On a different note, what are some of everyone’s favorite Bond films here? Specifically out of the Connery films, which ones are “must-watch”? I’ve been kind of going through a “classic film education” on my own time the past year and want to know what classic Bond fans consider to be the most representative of the franchise.
The best representative of what Bond at its peak can be is undoubtedly
Goldfinger. It sets the bar in the brashness, boldness, and the kind of fantastic fun every Bond film after strives to be. Bond is never meant to be "real," Fleming himself said that the books were intended to be something fun for every hot-blooded man out there.
I love Goldfinger but the best Connery has ever been as Bond is without doubt
From Russia with Love. It's the film-Bond closest to "real" as it can be allowed. Bond here is stripped down and vulnerable, not some impervious super man, but still in the bold and fun vein the movie sets it up to be.
As for other of the picks from the later installments:
On Her Majesty's Secret Service is great because it's a well put-together action film, decidedly
not because of Lazenby. The whole film works as an action piece, something that could still be made yesterday, because they had to edit around Lazenby. Lazenby noticeably has very little to say and do on screen if you watch closely.
I love Roger Moore's Bond, even if it's sometimes hokey and really awful; it's always fun. I actually don't care much for
Live and Let Die, I actually prefer
The Spy Who Loved Me a lot more. Great stunts, great fun, and for a shoe-string thin story, the movie moves fairly quickly---something some of Moore's films sometimes are really bad at. Special mention goes to
Moonraker, as it's a cash in on Star Wars and extremely silly but it has one of the best opening stunts ever put to film.
Dalton had a rough start with
The Living Daylights, I find it a bit too conventional and conservatively made which makes it feel noticeably slower and duller than it actually is.
License to Kill is the start of Bond trying to be like other film series at the time (Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, etc) where street crime dramas with over-the-top gore was the order of the day. It got flack for it in the day but...damn it, if the film isn't actually better for it.
Brosnan:
GoldenEye. That's all that needs to be said. This is second to Goldfinger in the kind of "peak performance" Bond films try to strive for. Fun, adventurous, great action, great editing and cinematography, and zippy pace with performances you can get behind in a clear-cut, simple story. This is the best of "modern" Bond: a summation and distillation of what has come before while paving a new way for the rest.
Tomorrow Never Dies is comparatively more sluggish and you see the belt loosening here, but I still think it's a pretty fun watch considering.
Craig:
Casino Royale. Without repeating myself too much: okay film, but certainly the best offering from the franchise since GoldenEye. Skyfall, I guess if you want, but you might as well just pop in The Dark Knight----it wants to be that movie.
Honorable mention: Not a film but a video game, it's from the Brosnan-era that I found so much like the films at the time and fun; it was for the Xbox,
Everything or Nothing At All. Big all-star cast in a ridiculous story with Willem Dafoe as a Russian baddie with a giant laser tank out to do...something. Whatever. You play as Brosnan's Bond doing stupid, fun stuff. The game can be a bit clunky as I recall but it was fun, no less.