James Bond Films

The first Bond film, introduces Connery as the definitive 007. Stays faithful to the plot of the book and while it's not Connery's best, starts the franchise off in splendid fashion.

A faithful adaptation of the novel and a great spy thriller. You can argue that from Goldfinger onwards, the films (with the odd exception) start to diverge from the books and carve their own niche with greater emphasis on gadgets. This one is pretty much gadget free and works extremely well as a more conventional espionage thriller with some exotic locations and memorable characters, both friend and foe. It's also blessed with some excellent visual design.

Moonraker sees the Bond franchise descend into dreadful jokiness which completely undercuts any semblance of thrilling action (admittedly never Roger's strong point, as he tended to play up the suave womanising, innuendo spouting side rather than the dangerous/deadly secret agent side of the character). The faults - the pigeon that does a double-take as Bond's motorised gondola hovercraft glides past, the 2001 fanfare, the Close Encounters theme, the Magnificent Seven theme - cheeky homage or just lazy writing? I think the latter. Jaws being turned into a gurning buffoon throughout the movie. Roger's dialogue - just non-stop double entendre - the odd quip's fine but it's pretty much every single line. Ok, Bond films have always required suspension of disbelief, but sending him into space is perhaps a leap too far. The good bits - superb production design by Ken Adam, an impressive space battle finale, Michael Lonsdale's Drax is one of the better Bond villians (great beard!) and although I've complained about them in this review, Q's "I think he's attempting re-entry." line has to rate as one of the best double entendres in the entire series. Final verdict - poor if you like your Bond grittier and a bit more serious, entertaining if watched on a different level - that of complete cheesy hokum. Three out of five because even a poor Bond film is still great fun.

Not one of the better Bond films it has to be said. Roger Moore is far too long in the tooth to make a credible 007 and gets by on more of his usual innuendo. The villains plot is pretty much a rip-off of Goldfinger (corner the market in micro chips, rather than gold, by destroying the main source of supply - silicon valley in this case). Walken plays a psychopathic nutter complete with maniacal laughter and Grace Jones is fairly impressive as his henchwoman. That aside, the movie is a bit of a let-down with many of the action sequences looking tired and shoe-horned into the movie. It's Roger's last Bond film so I'll just say 'So long and thanks for all the smut' - that and at least we'll always have The Spy Who Loved Me.

A superb re-boot of the franchise after the entertaining but silly Die Another Day. The producers have wisely taken Bond back to basics, ditched the terrible CGI and come up with some fantastic stuntwork in the opening half of the film. They've also found an excellent actor in Daniel Craig who delivers a great performance as the newly promoted double-O agent - hard as nails and with the cruel nature of Fleming's original creation. The second half of the film settles into more of a tense thriller and love story as Bond takes on Le Chiffre (played with oily menace by Mads Mikkelsen) in a high stakes poker game and falls for his companion (an excellent and quite lovely Eva Green). Much of Ian Fleming's original story is preserved in the screenplay for Casino Royale, something we've not really had since the early Connery movies and it makes for a different sort of Bond film than we've been used to and I'm glad the producers chose to take a few risks with the formula. There's a nice opening to follow up on the loose ends left at the end of the movie, the next of which is rumoured to be something of a sequel and on the strength of this outing, I for one will be more than happy to see James Bond return in...

*One minor gripe, nothing to do with the film per se - why on earth couldn't they have given it the 15 certificate it obviously deserves, maybe that way I wouldn't have been subjected to the huge number of ADHD little fuckers that mummy and daddy so thoughtfully brought along to fidget and chatter through a long and sometimes rather talky film, to piss me off.

One of the strengths of the Bond franchise (and I'd presume one of the reasons for its longevity) is that it adapts to the times. Casino Royale was a reboot of the series and brought in elements of the rival Bourne series in the delivery of action scenes and providing a grittier tone. It also remained remarkably faithful to the original source novel. Quantum of Solace is perhaps the first film of the series that can be described as a sequel in that it picks up directly where the last one left off and continues the story. Quantum works very much like The Dark Knight as a continuation of a story in tone and concept and although it shuns much of the usual Bond trappings - quips, gadgets and over the top villains, delivers a solid story, taking both the underlying plot and Bond's development (with another fine performance from Daniel Craig). Craig has hinted that the tone of his Bond films so far reflect the characters personal loss and that further down the line, we may see a return to the previous archetype. I for one am happy with the current incarnation, am interested to see where they go with the next one - having found out more about the Quantum organisation and would welcome future films continuing in this vein. After all, there's always Moonraker to go back to on DVD if you miss the more outlandish aspects of the series...