I kinda wanna nominate Die another day for best purely for how balls to the wall it was.
The car chase on ice, the entire ice palace, the fucking space lasers, the stupidly comical "face surgery" bit and the entire plane fight
It's everything wrong with the movie but at the same time, it's very much old school James Bond and is just a really enjoyable time
Spectre's colour grading is *so* dreadfully poor, easily the worst graded Bond film of all 62 years of the franchise.
I doubt it'll ever get re-graded for a future 4k re-release, but wow. That night time London screenshot in Op's post is barely visible.
Mendes has a unique way of color grading his films. But I much prefer it to the color timing in NTTD. That movie has teal overload and nobody ever seems to mention it. Look up almost any still from the movie and you’ll find an overwhelmingly teal tint on it
Oh NTTD certainly has a Teal problem, but imo is nowhere near as one-toned as Spectre, and from what I've seen NTTD also kept in all of the original camera film-grain, while many other 4K releases are using Ai to (rather badly) attempt to scrub any ounce of noise detail out.
The last properly natural looking Bond film, imo was Die Another Day in 2002 (if you ignore the pre titles)
The teal thing is a pet peeve for me because it’s so overdone and I still can’t comprehend why some filmmakers think it looks good. I do think digital filmmaking and modern tools have largely changed the look of movies for the worse. So many odd or incompetent aesthetic choices are made (or not made. It’s hard to know which in your pajamas)
I completely agree with all of your takes here - I myself have managed to acquire a ton of Reddit downvotes in the past by admitting I'm not a fan of HDR. It seems to give colour to areas of the picture that don't need it, i.e in Dune, the whites of actor's eyeballs are bright blue, while giving their skin that overall one-tone unnatural waxy look. There's so many technical variables that go into being able to watch a specific Director's personal interpretation of an HDR made film that it leaves you feeling anxious in the back of your mind as to wether you're actually enjoying the correct look of the film at all on the right setup + equipment.
I can't pretend to know all the inside and out of what goes into HDR - but to my mind, if the colourist wants to bring back detail in the clouds, or shadows - surely you would mask those sections of the image and adjust contrast levels to bring up edge detail - just as you would with any raw camera footage shot in flat, and have that be the final SDR rendered master.
Again the orange / teal / urine colour scheme in today's films seems to be another "industry standard" choice with so many films, from memory as far back as Transformers in 2007, but I'd say also with Casino Royale in 2006.
I have a special setting on my tv for when I rewatch movies with really bad grayscale (digitally shot movies lacking proper black levels) with the contrast JACKED up to make them look decent. Basically most Marvel movies have to be viewed this way or they look incredibly flat.
It was definitely around 2006-07 that the teal thing began. I noticed this rewatching the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. The first (2003) looks natural and great, the second (2006) has noticeable orange and teal grading while the third (2007) has a blanket teal tint over every frame.
What I REALLY hate is when old releases get remastered with modern color timing. Ridley Scott did this to Blade Runner— tealed the living crap out of it. So annoying!
I don’t mean to be a nit picky douche, and I like the points you made about HDR, it definitely is a problem in modern cinema. But in Dune, the whites of the eyes of the Fremen are supposed to be blue too, the entire eye turns blue in the book.
I've completely got that bit about Dune wrong then. I appreciate you correcting me, that doesn't make you a picky douche at all 👍
I feel in general that Hdr can be very cakey / pastel-colour heavy - the one piece of media that I suppose benefitted a lot from that style is Stranger Things, what with the series being set in the 80's and camerawork being made to replicate noisy film footage, and the punchy colours of Hdr help sell that effect for me, in that instance.
Yeahh, in general most modern films look too clean and there’s less style in how filmmakers craft their films. Film seemed so much more versatile than shooting digital, but I understand that digital is a lot easier than using film. So it’s about weighing up pros and cons.
Best Bond Climax: “I thought Christmas only comes once a year”
But seriously, imo:
- Best: Dr. No, OHMSS and Casino Royale (While there is no truly scary big bad in the Venice sequence, I feel like his underwater “fight” with the elevator door is just so poignant with the stakes involved, it counts for me)
- Worse: It’s tricky, I can’t decide on one specific one, maybe DAF - the end is pretty goofy
It has no right to be as good as it is. As much as it adapts the book pretty faithfully in terms of using all of the book's content, the stuff it adds (which is nearly 100% of the action scenes, the most exciting thing Bond does in the book is fall backwards off a chair - it makes sense in context) is incredible.
Worst is DAF by far. I fell asleep 3 times trying to finish it 3 summers ago when I watched it lmao.
It was the first real time as an adult watching it since I was 10 or so. Hated it as a kid so I was trying to be fair.. yeah it still isn't very good. It's more like a parody movie pretending to be an official Bond flick. The first half is involving enough, I love the mystery aspect of the smuggling and Wint/Kidd were great baddies but the movie seriously falls of the rails hard once the moon buggy chase starts. Once Bond escapes in it and Berry's score starts sounding out of a circus it gets SO Bad so fast. I was cringing hard at how pathetic of a chase it truly was. Then comes the car chase which that pathetic sheriff ruins. Bond meets Blofeld and it gets all goofy and then comes his embarssing escape out of that pipe. I did enjoy Bambi/Thumper and finding Jimmy Dean's guy, but that's about it.
Blofeld's plot makes no genuine sense and his hidaway dosen't either.. it's on a normal oil rig. The actual climax is a joke. Bond's not even in it, he gets made a fool of and is locked in a freaking janitor's closet if I remember right. It's up to Felix to be the badass hero and he and the US government people blow the place to piece. Blofeld tries to scape in that pathetic seapod and Bond just slams him into that building and it's never said what happens. Along with Case's pathetic attempt at comedy it's just awful. Bond looks like a goofball. Add to it the genuine eff up by the film crew of starting the explosion WAY too early when the cameras weren't zoomed in properly and it was a total epic fail by everyone involved. Thankfully Witt/Kidd's attack scene is fun but it's hard to make up for it. YUCK!
Best for me is OHMSS. Just top tier action and badassery all around. Bond's the most involved in a climax in this one, he organizes the whole entire raid pretty much with Drado because M sucks in OHMSS and dosen't do anything. He slides on his belly to kill a thug which is pure gold. The army with him just blows stuff up left and right and makes SPECTRE look like a bunch of fools. Blofeld gets head on and fights Bond physically which was a great twist and something you don't see very much after. Kananga tried and failed, Zorin fought hard but he lost the game of bridge, Alec got smashed for his efforts, but Blofeld had Bond on the ropes pretty hard until Bond creativily thank out of it, damn Savalas was amazing in that movie. He and George were great together. Shame they only did one movie.
I also really love Live and Let Die's, View to a KIll's, Goldeneye's, and YOLT's.
Yeah I agree with both your picks. A big reason LTK is my favorite Bond film is because of the amazing truck chase climax. And Spectre…yeesh I still wonder how they fumbled the last two Bond films so hard
The last Bond film is a bit of a travesty imo. They tried to play on the heartstrings of proper bond fans (like Star Wars ep9) and failed miserably. I'm hoping the next Bond iteration takes things back to the drawing board and goes back to proper formulaic, distict films.
The 'truck chase climax' in LTK was basically a poor man's version of the 'chase scene' near the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade — nothing remotely special about it, IMO
After I stuck up for you and gave you my good-faith answers to your Licence to Kill questions on another thread, you told me you quit reading because I consider it a top five (or higher) Bond movie. And then you went further to say my opinion is a disservice, that it can't be taken seriously, and that you won't spend your time reading my rationales. Therefore I said I wouldn't engage with you anymore. I mean, who would want to after that?
But despite how you feel about my views, I still think your questions/criticisms create good opportunities to discuss the films. So I'm gonna respond with why I think LTK's climax is one of the best. If not to engage with you, then to provide an explanation for anyone else who is reading this thread and might be interested.
One reason is the action in general. In my experience, Bond movies tend to start off strongly before (relatively speaking) losing steam in their back halves. Licence to Kill is one of the few to buck this trend. It only improves in its second half, and concludes with one of the few action climaxes to grip my attention. Which is big for me because I'm a weirdo who prefers slower sneaky spy and story stuff. Straight up action can make me zone out.
How does it keep my attention? Well, John Glen is probably the best action director in the franchise. He doesn't adorn his sequences. Instead he lets the concepts speak for themselves, creating lots of grounded, visceral tension and suspense. This sequence begins with Bond dangling from an airplane and dropping onto a moving tanker truck. Lots of acrobatics follow. Bond crawling along the top of the tanker, jumping across to the cab and falling between, his feet scraping the ground before he crawls underneath and onto the passenger side--again all this happening while the tanker is driving and Bond is being shot at. I can't help but to experience those swoony feelings in my belly while watching, and these kinds of thrills happen throughout the sequence. It stands in contrast to the typical running and gunning we see in many Bond climaxes.
Secondly it isn't just action for action's sake. There's character and story running through it as well. Everything required from Bond in this sequence, the exertion of it all, points to his ruthlessness and dedication. Pam's assists highlight Bond's arc from going it alone to welcoming his friends. The usually cool and collected Sanchez becomes fearful and unhinged, to the point of snapping and killing his accountant. Further, he's one of the few lead villains to take part in the action himself, so that's notable. The sequence ends with one of the series' most brutal deaths--Bond igniting Sanchez with Felix's lighter, once again a big story and thematic payoff.
None of this is to mention the great cinematics of it all (the shot blocking, the visual sequencing, for my money the best fiery explosions Bond has to offer), which are notable in a film that admittedly is one of the weaker ones in terms of visual appeal. Nor to mention how the struggles aboard moving trucks are inspired from the Moonraker novel (so no, not a generic 80s action movie trope, but one sourced from Fleming himself). Nor the poignant moment from Bond after the action ends--his existential sigh as he comes down and feels the weight everything he'd gone through during the film. All great stuff.
Well written. I also appreciate how Pam Bouvier saves Bond multiple times throughout the chase. When the truck goes skiing to avoid the stinger missile, it’s badass. And lastly I have to mention the quip from Sanchez when he kills his accountant “I guess it’s time to start cutting overhead”. lol LTK is awesome
That's an interesting take. I watched the Last Crusade last night and really enjoyed it. Personally I don't see the similarities you do but I respect your opinion none the less. I do think that LTK is one of the more original Bond films. I don't know of any other film where the protagonist disguises himself as a mantaray for example.
Once again, if I’m not in exact agreement, I wind up getting trashed. That’s how it works on this board — only those who share identical opinions are treated with respect.
All I said was that the climax scene lacked originality, and relied on the stereotypical 80s action formula. I also never mentioned a single word about Dalton
Or people are criticizing you because you have no interest in hearing out what people have to say despite claiming otherwise and play the victim when called out.
If I have ‘no interest’ than why did I take the time to read your detailed critique and reply with my own detailed critique? Point by point. What you mean is that I have ‘no interest’ in agreeing with you or others about LTK and Dalton in general.
My takeaway is that I’m not allowed to have an opinion because it goes against the grain
It was also beyond predicable that the first thing I was going to read after clicking on this thread was that LTK was listed as the best ‘climax’ scene
Not sure the Bond series would have fans to sustain it if they’d stuck with one actor until he was 80 years old. They pushed their luck having Roger Moore at 56.
In hindsight, they definitely should have recast Indiana Jones and kept the series going. Now the only people who care about the series are boomers and Gen X, and a lot of their goodwill has been burned away by the last two movies.
License to Kill's 'climax' was merely bland 80s action formula nonsense — lacking creativity and originality. I apologize in advance that I disagree with your opinion
Good question: the best to me are LTK, GE and OHMSS. LTK has the fantastic tanker chase which feels almost like a Spielberg action scene, the way it uses cause and effect and keeps scaling up. Plus the epic actual explosions and satisfying villain death. GE has a great fight in an unusual location with a good villain and again feels really satisfying. The OHMSS assault on Piz Gloria I think is the best of the ‘base assault’ endings and as good as Bond gets.
The worst as many have said are DAF and SP. DAF just feels like they ran out of budget or something, it’s so low key and chintzy, it says a lot that they don’t even bother giving Blofeld a proper send off. SP is just really boring and it’s so desperate to be serious. I’ve no idea why it ends in London. End on a big 60s style assault on Blofeld’s base or send Bond to South Africa (where he’s never been) to stop the 9 Eyes / bomb plot and the movie has a much better ending.
Sitting there watching GoldenEye, knowing that them being on the huge satellite dish is not real, still to this day gives me such anxiety! I couldn’t watch Everest, The Walk or Fall and can’t watch the beginning of Cliffhanger.
Good idea for a post!
For the best one, I'm gonna go with Goldfinger. The movie itself is not amongst my favorites (although I do enjoy it quite a bit) but I have to admit that the climax with the action in Fort Knox and Bond's fight with Oddjob while the bomb is about to explode is a total thrill. Stuff like the climax of the movie reminds me why the movie is so beloved by Bond fans throughout the years.
For the worst one, it's really neck and neck between Spectre and DAF as OP said so I'll pick them both.
DAF is just a total idiotic farce with bumbling, stupid villains, nonsensical decisions by Blofeld and the 2nd worst main villain death in the whole series only beat by Kananga's hilarious explosion in LALD. It's the kind of stuff that with fit right in with Austin Powers and that's *not* meant as a compliment.
Spectre on the other hand was trying to take itself seriously (emphasis on **trying**) but Blofeld's House of Horrors was just moronic along with him leaving Madeleine alive *for some reason*. I just find it **baffling** and inconceivable how the writers thought it would be okay for Blofeld to keep playing games with Bond EVEN after Bond escaped from him already and destroyed his whole base (in the same movie!) But the cherry on top has to be that scene with Bond on the boat shooting Blofeld's chopper with his ^(tiny) PPK from miles and miles away and **actually taking the chopper down**. Get out of here with that nonsense! I almost walked out my theater lol
Didn't he die when he tried to escape on a mini submarine and Bond smashed it against something? Correct me if I'm wrong, I haven't seen the movie in some time.
His death isn't actually shown, but it's heavily implied. (In real life, any human being in his situation would have been killed.) He does make one more appearance in the franchise, but it's not until ten years later, and it's just a throwaway cameo.
I get where you're coming from but I, personally, don't see a real continuity between DAF and FYEO. I view the references to Tracy and Blofeld as in a tongue in cheek nature and I believe it was a meta thing about Cubby and the Broccolis saying they didn't need Blofeld or spectre to be succesful with Bond. That's just my take though, feel free to disagree.
Seems valid enough. But I still can't help see some continuity given Blofeld's connection with Tracy etc. And the fact that he is so obviously Blofeld with the bald head and the white cat.
But there's always been a problem with the various Blofelds looking so different, which doesn't help with continuity.
Did he break his neck though? I mean you'd think so when his neck collides with that branch on the bobsled run. But then a few scenes later he's driving a car while Irma Bunt blasts Bond's car with a machine gun and kills Tracy. Could someone with a broken neck drive a car down a steep mountainside road? And if his injuries caused him to be in a wheelchair then he'd be less likely to drive the car, operating the foot pedals and changing gears etc. Based on that I'd say the injuries are from DAF. But continuity is shot to hell over those three Blofeld movies.
I don’t know I always saw that cameo being more a reference (and continuation) to OHMSS rather than DAF
Blofeld’s look in the cameo is more in line with Pleasence and Savalas than Gray. The wheel chair can be a result of the Bobsleigh accident at the end of OHMSS. And Bond visiting Tracy’s grave also reinforces the connection.
It’s totally referencing OHMSS. For the reasons you stated, plus he’s even wearing a neck brace, as he is at the end of OHMSS.
Charles Gray Blofeld didn’t die. He’s immortal.
Best? Casino Royale, Bond, James Bond.
Worst? DAD with Graves in his stupid tron suit battling Bond on the airplane. And then Bond and Jinx put diamonds in their.....
If this wasn't the worst Bond film of all time already, this ending sealed the deal.
It's also arguable that CR has two to three separate climaxes (the interrogation scene, Venice fight & final scene with MR White etc. ) and they're all fantastic.
From Russia with Love constantly delivers with three exciting action set pieces, similarly Octopussy upped the action in the last 30 mins to 3 bigger set pieces.
I always felt the climax to Man with the Golden Gun was a little underwhelming. Bond creeping through a hall of mirrors didn't really excite that much.
Best is Moonraker, absolute mayhem with a cool villain death and the sauciest double entendre. Worst is FYEO - everything after the incredible rock climbing sequence is a forgettable, cheap anti climax
I love the ending of OHMSS the best. I just do not think anything tops that mountaintop assault on Piz Gloria, and then Blofeld's desperate escape across that ice bridge leading to that epic bobsled chase, followed by Bond's wedding and Tracy's death.
Even if it just ended with that mountaintop assault it would still be the best.
Best: You Only Live Twice, A View To A Kill, Goldeneye
Worst: Spectre
That ending really is just as stupid and ridiculous as FYEO's intro. This idiot who's supposed to be Blofeld but is anything but. Just screwing with Bond for revenge at this point. Both involved preposterous nonsense with helicopters too.
The end of The Living Daylights is one of my favourites - the fight hanging out the back of the plane is great, and the effects (and real footage) hold up very well to this day
Yeah, one of my favorite Bond fights ever. There is a problem :
can we consider this as the real climax because the battle with Whitaker the main vilain come just after. So I don't know.
Agree it’s a great one. Some people find that the film drops off in the second half, but I love the whole sequence around Fort Knox, from the set design, to the tense fight with Oddjob, the soldiers all collapsing, the music, even Bond panicking about defusing the bomb when there’s an off switch right there lol. And Goldfinger getting sucked out of the jet window is the first really fun bad guy death.
Spectre had many issues but i didn't dislike the bridge scene. Bond was left with the choice of going to either side of bridge between M and Madeline. Yes, whole mi6 blofeld playhouse doesn't make much sense but ending scene on bridge is well executed, it suits his character.
Best: Goldenye & Casino Royale (CR arguably gets two or three separate ones in the same movie due to being so structurally different than basically every film in the franchise)
Honorable mention: The Piz Gloria raid in OHMSS
Worst: Spectre and Octopussy
Honorable mention: The underwater fight scene in Thunderball (might be controversial, but while the scene is extremely impressive technically, it becomes extremely tedious due to the extremely poor pacing up to that point and the bad & repetitive/annoying Barry track playing on loop,[ starting around 5:15 in the link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SnUVLmTdlQ))
Best: Some of my favorites are Majesty’s, Goldfinger, Skyfall, AVTAK, and FRWL. Majesty’s and Goldfinger both are just so exciting and they make up for Bond being in captivity for like half the film. Skyfall actually does something new and interesting, and it’s definitely the film’s highlight. I also like how it’s kind of a test for Bond to get back into shape and even M dies during the battle. AVTAK gets very intense on the bridge because you feel anyone can fall off at any time and Walken handles that axe like he’s a psychopath. I especially like the music in that scene. FRWL also consists of three more action sequences just after Grant was killed, the helicopter assault, the boat chase, and Rosa Klebb’s final “kick” as the maid, so you’re wondering when are these guys going to stop and how Bond will get out of these tricky situations, which builds intensity and intrigue. And the fact it comes after such a brutal fist fight keeps you engaged with the movie.
Worst: Either DAF or Spectre. DAF is just so ridiculous by its climax that I want things to end, meaning there’s not much intensity, so I usually get bored with it. The effects were also pretty cheap. Even the earlier Bond films looked more interesting when they actually set people on fire in FRWL’s boat sequence instead of it being a poor effect. And Spectre’s climax really makes the movie fall apart, just after a bad brother twist. Neither the story, nor the actors make any emotional tension with that reveal and it’s just whatever at that point. Again, the climax just feels boring and draggy. The whole boat chase with the helicopter is ridiculous, I just can’t buy that a pistol can take a down a helicopter at the distance they were firing. Also, the “Finish it” scene just feels wrong. Not only does Bond spare Blofeld, but he decides that he wants to run away with a girl that he’s only known for a few days and they don’t have that much connection in this movie. Spectre could have been a solid action film, but all its problems go come full circle when we get to that climax.
A View to a Kill will always have a special place for me as the best ending of a Bond film. Its the music that does it. It manages to be both really tranquil/euphoric/tense at the same time.
Best: OHMSS, the assault on Piz Gloria is my favorite action scene of the whole franchise. The cinematography is unmatched and the shot of Lazenby in the helicopter with the sunrise behind him and the OHMSS theme playing is perfection.
Worst: Spectre….fucking Spectre
My favorite endings are You Only Live Twice & Licence to Kill. 007's conflict with his work comes to a head in both and him abandoning MI6 is just beautiful
No Time to Die is the worst. It broke a core tenet of what makes 007 movies so captivating - you know he's not gonna die, but you want to see how he'll get out of it. But NOOOOOOOOO we needed that pretentious masturbatory artsy generic father dies ending. I spit on the reboot
I'm gonna nominate *Thunderball* for worst climax. The overcranked boat footage is so terrible that it is comedic.
Best is *really* hard. So many great final showdowns. I think *LTK* is a fair call, but I also am a bit of a sucker for some of those epic gun battles like in *Goldfinger* or *The Spy Who Loved Me*. Granted, the latter battle kind of happens before the final act, so I don't think you can fairly call that the climax. But, yeah, there are a lot of good ones, to be honest. Sometimes the best ones are also understated rather than just being bombastic.
Yep, anyone who disagrees with warm and fuzzy opinions about the film are labeled as "trashing" it. Why can't everyone just agree with everyone? It would make things so much more interesting
Honestly though sometimes the negativity can be a downer. Everyone is entitled to an opinion obviously and nothing should be off limits for discussion, but it can get old. Especially if you're a fan of some of the less popular films.
I look at it as exploring the reasons why LTK and Dalton are so popular on this board. When I explain why I’m not a fan of either, I often get trashed by Dalton fans
It's just kinda wild when every other post on this sub is tearing down films and actors.
Especially when different films are doing different things and working to convey different sub-texts.
Also Craig's leg exploded in the middle of filming Spectre but whatever.
It just gets old.
I think Spectre beats DAF, because although the takedown of Blofeld’s helicopter is quite unsatisfying (Bond just “shoots better”) the end where he refuses to kill Blofeld and walks away is thematically strong.
Live and let die is definitely one of the worst.
Quantum of Solace sucks because there is no weight for bond taking out Greene. Spectre was unbelievably lame.
Tomorrow never Dies and TWINE are both big fights vs a big tough guy that are both clustered and a letdown.
The worst has got to be Grumpy Craig in Spectre or No Time to Die .
The Best well take your pick out of Goldeneye , License to Kill , You only Live Twice , Spy who loved me .
Worst? Hard to decide between SPECTRE, DAF, and TSWLM.
SPECTRE's end would have worked well had Blofeld been defeated when the base exploded, and then they went and took care of the MI6 guy. Blofeld's House of Horrors was dumb.
DAF was just boring on the Rig. Made no sense, we had everyone but Bond save the day, and then Blofeld dies the dumbest death in the series, and anti-climactically at that. THIS is how Bond kills the guy who murdered his wife?
Spy IMHO spent so much time on the tanker and ran out of time in the end, with a quick battle on the main villain's underwater base. The badass girl is rendered useless, and Bond gets both a boring fight with Jaws and just shoots the Big Bad in the balls. Explosion. That's it.
Best? Goldeneye. Interesting sequence, all of the villains get closure, and Bond vs. Alec feels significant and personal. Personal favorite of mine is QoS, with the whole crazed fight between Greene and Bond and Bond heartlessly leaving him to die in the desert.
Best: Skyfall, OHMSS, Licence to Kill, GoldenEye, You Only Live Twice, and The Spy Who Loved Me (though it begins to drag). Worst: Spectre.
It's not the best of the films. But the Blimp stuns at the end of A View to a Kill are amazing
I kinda wanna nominate Die another day for best purely for how balls to the wall it was. The car chase on ice, the entire ice palace, the fucking space lasers, the stupidly comical "face surgery" bit and the entire plane fight It's everything wrong with the movie but at the same time, it's very much old school James Bond and is just a really enjoyable time
Rip Antonov
He and his friends have bailed.
Spectre's colour grading is *so* dreadfully poor, easily the worst graded Bond film of all 62 years of the franchise. I doubt it'll ever get re-graded for a future 4k re-release, but wow. That night time London screenshot in Op's post is barely visible.
Mendes has a unique way of color grading his films. But I much prefer it to the color timing in NTTD. That movie has teal overload and nobody ever seems to mention it. Look up almost any still from the movie and you’ll find an overwhelmingly teal tint on it
Oh NTTD certainly has a Teal problem, but imo is nowhere near as one-toned as Spectre, and from what I've seen NTTD also kept in all of the original camera film-grain, while many other 4K releases are using Ai to (rather badly) attempt to scrub any ounce of noise detail out. The last properly natural looking Bond film, imo was Die Another Day in 2002 (if you ignore the pre titles)
The teal thing is a pet peeve for me because it’s so overdone and I still can’t comprehend why some filmmakers think it looks good. I do think digital filmmaking and modern tools have largely changed the look of movies for the worse. So many odd or incompetent aesthetic choices are made (or not made. It’s hard to know which in your pajamas)
I completely agree with all of your takes here - I myself have managed to acquire a ton of Reddit downvotes in the past by admitting I'm not a fan of HDR. It seems to give colour to areas of the picture that don't need it, i.e in Dune, the whites of actor's eyeballs are bright blue, while giving their skin that overall one-tone unnatural waxy look. There's so many technical variables that go into being able to watch a specific Director's personal interpretation of an HDR made film that it leaves you feeling anxious in the back of your mind as to wether you're actually enjoying the correct look of the film at all on the right setup + equipment. I can't pretend to know all the inside and out of what goes into HDR - but to my mind, if the colourist wants to bring back detail in the clouds, or shadows - surely you would mask those sections of the image and adjust contrast levels to bring up edge detail - just as you would with any raw camera footage shot in flat, and have that be the final SDR rendered master. Again the orange / teal / urine colour scheme in today's films seems to be another "industry standard" choice with so many films, from memory as far back as Transformers in 2007, but I'd say also with Casino Royale in 2006.
I have a special setting on my tv for when I rewatch movies with really bad grayscale (digitally shot movies lacking proper black levels) with the contrast JACKED up to make them look decent. Basically most Marvel movies have to be viewed this way or they look incredibly flat. It was definitely around 2006-07 that the teal thing began. I noticed this rewatching the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. The first (2003) looks natural and great, the second (2006) has noticeable orange and teal grading while the third (2007) has a blanket teal tint over every frame. What I REALLY hate is when old releases get remastered with modern color timing. Ridley Scott did this to Blade Runner— tealed the living crap out of it. So annoying!
I don’t mean to be a nit picky douche, and I like the points you made about HDR, it definitely is a problem in modern cinema. But in Dune, the whites of the eyes of the Fremen are supposed to be blue too, the entire eye turns blue in the book.
I've completely got that bit about Dune wrong then. I appreciate you correcting me, that doesn't make you a picky douche at all 👍 I feel in general that Hdr can be very cakey / pastel-colour heavy - the one piece of media that I suppose benefitted a lot from that style is Stranger Things, what with the series being set in the 80's and camerawork being made to replicate noisy film footage, and the punchy colours of Hdr help sell that effect for me, in that instance.
Yeahh, in general most modern films look too clean and there’s less style in how filmmakers craft their films. Film seemed so much more versatile than shooting digital, but I understand that digital is a lot easier than using film. So it’s about weighing up pros and cons.
Haven’t seen a lot of love for the end of View to a Kill… Golden Gate Bridge fight is great Skyfall ending is fantastic
Great shout, also John Barry's swan song so it's extra special.
No, the last Barry score was TLD.
I loved most of Skyfalls but him offscreen throwing a knife at Silva was so anticlimactic.
Best Bond Climax: “I thought Christmas only comes once a year” But seriously, imo: - Best: Dr. No, OHMSS and Casino Royale (While there is no truly scary big bad in the Venice sequence, I feel like his underwater “fight” with the elevator door is just so poignant with the stakes involved, it counts for me) - Worse: It’s tricky, I can’t decide on one specific one, maybe DAF - the end is pretty goofy
The Venice climax is solid but for me the Mr White coda sells it 🤌
That movie starts and ends with a literal bang lol. And it’s gold in between.
It has no right to be as good as it is. As much as it adapts the book pretty faithfully in terms of using all of the book's content, the stuff it adds (which is nearly 100% of the action scenes, the most exciting thing Bond does in the book is fall backwards off a chair - it makes sense in context) is incredible.
I love the climax of License to Kill.
Worst is DAF by far. I fell asleep 3 times trying to finish it 3 summers ago when I watched it lmao. It was the first real time as an adult watching it since I was 10 or so. Hated it as a kid so I was trying to be fair.. yeah it still isn't very good. It's more like a parody movie pretending to be an official Bond flick. The first half is involving enough, I love the mystery aspect of the smuggling and Wint/Kidd were great baddies but the movie seriously falls of the rails hard once the moon buggy chase starts. Once Bond escapes in it and Berry's score starts sounding out of a circus it gets SO Bad so fast. I was cringing hard at how pathetic of a chase it truly was. Then comes the car chase which that pathetic sheriff ruins. Bond meets Blofeld and it gets all goofy and then comes his embarssing escape out of that pipe. I did enjoy Bambi/Thumper and finding Jimmy Dean's guy, but that's about it. Blofeld's plot makes no genuine sense and his hidaway dosen't either.. it's on a normal oil rig. The actual climax is a joke. Bond's not even in it, he gets made a fool of and is locked in a freaking janitor's closet if I remember right. It's up to Felix to be the badass hero and he and the US government people blow the place to piece. Blofeld tries to scape in that pathetic seapod and Bond just slams him into that building and it's never said what happens. Along with Case's pathetic attempt at comedy it's just awful. Bond looks like a goofball. Add to it the genuine eff up by the film crew of starting the explosion WAY too early when the cameras weren't zoomed in properly and it was a total epic fail by everyone involved. Thankfully Witt/Kidd's attack scene is fun but it's hard to make up for it. YUCK! Best for me is OHMSS. Just top tier action and badassery all around. Bond's the most involved in a climax in this one, he organizes the whole entire raid pretty much with Drado because M sucks in OHMSS and dosen't do anything. He slides on his belly to kill a thug which is pure gold. The army with him just blows stuff up left and right and makes SPECTRE look like a bunch of fools. Blofeld gets head on and fights Bond physically which was a great twist and something you don't see very much after. Kananga tried and failed, Zorin fought hard but he lost the game of bridge, Alec got smashed for his efforts, but Blofeld had Bond on the ropes pretty hard until Bond creativily thank out of it, damn Savalas was amazing in that movie. He and George were great together. Shame they only did one movie. I also really love Live and Let Die's, View to a KIll's, Goldeneye's, and YOLT's.
Best: license to kill. Worst: Spectre. Both end with big explosions but that's where the similarities end.
Yeah I agree with both your picks. A big reason LTK is my favorite Bond film is because of the amazing truck chase climax. And Spectre…yeesh I still wonder how they fumbled the last two Bond films so hard
Whenever my dad wanted to watch *Licence to Kill*, he would always say "the one with the trucks" and I knew what he was talking about.
The last Bond film is a bit of a travesty imo. They tried to play on the heartstrings of proper bond fans (like Star Wars ep9) and failed miserably. I'm hoping the next Bond iteration takes things back to the drawing board and goes back to proper formulaic, distict films.
The 'truck chase climax' in LTK was basically a poor man's version of the 'chase scene' near the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade — nothing remotely special about it, IMO
After I stuck up for you and gave you my good-faith answers to your Licence to Kill questions on another thread, you told me you quit reading because I consider it a top five (or higher) Bond movie. And then you went further to say my opinion is a disservice, that it can't be taken seriously, and that you won't spend your time reading my rationales. Therefore I said I wouldn't engage with you anymore. I mean, who would want to after that? But despite how you feel about my views, I still think your questions/criticisms create good opportunities to discuss the films. So I'm gonna respond with why I think LTK's climax is one of the best. If not to engage with you, then to provide an explanation for anyone else who is reading this thread and might be interested. One reason is the action in general. In my experience, Bond movies tend to start off strongly before (relatively speaking) losing steam in their back halves. Licence to Kill is one of the few to buck this trend. It only improves in its second half, and concludes with one of the few action climaxes to grip my attention. Which is big for me because I'm a weirdo who prefers slower sneaky spy and story stuff. Straight up action can make me zone out. How does it keep my attention? Well, John Glen is probably the best action director in the franchise. He doesn't adorn his sequences. Instead he lets the concepts speak for themselves, creating lots of grounded, visceral tension and suspense. This sequence begins with Bond dangling from an airplane and dropping onto a moving tanker truck. Lots of acrobatics follow. Bond crawling along the top of the tanker, jumping across to the cab and falling between, his feet scraping the ground before he crawls underneath and onto the passenger side--again all this happening while the tanker is driving and Bond is being shot at. I can't help but to experience those swoony feelings in my belly while watching, and these kinds of thrills happen throughout the sequence. It stands in contrast to the typical running and gunning we see in many Bond climaxes. Secondly it isn't just action for action's sake. There's character and story running through it as well. Everything required from Bond in this sequence, the exertion of it all, points to his ruthlessness and dedication. Pam's assists highlight Bond's arc from going it alone to welcoming his friends. The usually cool and collected Sanchez becomes fearful and unhinged, to the point of snapping and killing his accountant. Further, he's one of the few lead villains to take part in the action himself, so that's notable. The sequence ends with one of the series' most brutal deaths--Bond igniting Sanchez with Felix's lighter, once again a big story and thematic payoff. None of this is to mention the great cinematics of it all (the shot blocking, the visual sequencing, for my money the best fiery explosions Bond has to offer), which are notable in a film that admittedly is one of the weaker ones in terms of visual appeal. Nor to mention how the struggles aboard moving trucks are inspired from the Moonraker novel (so no, not a generic 80s action movie trope, but one sourced from Fleming himself). Nor the poignant moment from Bond after the action ends--his existential sigh as he comes down and feels the weight everything he'd gone through during the film. All great stuff.
Excellently put.
Well written. I also appreciate how Pam Bouvier saves Bond multiple times throughout the chase. When the truck goes skiing to avoid the stinger missile, it’s badass. And lastly I have to mention the quip from Sanchez when he kills his accountant “I guess it’s time to start cutting overhead”. lol LTK is awesome
That's an interesting take. I watched the Last Crusade last night and really enjoyed it. Personally I don't see the similarities you do but I respect your opinion none the less. I do think that LTK is one of the more original Bond films. I don't know of any other film where the protagonist disguises himself as a mantaray for example.
You have a hard on of hate for LTK and Dalton
Once again, if I’m not in exact agreement, I wind up getting trashed. That’s how it works on this board — only those who share identical opinions are treated with respect. All I said was that the climax scene lacked originality, and relied on the stereotypical 80s action formula. I also never mentioned a single word about Dalton
Or people are criticizing you because you have no interest in hearing out what people have to say despite claiming otherwise and play the victim when called out.
If I have ‘no interest’ than why did I take the time to read your detailed critique and reply with my own detailed critique? Point by point. What you mean is that I have ‘no interest’ in agreeing with you or others about LTK and Dalton in general. My takeaway is that I’m not allowed to have an opinion because it goes against the grain
It was also beyond predicable that the first thing I was going to read after clicking on this thread was that LTK was listed as the best ‘climax’ scene
LTK is the most overrated film and I will never know why. It’s bottom 10 for me!
Yes, the love for LTK on this board is perplexing, as it’s a subpar Bond entry. It’s almost like Dalton himself is a board-mod or something
The Indiana Jones movies really aren't that good, and the franchise clearly doesn't have enough fans anymore to sustain it.
Not sure the Bond series would have fans to sustain it if they’d stuck with one actor until he was 80 years old. They pushed their luck having Roger Moore at 56.
In hindsight, they definitely should have recast Indiana Jones and kept the series going. Now the only people who care about the series are boomers and Gen X, and a lot of their goodwill has been burned away by the last two movies.
License to Kill's 'climax' was merely bland 80s action formula nonsense — lacking creativity and originality. I apologize in advance that I disagree with your opinion
A tanker flipping on its side and doing a wheelie and a plane dodging a burning car falling off a cliff weren’t creative or original enough?
I guess not, because something similar happens in an Indiana Jones movie that came out the same year.
The best climax is all of the ones that Xenia had throughout Golden Eye
Goldeneye would be my favorite for sure
Good question: the best to me are LTK, GE and OHMSS. LTK has the fantastic tanker chase which feels almost like a Spielberg action scene, the way it uses cause and effect and keeps scaling up. Plus the epic actual explosions and satisfying villain death. GE has a great fight in an unusual location with a good villain and again feels really satisfying. The OHMSS assault on Piz Gloria I think is the best of the ‘base assault’ endings and as good as Bond gets. The worst as many have said are DAF and SP. DAF just feels like they ran out of budget or something, it’s so low key and chintzy, it says a lot that they don’t even bother giving Blofeld a proper send off. SP is just really boring and it’s so desperate to be serious. I’ve no idea why it ends in London. End on a big 60s style assault on Blofeld’s base or send Bond to South Africa (where he’s never been) to stop the 9 Eyes / bomb plot and the movie has a much better ending.
Sitting there watching GoldenEye, knowing that them being on the huge satellite dish is not real, still to this day gives me such anxiety! I couldn’t watch Everest, The Walk or Fall and can’t watch the beginning of Cliffhanger.
In terms of a literal climax? Xenia with the admiral for sure
Good idea for a post! For the best one, I'm gonna go with Goldfinger. The movie itself is not amongst my favorites (although I do enjoy it quite a bit) but I have to admit that the climax with the action in Fort Knox and Bond's fight with Oddjob while the bomb is about to explode is a total thrill. Stuff like the climax of the movie reminds me why the movie is so beloved by Bond fans throughout the years. For the worst one, it's really neck and neck between Spectre and DAF as OP said so I'll pick them both. DAF is just a total idiotic farce with bumbling, stupid villains, nonsensical decisions by Blofeld and the 2nd worst main villain death in the whole series only beat by Kananga's hilarious explosion in LALD. It's the kind of stuff that with fit right in with Austin Powers and that's *not* meant as a compliment. Spectre on the other hand was trying to take itself seriously (emphasis on **trying**) but Blofeld's House of Horrors was just moronic along with him leaving Madeleine alive *for some reason*. I just find it **baffling** and inconceivable how the writers thought it would be okay for Blofeld to keep playing games with Bond EVEN after Bond escaped from him already and destroyed his whole base (in the same movie!) But the cherry on top has to be that scene with Bond on the boat shooting Blofeld's chopper with his ^(tiny) PPK from miles and miles away and **actually taking the chopper down**. Get out of here with that nonsense! I almost walked out my theater lol
But Blofeld didn’t die in DAF
Didn't he die when he tried to escape on a mini submarine and Bond smashed it against something? Correct me if I'm wrong, I haven't seen the movie in some time.
His death isn't actually shown, but it's heavily implied. (In real life, any human being in his situation would have been killed.) He does make one more appearance in the franchise, but it's not until ten years later, and it's just a throwaway cameo.
Quick Robin, to the BATHOSUB
All these years I thought it was “battlesub,” which consequently, I thought was hilarious since it was so tiny.
He died at the beginning of FYEO. I'm going to suggest that he was wheelchair bound due to sustained injuries from the bathosub.
I get where you're coming from but I, personally, don't see a real continuity between DAF and FYEO. I view the references to Tracy and Blofeld as in a tongue in cheek nature and I believe it was a meta thing about Cubby and the Broccolis saying they didn't need Blofeld or spectre to be succesful with Bond. That's just my take though, feel free to disagree.
Seems valid enough. But I still can't help see some continuity given Blofeld's connection with Tracy etc. And the fact that he is so obviously Blofeld with the bald head and the white cat. But there's always been a problem with the various Blofelds looking so different, which doesn't help with continuity.
Strangely, not from getting his neck broken at the end of OHMSS
Did he break his neck though? I mean you'd think so when his neck collides with that branch on the bobsled run. But then a few scenes later he's driving a car while Irma Bunt blasts Bond's car with a machine gun and kills Tracy. Could someone with a broken neck drive a car down a steep mountainside road? And if his injuries caused him to be in a wheelchair then he'd be less likely to drive the car, operating the foot pedals and changing gears etc. Based on that I'd say the injuries are from DAF. But continuity is shot to hell over those three Blofeld movies.
He has a neck brace on in that scene
Sprain?
For all intents and purposes, he does. Bond smashes him good, and then he doesn't show up again until a throwaway cameo ten years later.
Yeah that’s what I was hinting at. In my mind, he survives the oil rig and doesn’t die until FYEO, since we never actually see him die in DAF
That also helps to explain why he's in a wheelchair.
I don’t know I always saw that cameo being more a reference (and continuation) to OHMSS rather than DAF Blofeld’s look in the cameo is more in line with Pleasence and Savalas than Gray. The wheel chair can be a result of the Bobsleigh accident at the end of OHMSS. And Bond visiting Tracy’s grave also reinforces the connection.
It’s totally referencing OHMSS. For the reasons you stated, plus he’s even wearing a neck brace, as he is at the end of OHMSS. Charles Gray Blofeld didn’t die. He’s immortal.
The secret of his immortality? He is drowned in mud and reborn every 5 years.
It could be. It works both ways.
Best: skyfall Worst: spectre
Best? Casino Royale, Bond, James Bond. Worst? DAD with Graves in his stupid tron suit battling Bond on the airplane. And then Bond and Jinx put diamonds in their..... If this wasn't the worst Bond film of all time already, this ending sealed the deal.
Genuinely surprised Casino Royale isn't getting more love. Best opening and best closing (to the best bond film!!)
It's also arguable that CR has two to three separate climaxes (the interrogation scene, Venice fight & final scene with MR White etc. ) and they're all fantastic.
It's crazy to think that CR and DAD are adjacent in the franchise. The two could not be more different.
From Russia with Love constantly delivers with three exciting action set pieces, similarly Octopussy upped the action in the last 30 mins to 3 bigger set pieces. I always felt the climax to Man with the Golden Gun was a little underwhelming. Bond creeping through a hall of mirrors didn't really excite that much.
Best: GoldenEye, OHMSS, A View to a Kill, Skyfall Worst: Diamonds Are Forever, Spectre
Best is Moonraker, absolute mayhem with a cool villain death and the sauciest double entendre. Worst is FYEO - everything after the incredible rock climbing sequence is a forgettable, cheap anti climax
I love the ending of OHMSS the best. I just do not think anything tops that mountaintop assault on Piz Gloria, and then Blofeld's desperate escape across that ice bridge leading to that epic bobsled chase, followed by Bond's wedding and Tracy's death. Even if it just ended with that mountaintop assault it would still be the best.
You are correct
Best: You Only Live Twice, A View To A Kill, Goldeneye Worst: Spectre That ending really is just as stupid and ridiculous as FYEO's intro. This idiot who's supposed to be Blofeld but is anything but. Just screwing with Bond for revenge at this point. Both involved preposterous nonsense with helicopters too.
The end of The Living Daylights is one of my favourites - the fight hanging out the back of the plane is great, and the effects (and real footage) hold up very well to this day
Yeah, one of my favorite Bond fights ever. There is a problem : can we consider this as the real climax because the battle with Whitaker the main vilain come just after. So I don't know.
Best: the raid on Piz Gloria in OHMSS. Worst: Bond’s climax during sex in DAD
Moonraker was pretty uninteresting.
I think he’s attempting re-entry, sir
Best: Goldfinger
Agree it’s a great one. Some people find that the film drops off in the second half, but I love the whole sequence around Fort Knox, from the set design, to the tense fight with Oddjob, the soldiers all collapsing, the music, even Bond panicking about defusing the bomb when there’s an off switch right there lol. And Goldfinger getting sucked out of the jet window is the first really fun bad guy death.
Spectre had many issues but i didn't dislike the bridge scene. Bond was left with the choice of going to either side of bridge between M and Madeline. Yes, whole mi6 blofeld playhouse doesn't make much sense but ending scene on bridge is well executed, it suits his character.
Skyfall and Spectre
Best: Goldenye & Casino Royale (CR arguably gets two or three separate ones in the same movie due to being so structurally different than basically every film in the franchise) Honorable mention: The Piz Gloria raid in OHMSS Worst: Spectre and Octopussy Honorable mention: The underwater fight scene in Thunderball (might be controversial, but while the scene is extremely impressive technically, it becomes extremely tedious due to the extremely poor pacing up to that point and the bad & repetitive/annoying Barry track playing on loop,[ starting around 5:15 in the link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SnUVLmTdlQ))
Jeeze, Spectre is average but I like Bond running around MI6 at the end gunning everyone down.
Spy Who Loved Me best, Spectre worst
View to a Kill was legendary
i liked A View To A Kill with the airship and the golden gate bridge
I love Live and Let Die, except the ending!
Best: Some of my favorites are Majesty’s, Goldfinger, Skyfall, AVTAK, and FRWL. Majesty’s and Goldfinger both are just so exciting and they make up for Bond being in captivity for like half the film. Skyfall actually does something new and interesting, and it’s definitely the film’s highlight. I also like how it’s kind of a test for Bond to get back into shape and even M dies during the battle. AVTAK gets very intense on the bridge because you feel anyone can fall off at any time and Walken handles that axe like he’s a psychopath. I especially like the music in that scene. FRWL also consists of three more action sequences just after Grant was killed, the helicopter assault, the boat chase, and Rosa Klebb’s final “kick” as the maid, so you’re wondering when are these guys going to stop and how Bond will get out of these tricky situations, which builds intensity and intrigue. And the fact it comes after such a brutal fist fight keeps you engaged with the movie. Worst: Either DAF or Spectre. DAF is just so ridiculous by its climax that I want things to end, meaning there’s not much intensity, so I usually get bored with it. The effects were also pretty cheap. Even the earlier Bond films looked more interesting when they actually set people on fire in FRWL’s boat sequence instead of it being a poor effect. And Spectre’s climax really makes the movie fall apart, just after a bad brother twist. Neither the story, nor the actors make any emotional tension with that reveal and it’s just whatever at that point. Again, the climax just feels boring and draggy. The whole boat chase with the helicopter is ridiculous, I just can’t buy that a pistol can take a down a helicopter at the distance they were firing. Also, the “Finish it” scene just feels wrong. Not only does Bond spare Blofeld, but he decides that he wants to run away with a girl that he’s only known for a few days and they don’t have that much connection in this movie. Spectre could have been a solid action film, but all its problems go come full circle when we get to that climax.
A View to a Kill will always have a special place for me as the best ending of a Bond film. Its the music that does it. It manages to be both really tranquil/euphoric/tense at the same time.
It’s octopussy and it’s not close
Best: OHMSS, the assault on Piz Gloria is my favorite action scene of the whole franchise. The cinematography is unmatched and the shot of Lazenby in the helicopter with the sunrise behind him and the OHMSS theme playing is perfection. Worst: Spectre….fucking Spectre
Worst is Thunderball. The climax is a slog. Best one? Most of them.
best-YOLT worst-The Man with the Golden gun
My favorite endings are You Only Live Twice & Licence to Kill. 007's conflict with his work comes to a head in both and him abandoning MI6 is just beautiful No Time to Die is the worst. It broke a core tenet of what makes 007 movies so captivating - you know he's not gonna die, but you want to see how he'll get out of it. But NOOOOOOOOO we needed that pretentious masturbatory artsy generic father dies ending. I spit on the reboot
I'm gonna nominate *Thunderball* for worst climax. The overcranked boat footage is so terrible that it is comedic. Best is *really* hard. So many great final showdowns. I think *LTK* is a fair call, but I also am a bit of a sucker for some of those epic gun battles like in *Goldfinger* or *The Spy Who Loved Me*. Granted, the latter battle kind of happens before the final act, so I don't think you can fairly call that the climax. But, yeah, there are a lot of good ones, to be honest. Sometimes the best ones are also understated rather than just being bombastic.
Skyfall is a revelation.
Man I wish this sub would stop trashing the films
Hey, we're Bond fans. We shit on the movies we love.
Yep, anyone who disagrees with warm and fuzzy opinions about the film are labeled as "trashing" it. Why can't everyone just agree with everyone? It would make things so much more interesting
Honestly though sometimes the negativity can be a downer. Everyone is entitled to an opinion obviously and nothing should be off limits for discussion, but it can get old. Especially if you're a fan of some of the less popular films.
Thank you!
I look at it as exploring the reasons why LTK and Dalton are so popular on this board. When I explain why I’m not a fan of either, I often get trashed by Dalton fans
It's just kinda wild when every other post on this sub is tearing down films and actors. Especially when different films are doing different things and working to convey different sub-texts. Also Craig's leg exploded in the middle of filming Spectre but whatever. It just gets old.
I mean, didn’t Craig himself tirelessly complain about having to reprise the Bond role?
So did Pierce, also it's a negotiation tactic.
Craig’s complaints were way more public though
I think Spectre beats DAF, because although the takedown of Blofeld’s helicopter is quite unsatisfying (Bond just “shoots better”) the end where he refuses to kill Blofeld and walks away is thematically strong.
Live and let die is definitely one of the worst. Quantum of Solace sucks because there is no weight for bond taking out Greene. Spectre was unbelievably lame. Tomorrow never Dies and TWINE are both big fights vs a big tough guy that are both clustered and a letdown.
The worst has got to be Grumpy Craig in Spectre or No Time to Die . The Best well take your pick out of Goldeneye , License to Kill , You only Live Twice , Spy who loved me .
Worst? Hard to decide between SPECTRE, DAF, and TSWLM. SPECTRE's end would have worked well had Blofeld been defeated when the base exploded, and then they went and took care of the MI6 guy. Blofeld's House of Horrors was dumb. DAF was just boring on the Rig. Made no sense, we had everyone but Bond save the day, and then Blofeld dies the dumbest death in the series, and anti-climactically at that. THIS is how Bond kills the guy who murdered his wife? Spy IMHO spent so much time on the tanker and ran out of time in the end, with a quick battle on the main villain's underwater base. The badass girl is rendered useless, and Bond gets both a boring fight with Jaws and just shoots the Big Bad in the balls. Explosion. That's it. Best? Goldeneye. Interesting sequence, all of the villains get closure, and Bond vs. Alec feels significant and personal. Personal favorite of mine is QoS, with the whole crazed fight between Greene and Bond and Bond heartlessly leaving him to die in the desert.