Las Vegas Weekly

List. Bond list.

Bond expert (and spy-in-training) T.R. Witcher takes you through the ouevre—with some rankings thrown in

Dr. No (1962)

In a smoky London casino, Sean Connery needs only to say his name to announce himself as both a screen icon and a man you don’t want to mess with. It’s all a little quaint now, though the peerless James Bond theme, heard in all its glory, and the first of designer Ken Adam’s impeccably sleek sets give some feeling of how fresh this must have been in ’62. More detective than spy, armed with his wits and Walther PPK, Bond patrols the post-colonial ruins of the British Empire. Next stop Jamaica, where he calmly seduces exotic villainess Miss Taro, right after she’s tried to have him killed. Then he shoots her unarmed boss twice, once in the back. On Doctor No’s island hideaway, he bursts into song at the site of sea goddess Ursula Andress, whose knife-wielding Honey Rider is both strong-willed and totally submissive to 007. Finally, there’s dinner with Dr. No, the sinister genius with black metal hands who’s knocking American rockets off course. To Bond, No is clearly, obviously insane, and can be met with urbane contempt. To No, Bond is only a “clumsy policeman,” and can be met with urbane contempt.

From Russia With Love (1963)

Bond is lured to Istanbul by the terrorist network SPECTRE, led by the unseen, white cat-stroking Ernst Stavro Blofeld. The mission: Steal a Russian decoding machine. The bait: gorgeous cipher clerk Tatiana Romanova. In love with his file photo, she promises to help him if he ferries her to England. Along the way 007 battles Rosa Klebb’s poisoned-tip shoe, finds a friend in raffish Turkish section chief Kerim Bey, enjoys a girl fight at a gypsy camp, and lends a hand for the assassination of Russian gangster Krilenku. Decoder and damsel in hand, and backed up by composer John Barry’s potent bongos, Bond escapes aboard the Orient Express, while stone-cold SPECTRE heavy Robert Shaw patiently waits to kill him with his wristwatch garrote. Connery, hard as nails, tricks Shaw into opening his tear-gas-enabled briefcase. Then the gentlemen viciously fight to the death. Soon after, he’s chased by a grenade-dropping helicopter. Never harried, he calmly buys enough time to assemble his rifle and guns down the chopper with one well-placed shot.

Goldfinger (1964)

The purest distillation of the Bond formula. Bond shrugs off a wetsuit to reveal a white dinner jacket, then sticks a red rose in the lapel—and we buy it. Shirley Eaton looks otherworldly covered in gold paint. Three Austin Powers movies can’t approach the genius there-it-is-ness of Pussy Galore, Goldfinger’s brassy, judo-wielding personal pilot. And Bond has rarely been in more peril then when he finds himself strapped to a table with a laser beam advancing toward his privates. “Do you expect me to talk?” he asks uneasily, hoping to con his way out of danger. “No, Mr. Bond,” comes Goldfinger’s pitiless reply. “I expect you to die.” The rest is a pure delight: Shirley Bassey’s glorious theme song; the first real scene with the scornful Q; the Aston Martin ejector seat; Odd Job’s decapitating bowler hat; and Goldfinger’s ingenious plan to irradiate Fort Knox, still the best plot in the series. Connery can’t quite pull off the blue terrycloth robe, but has anyone ever looked better in a three-piece suit?

Thunderball (1965)

“His needs are more/so he gives less”: Connery, at his alpha-male peak, embodies the series’ best song lyric. The hunt for two hijacked atomic bombs takes Bond to the glamorous Bahamas. Bad guy Largo’s eye patch means that he’s up to no good, and femme fatale Fiona Volpe (the sizzling Luciana Paluzzi) wears her menacing SPECTRE ring for easy villain identification. From the thrilling teaser—Bond fights a man in drag and takes a ride in a jetpack—to the epic underwater frogmen battle at the end, nearly every scene delivers some piece of the James Bond trifecta: sex, style and danger. 007 sucks a poisonous egg spine from the foot of juicy Claudine Auger, then spears a henchman at 50 paces and notes, “I think he got the point.” Richard Maibaum’s dialogue is just as sharp, and the film ends on the ultimate high note. Bond launches a weather balloon thousands of feet into the air, attaches himself to the line, and waits for a plane to fly overhead and whisk him away, with Auger in his arms. But how will they get down?

You Only Live Twice (1967)

Sean Connery goes Japanese (with a wig and some eye prosthetics), and his flaccid performance suggests he’s desperate to move on. Art imitates life: The film opens with the fake assassination of 007. This buys him time to find out who’s swallowing Soviet and American capsules in outer space. Bond cruises the Tokyo subways aboard the pimped-out office train of Tiger Tanaka, head of Japanese Secret Service. Later he steals a kiss with delectable Kissy Suzuki on the side of a dormant volcano that hides SPECTRE’s secret lair. Soon after, he and his ninja pals drop in to blow the place up. Little Nellie, Q’s chopper-in-a-suitcase, is the perfect carry-on for the modern man of action, and John Barry’s dreamy score almost puts the film over the top. But do we really need to see a helicopter pick up a car with a magnet and drop it in Tokyo Bay? Worse is Bond’s first face-to-face with Blofeld. In the novels he was a towering supervillain. Here he’s merely Donald Pleasance with a goofy scar. For the first time the series is smelling stale, but Pleasance delivers one classic line: “Kill Bond! Now!”

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)

The best Bond. Because, without denying us all the pleasures of Bond—stylish music, an international harem of brainwashed allergy patients, a grand villain’s lair high in the Swiss Alps, and kinetic action scenes years ahead of their time—the movie tells the strongest story. Bond falls in love with troubled Contessa Teresa de Vincenzo, played by the luminous Diana Rigg; he decides to quit the service and get married. But first he must go undercover as a stuffy genealogist to stop Blofeld from unleashing biological weapons on the world. (Blofeld, miscast again, is now played by affable, scar-free Telly Savalas.) Longtime series editor Peter Hunt, in his one shot in the director’s chair, piles on the goodness: Bond makes a daring escape down a mountain on one ski, survives a great rally car smashup, gets buried in an avalanche, and dusts himself off intime to raid Blofeld’s stronghold at dawn with a helicopter armada. The climactic bobsled chase is a white-knuckler. One-time Bond George Lazenby more than holds his own, especially in the bone-crunching fights and the tragic final scene, when Bond is, at last, broken. The Australian model was no Connery, but to date neither is anyone else.

Diamonds Are Forever (1971)

For a few early scenes Diamonds Are Forever pulls the impossible feat of making us believe the newly returned Sean Connery and Jill St. John are the world’s most glamorous couple. Bond partners with sexy jewel smuggler Tiffany Case, and the two spar like pros. But count on the childish plot to spoil the grown-up fun: This one has something to do with diamonds and a killer laser beam. Among the ridiculous characters: a fey Blofeld (now a scar-free Charles Gray, and miscast again), real-life sausage king Jimmie Dean as a Howard Hughes-like recluse, tag-team gymnastic hitwomen Bambi and Thumper, and the extravagantly gay assassins Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd. St. John’s IQ diminishes reel by reel, and Connery looks silly (is that possible?) piloting a moon buggy through the desert. Yet his attitude throughout is easygoing, and why not? He earned a record $1 million. But where did those enormous eyebrows come from?

Live and Let Die (1973)

Nothing beats the hilarious sight of The Saint-ly Roger Moore, the newly minted Bond, sleuthing his way most uncomfortably through the underworld of Harlem: James Bond has never looked more incapable in the entire series. On the (very meager) plus side, Yaphet Kotto has fun as the diabolical heroin pusher Mr. Big, who masquerades as a UN diplomat, while Beatles producer George Martin whips up a funky score. Moore manages to deflower Jane Seymour’s tarot card reader, wields a mean-looking .45 and uses crocodiles as stepping stones. But he comes off like a phony pretty boy playing with his dad’s collars and cufflinks. Someone call Miss Moneypenny. Maybe she can find the real Bond.

The Man With the Golden Gun (1974)

There’s one fabulous scene where Bond weaves a seaplane through the mysterious ocean buttes off the coast of Thailand en route to a showdown at the staggering hideout of Scaramanga, the world’s top assassin (played by charismatic Christopher Lee). Propelled by John Barry’s mesmerizing music, this brief moment perfectly captures the series’ exotic style of adventure. The rest is all theater of the absurd: Roger Moore sports a third nipple, drives a car off a twisting ramp into a complete 360 (cool yet pointless), stuffs Hervé Villechaize, as a mini-me henchman, into a suitcase, and plays with nitwit Bond Girl Britt Ekland. Moore shows hints of Bond’s killer instinct—he slaps poor Maud Adams around; she gets a better part in another Bond movie for her troubles—but at best he can only deliver the killer one liner. He aims a rifle at a weapons maker’s crotch and demands information. “Speak now,” he warns, “or forever hold your piece.”

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

The quintessential James Bond action moment remains Rick Sylvester’s fabulous single-take ski jump off Canada’s Mt. Asgard, where Bond parachutes into the modern age. Much of what follows is a rip-off of You Only Live Twice—a megalomaniac tries to start WWIII by pitting the Russians and Americans against each other. But the teaser is so good we’re willing to accept Moore on his own terms as a droll Bond-vivant. Barbara Bach’s Russian accent slips on and off more often than her clothes, but the two look great together. Jaws, the giant killer with steel teeth, is a promising idea—until he drops a boulder on his foot and becomes a buffoon. Marvin Hamlisch’s entertaining score is full-on Seventies action disco, and nobody does it better than Carly Simon’s theme song. Bond’s submersible Lotus Esprit is a blast, and the “cast of thousands” submarine tanker finale is grandly over-the-top.

Moonraker (1979)

En route to his apotheosis as a cartoon character, 007 is thrown out of an airplane with no parachute, survives a haywire centrifuge, races a souped-up gondola through the canals of Venice—it soon transforms into a hovering gondola that parades along the street—slides down the Sugar Loaf Mountain cableway in Rio, escapes an Amazon waterfall in a hang glider, and then hops a shuttle ride into space, where crazy billionaire Hugo Drax plans to rain death upon the human race from a stealth space station. There’s even a gee-whiz laser-gun battle between Drax’s minions and U.S. space marines (good to know we have them). To note how far Moonraker strays from the cool brutality of early Bond is like beating on a wounded dog. So, instead, let’s toast the fine villainous performance by Michael Lonsdale. With impeccable dryness he orders his henchman to “Look after Mr. Bond. See that some harm comes to him.” Later he delivers one of the best lines ever after Bond has reached Drax’s jungle hideaway, having survived the latest attempt on his life: “James Bond, you appear with the tedious inevitability of an unloved season.” Now, it’s sadly true.

For Your Eyes Only (1981)

In this down-to-earth reboot, Bond races to retrieve a British decoding machine before it falls into the wrong hands. Who can he trust: debonair Kristatos, or his rival, the raffish smuggler Colombo? Hint: Colombo’s the one who gives Bond his gun back. Eyes Only is tough, straightforward stuff, lit up by a brassy score (courtesy of Rocky’s Bill Conti) and some of the best action in the series. There’s a perilous ski chase in a bobsled run, a perilous fall from the top of a Greek monastery (aces again to Rick Sylvester), a perilous boat-dragging bit, and plenty of old-fashioned fisticuffs, shoot-outs and car chases in between. Bond even finds time for a little site seeing on the Greek Islands with longhaired beauty Carole Bouquet, who’s armed with a crossbow and out to avenge her parents’ death. Roger Moore is beginning to look his age but courageously goes along for the rough ride. When he kicks a hitman’s teetering car off the edge of a cliff, for a moment he becomes a convincing 007.

Octopussy (1983)

There’s a real movie in here somewhere. Mad Soviet general Orlov and crazy Afghan prince Kamal Khan plan to nuke a NATO air base, make it look like an accident and watch Western Europe disarm. But that movie gets lost amidst camels doing double takes and stale innuendos of the “Later, perhaps” variety. At least Maud Adams puts her riveting cheekbones to good use this time as the enigmatic titular character, who runs a circus and smuggles fake Faberge eggs. The action is also solid. Bond threads an Acrostar mini-jet through closing hangar doors, battles knife-wielding twins on top of a train, races to the inevitable bomb countdown (dressed as a clown, no less), and storms Khan’s palace with help from Octopussy’s gymnastic hitwomen. The capper—Bond clings to Kahn’s plane in midair—is ridiculous and riveting.

A View to a Kill (1985)

In the opening minutes, Bond, trapped in Siberia, fashions a snowboard out of a snowmobile outrigger and makes his escape with some dazzling board work. But why do we hear the Beach Boys “California Girls” instead of the warhorse Bond theme? Sigh. The movie is downhill from there. Christopher Walken, who aims to trigger an earthquake and destroy Silicon Valley, tries his psychotic best to keep things afloat, but despite a BASE jump off the Eiffel Tower and an audacious finale atop the Golden Gate Bridge, this is the worst movie shot in Paris and San Francisco ever made. Roger Moore, then 58, looks like he could use a stunt double to walk around the block. He certainly needs one to tussle in the sack with the incomparably strange Grace Jones. The one highlight: Bond’s car flies up a ramp, lands on top of a moving bus, and flies off, then the entire top half of the car is taken out when it rams into a guard pole. Cool! But seconds later the back half of the car is dismembered, and Bond finishes the chase on his two front wheels. Lame.

The Living Daylights (1987)

The Timothy Dalton era begins with a moody opening reel: Bond covers the defection of a Russian spy and must choose whether to assassinate an amateur sniper. Pity he later falls for the blandest of all Bond girls, chaste cellist Maryam d’Abo. Then Joe Don Baker pops up as a loudmouthed American arms dealer and the ambitious plot turns confusing. Still, the movie is book ended by two sensational gags. In the teaser, 007 and assailant grapple in a jeep loaded with explosives as it races down the Rock of Gibraltar, crashes through a stone retainer wall and plummets toward the sea. And in the equally high-flying climax, Bond destroys a Soviet air base in Afghanistan with help from the mujhadeen—back in the pre al-Qaeda days when they were led by Oxford-educated gentlemen and were on our side. Then, for kicks, he dangles from behind a cargo plane in midair. Dalton’s brooding Bond is a breath of fresh air, and there’s plenty of good texture. But even he looks like a fool escaping down a mountain on a cello case.

License to Kill (1989)

Stripped of his license to kill, Bond pursues a vendetta against drug czar Franz Sanchez after Sanchez feeds Bond’s buddy Felix Leiter to the sharks. The script and players are willing as the dark, avenging Bond runs roughshod over the DEA, Hong Kong Police, and even M. The ambitious final set piece, where Bond and leggy CIA pilot Carey Lowell destroy a convoy of gasoline tankers on the windy back roads of Mexico, would have been an all-time classic in more assured hands—the whole movie feels that way. The usually welcome repartee with Q is out-of-place here, and who thought hiring Wayne Newton was a good idea? Still, if Dalton ultimately lacks a certain well-worn hedonism we want in Bond, his frayed and dangerous agent on the run leaves you wanting more. A young Benicio del Toro flashes a wicked grin and switchblade, and Robert Davi proves effective as Dalton’s villainous foil. He takes Bond in as a friend and gets incinerated for his trouble.

GoldenEye (1995)

After a six-year break, Pierce Brosnan’s mostly solid debut is undermined by distracting music, poor costume design, and a script that spends too much time trying to make post-modern hay with Bond’s anachronisms. But it also gives us the finest two scenes of the Brosnan era: Dame Judi Dench serves ice as the new M, imperially dismissing 007 as a Cold War misogynist —surely this is the only action movie in history to use that word—and later, Bond and friend-turned-villain Alec Trevelyan (the reliable Sean Bean), throw down the meanest fight this side of Jason Bourne. For good measure, director Martin Campbell throws in an endless bungee jump off a dam and a tank chase that blitzkriegs through St. Petersburg. Brosnan, who was always destined to be 007 someday, looks great in a tux. He tries to fuse Connery’s steeliness with Moore’s breeziness. Frustratingly, this means that for the next four movies scenes about Bond’s existential loneliness will rub up against cheesy innuendo, an unsatisfying marriage.

Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

Media mogul Rupert Murdock—er, Elliot Carver, played by a somewhat bewildered and bewildering Jonathon Pryce—wants to start a war with China to boost ratings. Martial arts ace Michelle Yeoh is inspired casting as Bond’s Chinese opposite number, but gets only a few scenes to really strut her stuff. Ex-lover turned desperate housewife Teri Hatcher turns up for a late night visit for a weak stab at drama. The bare plot takes in a nifty car chase in a parking garage as well as a decent motorcycle v. helicopter showdown in Saigon. But we must also endure the late Vincent Schiavelli as a ludicrous killer with a parka-like German accent. You couldn’t come up with a better parody if you tried. Though Pryce does try, madly typing headlines with one hand on a Tablet PC.

The World is Not Enough (1999)

An unusual love triangle develops between Bond, oil heiress Sophie Marceau and Robert Carlyle, the terrorist who kidnapped her and can’t feel pain or pleasure because of a bullet in his head. Marceau smolders as a deranged good girl, and Carlyle makes a strangely sympathetic villain. It’s the most ambitious film of the Brosnan cycle, but the story is more tangled than Jenga, which kills the drama. Then Denise Richards turns up as a physicist in hot pants: How far Bond’s taste in women has slipped! We could forgive everything if the action was good. But outside the impressive Thames River boat chase that kicks the movie off, the stunts are lackluster, an unpardonable sin in the world of Bond. But of course! Half a Bond movie is farmed out to the second unit. This used to be an honorable proving ground for future directors. But the Bonds’ generous patronage system now stinks of status-quo-clinging ineptitude.

Die Another Day (2002)

A Vogue spread featuring Pierce Brosnan and the divine Halle Berry in super-sexy, action-packed photos turned out better than the movie. It’s a shame, because glimpses of a great Bond flick are all around. Bond is captured in the opening minutes! Tortured! He turns up in soaking pajamas in a plush Hong Kong hotel and books himself into the penthouse suite! He lounges around sexy Havana and smokes cigars with raffish Emilio Echevarría. He fences young-punk bad guy Gustav Graves in the best villain encounter since the golf game in Goldfinger. Even the hokey invisible Aston Martin works, thanks to spot-on effects. But after an hour, when the action shifts to Graves’s Ice Palace (don’t ask—it’s in Iceland … something to do with a killer laser beam ...), the movie breaks apart. The bikini-clad Berry channels Ursula Andress but is stuck with the series’ worst dialogue, and watching a CGI Bond parasurfing over CGI waves is conclusive evidence the series is unlikely to return to form under current management.

Casino Royale (2006)

For the first hour or so, Casino Royale is fairly standard Bond hi-jinks—only done with a level of craft and energy that’s been lacking for a couple of decades. The super opening construction-site chase, with Bond and Parkour marvel Sebastian Foucan jumping on and off cranes, is a great blend between old-school Bond spectacle and the fast pace of today’s action movie. But when the story of Bond’s efforts to bankrupt Le Chiffre, a terrorist financer, at poker takes hold, the series finds redemption. The Bond Formula albatross is at last tamed by a textured portrait of a hard man falling in love. It’s the best Bond since Majesty’s—and a superbly entertaining movie by any definition. In between vicious stairwell fights, an awesomely wrecked Aston Martin, a sinking house in Venice, and a ballsy torture scene straight from Fleming, are spry and sharp moments between Bond and Eva Green’s stunning Vesper Lynd. Sean Connery is unimpeachable, but Daniel Craig creates, by far, the most compelling Bond in screen history—pushing at the opposite extremes of unrelenting hardness and gallant vulnerability, he effortlessly commands the screen.

Quantum of Solace (2008)

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