Thunderball

I was pretty tired and hung over the other day, so I thought I'd throw on a movie that wouldn't take too much effort to watch. I went with Thunderball because it had been ages since I'd seen any of the classic James Bond films and though I'd seen Thunderball before, all I could remember from the movie was that it had sharks in it. So yeah, SPECTRE steals some nukes, Bond sleeps with every woman with a speaking role in the film, there's a scene with a jet pack, lots of underwater fighting, the aforementioned sharks, and the guy who played Felix Leiter looked very much like a young Clint Eastwood. Sean "You're The Man Now Dog" Connery is in top form as Bond and the movie makes a point to put him in a lot of familiar places (casinos, beaches, bedrooms, secret lairs), almost making Thunderball a "greatest hits" of Bond locales and cliches. In the end, it's a Connery-era Bond flick, which means it's awesome.

Rating: Way better than Moonraker%

(Image from movieposter.com)

A View To A Kill

Although Roger Moore was like 102 when he made this, his last Bond movie, and the plot is totally ridiculous, this one isn't as bad as everybody makes it out to be. There's a lot of great locations, such as an immense horse breeding facility, a great mine set, and of course the climactic fight atop the Golden Gate Bridge. Aside from Duran Duran, the real reason to see this movie of course is Christopher Walken as Max Zorin, the crazy evil bad guy. He just chews up everything around him in this movie. Classic.

RATING: 53%

Quantum Of Solace/Role Models

At $9.50 a pop, either one of these movies would have been pretty disappointing, but if you split the difference by theater hopping, then I guess it works out. Basically the plot of the new Bond is some incomprehensible thing involving an international utilities company, and the plot of role models is kids are funny. Quantum of Solace is incomprehensible, Role Models is too comprehensible. Put them together and you have a great movie about British spies looking after kids spewing the word "motherfucker" while M lets her titties flop out for no reason and cars crash into school buses and blow up. Also the Star Trek trailer.

RATING: 53%/36% Individually, 73% combined

Moonraker

This is without a doubt the worst fucking James Bond movie there is. I cannot comprehend how the franchise ever recovered from this, or how Roger "Zero Charisma" Moore kept being James Bond for like two more movies. It was made to cash in on the Star Wars money train (space train I guess) so the climactic moment takes place on a space station designed by some megalomaniac who wants to start the human race again, in space, and also there are a lot of space lasers everywhere. This movie features Looney Tunes like comedy (a henchman named Jaws falls in love to Tchakovsky's Romeo and Juliet), terrible acting all around, and not one, but two boat chases. Boat chases? Can't we all just agree that there's not such thing as an exciting boat chase? Anyway, this movie's bad and everybody associated with making it is also a bad person so sorry if they're your third cousin or something bucko.

RATING: 22%

The World Is Not Enough

This is the third Bond movie Pierce Brosnan made, and in my opinion the best, although in everybody else's opinion it is the worst. I guess there are a couple problems. One, it is trying to be a bit darker, kind of like why people liked Casino Royale (but didn't like the Timothy Dalton ones?), but Bond says these horrible corny puns like every other line, and Two, Denise Richards is fucking terrible in it, and I mean the worst. I know the movie is ridiculous with the flying helicopters with buzz saws on them, but because Pierce Brosnan is acting well it works, but every time she opens her mouth (and she's a nuclear physicist, by the by), I just remember how stupid the whole fiasco is. Oh well, at least it has some great action scenes which is all you need from these movies in the end.

RATING: 72%

(Also, sorry for not posting last week, but I had to defend my thesis so I was a little busy. But now I'm done so everybody can call me Master Glenn now.)