favourite Craig, and indeed Bond, film of all. Like Trevelyan, he's a former agent who feels betrayed and chooses a darker path, though his grudge is against not Bond, but M, giving her a more significant role in the film and revealing aspects of her own backstory and past. Javier Bardem played Silva excellently, with his creepy mannerisms, slowly increasing levels of psychopathy and his mocking sense of humour, and is another of the more competent villains, able to outfox even Ben Whishaw's young prodigy Q with ease at every turn and ultimately hunt down and slay his ultimate prey despite Bond's best attempts to protect her.
- Dr. Julius No - The original and probably the best when it comes to the 'Aspiring World-Dominating Mastermind' Bond villains... Dr. No started it all, and to be honest, I don't think was ever surpassed by any of the other villains who inherited his kind of mould. Cool-headed, calm and entirely serious, he was a formidable opponent to Bond in his first outing, and certainly deserves a position on my list.
- Auric Goldfinger (and Oddjob) - Two for the price of one here, as you couldn't have Goldfinger without his formidable Korean henchman, or vice versa. These two together serve as dangerous opposition for Bond - Goldfinger outfoxes Bond into walking into several traps, and Oddjob admirably serves as one of the 'Pat Roach' minor villain characters in the Bond franchise (my personal name for henchmen capable of beating up main hero characters, after the actor who played several such characters in Indiana Jones films) with his steel bowler hat and almost unnaturally tough constitution.
Favourite Bond Theme: GoldenEye - There is just something about Tina Turner's voice and the imagery of girls smashing up Soviet-era Russian statues that worked really well to make this easily the most memorable Bond theme for me.
Favourite Bond Girl: Rosamund Pike's
Miranda Frost is a bit of a standout favourite of mine... an English female 00 agent who is a highly skilled fencer, she could (and should) have been the female version of Bond that had been sought after by the makers of
Die Another Day, but no, like its predecessor
The World is Not Enough, as the more attractive (at least to me) of the leading ladies in her film she has to turn evil, and ends up beaten at her own forte by Halle Berry somehow.
Favourite Bond Parody: A big thumbs-up for
@pyro-dragon in his shared appreciation of
Johnny English. Utterly hilarious, and yet clever in a way too... Rowan Atkinson brings a bit of Mr. Bean and a bit of Blackadder into his great parody of Bond, who is just competent enough to (eventually) get the McGuffin or take out the villain, before inevitably always finding some way to spectacularly muck it up. I would recommend all three of his adventures to any Bond or Atkinson fan.
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