TheRetroCritic

Roger Moore's second outing as 007 is a weird one... For one thing the film opens by zooming into Christopher Lee's nipples. Of which he has three. Lee plays Scaramanga, a wealthy entrepreneur with a secret desert island where he's not only building some kind of sun-powered death ray but also toying with a psychedelic fun-house-style room designed to discombobulate whoever enters it and get them killed. He's also extremely proud of his one-bullet golden gun made out of a cigarette case, a pen, a lighter and whatever else. He's one of the great Bond villains mostly because he is so darn happy with his absurd achievements and isn't afraid to show off a little. His henchman, Nick Nack, isn't quite as intimidating as the likes of Goldfinger 's OddJob (his one weakness is luggage ) but he is nevertheless just as memorable. The plot involves 007 being sent some golden bullet which MI6 believes to have come from Scaramanga and Bond is sent on a new s

Well, the polls have finally closed and I can now reveal that the Best Film Of 2012 , for the faithful followers and visitors of The RetroCritic blog is none other than... SKYFALL Seeing as 007's latest was more or less shunned by both the Golden Globes and the Oscars, I'm quite happy that at least here, on this tiny-ass blog of mine, we finally all came together and agreed: Skyfall was awesome. Although I personally enjoyed every Daniel Craig Bond films to date, Quantum Of Solace was hardly a hit with most so Skyfall, in some ways, was a return to form. Not just that but it celebrated the 50 years of Bond considerably better than when Die Another Day tried to reference past Bond outings. After the whole MGM mess, the future of 007 was unsure and we waited quite a bit of time for his next adventure so the fact that Sam Mendes delivered the goods and didn't disappoint was very refreshing. What we got was a smart thriller, a gripping action movie which deve

Goldfinger , the quintessential Bond film. The one many consider to be the best of the bunch and Sean Connery's finest. It follows the terrific  From Russia With Love and sees Bond investigating a wealthy entrepreneur with a penchant for gold (and golf) who goes by the unlikely name of Goldfinger (played by Gert Frobe) and who may or may not be plotting something sinister. The man is portrayed as a bit of a lightweight early on, it's hard to imagine the guy being a real threat to the status quo, but when 007 starts messing with him effortlessly we soon start to realize that there might be more to the dude than it originally seemed as most of what Bond does backfires eventually. Bond girl number 1 suffers a gruesome DEATH BY GOLD, Bond girl number 2 just doesn't make it and the spy himself ends up fearing for his gonads for the very first time. Somehow Bond manages to stick around after that and the rest of the film basically centers around the MI6 agent hanging ar

Gotta love those exciting, exotic locations recent Bond outings have given us... I kid. I kid 'cause I love.

Love 'em or hate 'em, the Roger Moore years were certainly worth a watch. I mean, look at the above poster. Why would you NOT go and see that? Ah Moonraker . I had forgotten this entire film but I had a feeling that re-watching it might just prove it to be so bad it would actually tower above Never Say Never Again and On Her Majesty's Secret Service as the ultimate best worst Bond movie. The very idea of 007 IN SPACE sounded ludicrous but kind of awesome so I was really looking forward to revisiting this one properly. Hm, how do I put this... Moonraker... Isn't THAT bad. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's silly, but not in the hilarious "bad movie" way I was expecting. The main problem with Moonraker isn't it's OTT plot but rather that the build-up to the whole space thing is crazy-boring. You know where the movie is going right off the bat, you've seen the poster! And yet it's like the film spends 90 minutes fumbling i

Talk about a good set-up! You've got a cool title, a kickass Duran Duran theme song, Christopher Walken, Grace Jones, all in a Bond film! How is this not widely known as THE best 007 flick out there? I'll tell ya: HORSES . Yeah, you know what's not cool to have in a Bond film? An extensive amount of time spent talking about or riding horses. I mean, I like the countryside and the pooey smell of stables as much as anyone but... Remember that scene in Goldfinger where Bond is playing golf with the titular villain? Now imagine if that scene was about an hour long. Ouch. Alright, I know it sounds like I'm panning A View To A Kill pretty harshly, but don't get me wrong: I like the movie! Christopher Walken's Max Zorin is a cool villain, Grace Jones is as striking as ever as henchwoman May Day, I like the opening ski scene, as silly as it is, and the third act is actually pretty darn decent. You've got a chase up and down the Eiffel Tower, Bond a

After re-watching the mostly abysmal Never Say Never Again , I wasn't too keen on fitting in a quick watch of Diamonds Are Forever , a movie I barely remembered and didn't recall being particularly wowed by in the first place. Turns out this one is actually not too bad. The film opens like a Saturday morning cartoon with Bond making his way to Blofeld's lair and encountering a cloning mudbath which actually IS as silly as it sounds. Once the plot starts, though, Diamonds Are Forever finally starts resembling a movie and a somewhat convoluted plot involving dodgy diamond trades, diamond-powered satellites, gay serial killers, cat clones and plenty of ladies far too young for old Sean in inexplicably skimpy outfits, begins. Oh, and it turns out the safety of the entire world rests upon one cassette tape. Clearly one of Blofeld's better constructed megalomaniac plans. Two things prevent this Bond outing from being on the same level as Never Say Never Again: 1/ S

I talk Skyfall for aaaages. Warning: SPOILERS ahead.

How do you revive a formula over 20 movies in? How do you keep the series fresh and interesting? You Skyfall . If Casino Royale  was the reboot the Bond franchise needed, then Skyfall is the boot up the reboot the Bond franchise needed. After a long wait, this new installment had to deliver, especially seeing as Quantum Of Solace was pretty poorly received by critics and audiences. With a mammoth running time of two and a half hours, a cool trailer preceding it and a promising cast, Sam Mendes' new Bond looked set to be something pretty special. And indeed, I'm happy to report, it is. Here we have a Bond film which not only sets out to tell a compelling 007 tale but honor the now 50 year-old franchise with tons of clever, sometimes quite subtle, references to classic Bond films not to mention a more personal and, ultimately, more meaningful approach to the character. Yes you've got your old Aston Martin, your baby Q (played by Ben Whishaw), new gadgets but Skyf

Licence To Kill is one of those Bond titles I remember watching several times over the years and enjoying ok. When I think about it, all I can ever picture is someone getting eaten by sharks and a freakishly young Benicio Del Toro falling to his death down some kind of conveyor belt. A re-watch later and that's still all I remember from that movie! Not that it's bad, it's actually pretty decent, but something about it just fails to make it stand out from the pack for me. The plot is actually really good with Bond's long-time American pal Felix Leiter getting chomped on by the villain's sharks on his wedding day and Bond defying M by officially resigning from MI6 and going on a rogue revenge mission. Helping him on his quest is Bond girl #1 Pam Bouvier, played by Carey Lowell, who gets a strange, if yummy, makeover about halfway through and, believe it or not, Q who proves himself to be one hell of a friend by showing up mid-mission and helping out with

Having never been a fan of Roger Moore's take on Bond, I have to say that, with the exception of Live And Let Die , I barely remembered the likes of The Spy Who Loved Me or For Your Eyes Only . So revisiting those was a bit of a must. The Spy Who Loved Me is Moore's fourth movie and as such lacks the oomph and general quality of the first couple of outings but it does fit into the pre- Moonraker category not only literally (it IS just before Moonraker :P) but also in terms of it being before Moore's films started getting really, groaningly ridiculous. This one sees Bond face a nutty villain with an underwater/overwater lair who enjoys sending people through an elevator down to a shark-infested pool of death Team America 's Kim Jong Il-style. 007 is joined by Russian Agent XXX who is played not by Vin Diesel but Barbara Bach, queen of B movies and... whatever Caveman was meant to be. Sadly, she really is the weakest link in this movie performance-wise making her

Finally, here is the first teaser trailer for 007's next: Skyfall . Doesn't give much away but man are they going for "epicness" this time around. Looks fab. Bring it on.

Here's the first teaser poster for 007's new Sam Mendes-directed outing Skyfall , expect a trailer on Monday! It doesn't tell us much more about the movie itself but it'll have to do until Monday. Lets hope that Bond isn't actually 5cm tall and doesn't walk inside an actual gunbarrel in the finished film though, that would be ridiculous...   Hilariculous in fact! 

After the success of Casino Royale , Daniel Craig's second Bond movie came with a lot of anticipation. The heat was on and people wanted confirmation that the first movie wasn't a fluke and that Craig was indeed a worthy 007. Unfortunately, Quantum Of Solace failed to wow audiences and since then the film is often dismissed as either the lesser of the latest Bond films or simply a disappointment altogether. Complaints usually involved the grittier Bourne-style approach (shaky cam, destructive indoor fist-fights, lots of jumping around), the somewhat underwhelming opening title sequence and the super serious tone palpable throughout. But you know what? The so-so Jack White/Alicia Keys musical theme aside (check out the actually great rejected theme "Forever - I Am All Yours" ), Quantum Of Solace is still one badass Bond outing and, in some ways, outdoes Casino Royale. Yes the film is very much inspired in style by the Bourne movies but frankly, I personally r

The only Bond film to star George Lazenby as 007, On Her Majesty's Secret Service was certainly a gamble. Casting a relative unknown to tackle the biggest super spy role out there after years of Sean Connery safely at the helm was a bold move to say the least. But did it pay off? Well, the film has enjoyed a cult following over the years and many regard OHMSS as one of the best Bond outings. Watching it growing up, however, I remember being less than impressed: something felt off, way off about this movie. But it’s 2012, a MILLION years later, time to take another look. It’s still no good I’m afraid. A positive attitude going in, I was hoping to enjoy the movie in a so-bad-it’s-good kind of way, as a loveably campy guilty pleasure or I was actually secretly hoping it was genuinely much better than I remembered it. And although parts of it are irresistibly kitsch or amusingly silly there is still something completely off about this whole venture. For one thi

In his third outing as Bond, Pierce Brosnan sure gave us a good show bringing his trilogy to an end in style with a film that, although not quite as good or memorable as its predecessors, made a worthy conclusion to one of 007's best eras. Before Die Another Day , that is... But The World Is Not Enough starts off with one of the longest (and best) pre-titles sequences around: Bond in an MI6 speedboat chasing a female terrorist around The Thames only to end with a hot-air balloon explosion and 007 rolling down the Millenium Dome. Check out Bond fixing his tie while underwater, boating on the road and cheekily splashing parking wardens. Then the plot kicks in as we learn that Robert Carlyle is Renard, a superhuman dude with a bullet in his head and Sophie Marceau's stripper-named Elektra King is an important part of the puzzle. Along the way, Bond meets Robbie Coltrane's always welcome sleaze-bag Valentin Zukovsky and Denise Richards who plays, ahem, nuclear physici

Awesome poster, right? Yeah well don't get your hopes up, people, this is Never Say Never Again , the 1983 "remake" of Thunderball directed by Irvin " Empire Strikes Back " Kershner and starring an aging Sean Connery in his last outing as 007. Being an unofficial Bond flick, get ready for some unofficial Bond assness. For starters, Sean Connery not only looks waaaay too old for the part but he is barely trying giving a near-catatonic performance throughout. He also has THE worst wardrobe spending most of his time in pyjamas, bad cream-coloured suits or bath robes. Remember David Niven in the old Casino Royale ? Frighteningly, he made a more convincing Bond in that movie than... Bond himself! Next to Connery's performance in this, Harrison Ford in Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull looked like a fresh-faced newborn. From the offset, you know you're in for something thoroughly unimpressive. The theme song is about as exciting as a lullaby and the unin