To be able to call oneself a "Movie Buff" I think it is a requirement that you see all 22 James Bond movies. Well both Ben and I are "Movie Buffs"! We decided one day that we were going to watch every single one in order. It seems like such a long time ago that we started but after a few months we are done. I'm even kind of sad about it. We looked forward to getting the next one in the mail (Netflix) and were so excited when they put all the older ones on Instant Watch (when we were almost done however). I would be lying if I said I enjoyed all of them or for that matter, stayed awake through all of them, but I can say that James Bond is incredible.
The James Bond franchise is timeless yet a perfect portrayal of the era. Each movie has an opening credits scene. Now these made Ben and I laugh almost every time and we knew if the movie was going to be good or not based on it. There were lots of black silhouettes of naked women doing everything from swimming to jumping to shooting guns. Technology advancements throughout the years was also evident in each movie as the effects got better. The songs for each are different and reflect the music from the decade it was made as well. Everything from Tom Jones to Carly Simon to Sheena Easton to Duran Duran to Garbage to Madonna. One of our favorites was "Live and Let Die" by Paul McCartney and of course the theme from "Goldfinger", is simply classic.
Even though James Bond is portrayed by different actors, 007 is ageless and unchanging. I think that's why it works so well and why they continued to make more films. I have to say though, that some men did better than others and I have my favorite. My preferred Bond order would have to be...Daniel Craig, Sean Connery, Pierce Bronson, Timothy Dalton, Roger Moore, and then George Lazenby. We struggled to make it through the Roger Moore movies and George Lazenby only made one, which I slept through some of. Each actor, aside from George, had at least one movie that would have to be on my top 10 Bond movies list. Casino Royale with Daniel Craig, Diamonds are Forever with Sean Connery, For Your Eyes Only with Roger Moore, License to Kill with Timothy Dalton, and Goldeneye with Pierce Bronson.
To be considered a great Bond movie it had to have a few key elements...a car chase or a boat chase or both, Bond running while being shot at and never getting hit, a great escape, huge explosions, a fancy fast car, a creepy looking bad guy, cheeky remarks with sexual innuendo, and a woman with a kinky name. James Bond was an expert in many fields, whether it was skiing, scuba diving, sword fighting, driving, bomb diffusing, and sky diving, he could do it all. The bad guys always tried various and unique ways to kill Bond like, lasers, sharks, deforesting machines, drowning, burning alive, buried alive, or just old fashioned bullets, but Bond could not be stopped.
It was the lack of too many cheeky remarks that makes Daniel Craig my favorite Bond. It got really old to me and a little ridiculous at times, what with the remarks about re-entry and Christmas, so I was glad Daniel Craig's Bond refrained from using so many. I did enjoy a few giggles over the women with the kinky names...Pussy Galore, Xenia Onatopp, Plenty O'Toole, Holly Goodhead, Honey Ryder, and of course Octopussy.
Bond's helpers were also a necessary item needed for a Bond movie. 'M' was an old guy up until Pierce Bronson's Bond and it was almost laughable, the way he controlled Bond. Dame Judy Dench as 'M' was my favorite. She has a way about her that fit the role perfectly. Moneypenny was 'M's' personal secretary and madly in love with James despite all of his philandering ways. Then there was 'Q', the mad scientist behind all of Bond's clever contraptions. The same actor was in every single Bond movie until the day he died. It was actually pretty sad watching him leave with his "escape route" knowing he would not be back. Daniel Craig's Bond doesn't even have a 'Q'.
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