While it's really hard to say who is the best James Bond ever, I know who my favorite is. While I freaking love Sean Connery and Roger Moore, Pierce Brosnan is my favorite James Bond mostly because he was the one I grew up with. His movies exposed me to the 007 movies and I've been a fan since. So I owe Pierce (and my Dad who's a huge bond fan) for introducing me to the series. Ever since MGM came out with the Sean Connery 007 collection. There was no doubt they would come out with a collection of the Pierce Brosnan films. It's great that they finally came out with it, but the only include three of his four films. The film that is missing from this collection is "Tomarrow Never Dies" which was a great movie. Still, the three movies that are in this set are great movies and they are worth it.Goldeneye (1995)Possibly the best movie of this set. Goldeneye was Pierce's first time as Bond and he does a great job stepping out of the shadow of both Connery and Moore. This film was also directed by Martin Campbell who would later direct Casino Royale which ironically would be Daniel Craig's first Bond movie. This was the first Bond movie I saw in theaters and it holds a good place in my love for the bond films. From the begining of the film where 007 and 006 infiltrate the Soviet chemical weapons facility to the climax where James and Alec fight on the hidden satellite dish, this film is a BLAST!!! The action scenes are fantasic and creative. The characters do things you wouldn't count one like Bond driving a tank in a great car chase scene. All the actors do a fine job as well. Sean Bean was great as Alec Trevlyan, the 00 agent gone bad. He was like a mere shadow of Bond and Alec gives you the impression of what it could be like if Bond worked for the terroists. It was rare to see a Bond villain end up being an old friend of James Bond and this film pulls it off well. Of course we have the Bond girls as well. Izabella Scorupco as Natalya Simonova was really good. She was a strong woman who knew how to follow her instincts and she made a good par to go along with Bond. Famke Janssen as the sadist Xenia Onatopp was darn crazy in a good way. She was a character who enjoyed pain in that werid sort of way. She may rank as one of the best evil Bond girls along with Caroline Munro's Naomi (The Spy who Loved me) to name a few. But my favorite character was Boris Grishenko played by Alan Cumming. A crazy and slezy hacker who was a a former co-worker of Natalya and now works for Alec. His line "I AM INVINCIBLE!" always caught on to me and I always found myself saying that line anytime I beat a hard game.
The World is Not Enough (1999)This was actually the third James Bond film to star Pierce Brosnan. This film was also unfortunately the final time Desmond Llewelyn would play Q before his death. After this film, John Cleese (who appears in this film as well as R) would fill in the role in the next flick. This films had a really great revenge story to it with the main villains trying to take down MI6 after previous unseen mission. Sophie Marceau was fantasic as Elektra King, young woman who was once innocent but is now twisted thanks to her former captors and MI6's previous use of her. She has that innocent look in her eyes that make you want to hug her, but holds a dark secret behind those eyes. Robert Carlyle was also great as Renard, the main villain. He plays a man on the verge of death trying to give the world one last punch to the face before he dies with the bulliet that's stuck in his brain. Denise Richards was decent as bond girl Dr. Jones (Not Indiana Jones). She was a character that was able to hold her own in certain events, but I couldn't really see Denise Richards as a nuclear physicist. Hey, it's more believeible than Tara Reid as a scientist in "Alone in the Dark." Once again, the action scenes are fantastic. The begining boat chase was possibly my favorite action scene in the movie with Bond pretty much destroying everything with Q's boat. I also loved the action scene in the nuclear plant with Bond barly esacping an expoltion in the tunnel.
Die Another Day (2002)This film seems to get a very bad rep by many critics and fans. I'll admit, it's possibly the cheeseist of the Pierce Brosnan films and it has some silly moments like the main villain who changed his appearance from a Korean to a British man and it's over use of CGI. But personally, I actually enjoyed this film for some of that stuff. It was almost like a throwback to the classic Bond films. Most notibly the laser torture scene was a tribute to Golderfinger. The opening scene was also very shocking to me because I've never seen James Bond get caught and tortured the way he was in this film. It's also crazy how that was all at the start. But othe main attraction in this film (and was the most marketed) was Hallie Berry as the led Bond girl, Jinx. She was a spanky and smart woman who truly knew how to handle herself without Bond. Hallie Berry was great in the role (great looking too) and I think she should go down as one of the best Bond girls. Rosamund Pike as also fine as evil Bond girl Miranda Frost, but the twist of her character wasn't shocking since it almost became a tradtion at this point with the Brosnan films. Two Bond girls, one good and one bad. Toby Stephens was fine as the led villain, but he was possibly the most cartoony of the Brosnan films with a cartoonish method of his plans. The action scenes are always worth it alone with the car chase in the middle of the ice lake being the main highlight.
Overall, this is a must buy collection for those who don't own any of the Pierce Brosnan 007 films. The only real downside is the fact that they didn't include "Tomarrow Never Dies" which was the 2nd film of this series. If you are a fan of Pierce Brosnan's 007 films like I am, ths is for you. I also recommend getting both of the Sean Connery and Roger Moore 007 collections if you don't already.
Picture quality has been enhanced digitally and the sound quality of this series is superb.
For those of you who have Blue Ray players, good sound systems and are watching these "Ultimate" Bond films, your
experience will be comparable to the Blue Ray format.
The first Sean Connery set of three films in this series does have an additional disc for each of the titles in the set that
explains more fully all of the work that has been done to enhance the viewer's experience when watching this new "Ultimate"
series. More supplemental material would have been a nice bonus, but the films are fabulous!
No comments:
Post a Comment