Tomorrow we’ll have our review of Skyfall, but before we finished out our 30 Days of Bond, no recap would be complete without some rankings.
50 years of cinema, six different actors portraying the leading role, 23 films, (24 if you count Never Say Never Again) twice as many Bond girls over that period, and hundreds of opinions over who is the best, the worst, and so on.
And so it has come time for the inevitable ranking of all things Bond. Submitted for your approval:
Top 7 / Bottom 3 Films:
1. Casino Royale
2. Goldfinger
3. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
4. Goldeneye
5. The Living Daylights
6. You Only Live Twice
(placeholder for Skyfall– will have seen soon, but undoubtedly will be in top 7)
Bottom 3:
1.Die Another Day
2. Moonraker
3. For Your Eyes Only
Anyone who has been following our reviews knows how I feel about these films. And I think this is the proper order.
Top and Bottom Bond Girls (in no particular order, that would be sexist!)
Top
Natalia Simonava: I have a weakness for redheads. And Russians.
Jill Masterson — Maybe I’m the only one, but I thought she was better than Pussy Galore. Didn’t deserve her fate. . . sniff, sniff.
Strawberry Fields — speaking of Jill Masterson homages, and again with the red hair. I like how Gemma Arterton referred to her as “the thinking man’s strumpet.” Yes. Yes.
The Countess Tracey: Oh, we have all the time in the world. Not only is it because this is Diana Rigg (and my weakness for redheads), but Bond truly loved her. She showed up the world’s greatest secret agent time and again, and was worthy to marry him. How tragic. . .
Vesper Lynd: Bond names his signature martini “The Vesper”, because once you’ve had one it’s all you want to drink. Part of Bond’s psychosis is that I think he actually did love Vesper and then had that ripped away from him through her betrayal, making Bond unable to get close to anyone since. And as much as I love redheads, I have an even bigger weakness for raven-colored hair.
Plenty O’ Toole — faaaaaaaaahhhhh. . .how I love Lana Wood. And see above about dark black hair. Like Jill Masterson, Strawberry Fields, you did not deserve your fate.
Bottom
Jinx: I just hate her. Sorry, Halle Berry. You’re great. In X-Men, Monster’s ball, and Swordfish. But this and Catwoman. . .they just suck.
Bibi Dahl — I wanted her to die. Hated her so much. You know what, Halle Berry? At least you’re not half as bad as her. Ugh. Bibi needs to die in a fire. Since so many of Bond’s girls seem to end up dead after he sleeps with them, I wanted Roger Moore to statutorally rape her so she would die. And if she was over 18, it should still be considered statutory rape because Roger Moore looked like he was 70 at this point.
Top Bond cars
1. The Aston MArtin DB5 from Goldfinger – come on, it’s a classic.
2. The Lotus in The Spy Who Loved Me. While not the coolest car itself, ever, the simple fact that it turns into a submarine is pretty darn cool
3. Countess Tracey’s Cougar XR-7. Mmmmmm. . . .muscle cars.
4. The Aston Martin Vanquish in Die Another Day – terrible movie, awesome car. The most gadgeted-out Bond car ever, and it even has a showdown with another super-gadgeted car. Pretty fun, even if it was over the top and ridiculous.
5. The Aston Martin from the opening sequence in Quantum of Solace. See above. But a great car chase scene where Bond doesn’t need any gadgets to dispatch his chasers– just a machine gun.
Best Bonds
Ok, I’m not going to rank them, as I think it is impossible for me to. Let me instead say the following about each of them:
Sean Connery: classic
George Lazenby: Vastly underrated, And the only one to never give us a bad movie.
Roger Moore: Worst. Hands down.
Timothy Dalton: Also vastly underrated
Pierce Brosnan: Could’ve been the best Bond, then made a couple of mediocre and terrible movies.
Daniel Craig: Best. Yes, I’m saying it. Skyfall has cemented him as the Best Bond. And as comparatively poor as Quantum of Solace was, it was nowhere near as bad as the worst movies done by Connery, Moore, and Brosnan, and can more be blamed on the writers’ strike than Craig’s performance, which was pretty awesome.
Now, my views are by no means infallible, so tell me what I missed, how wrong I am, and so on, in the comments below.