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This weekend we finally watched Quantum of Solace, finishing off the complete James Bond film series we've been working on for a while. ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) mcroft still hasn't seen the comedy version of Casino Royale but I think we're both kind of Bonded out and will remain so until Bond 23 comes out in a couple of years.
I still have a love for the series that stems from having watched some of the really good ones (the later Connery and early Moore) on TV as a kid, when I was too young to goggle at the sexism and roll my eyes at some of the comedy and puns or the action sequences. I was surprised to see that even the really bad Bonds, particularly the late Moore films, had some decent sequences, usually action sequences, that were better than I remembered. But my recollections of which ones I liked and which ones I didn't like were generally accurate with two major exceptions.
First, I liked On Her Majesty's Secret Service, the George Lazenby Bond, much better than I remembered. It holds up very well, in part because they give an expanded role to Tracy (Diana Rigg), who basically plays the role in the old continuity that they're trying to give to Eva Green in the new continuity. The actual love affair means that Bond is less of a pig--for instance, he doesn't rape anyone in this movie, which puts Bond up on some of his 1960s outings--and while the plot is silly in places, well, that's James Bond for you. It's also a pretty serious movie in a way that the very early Connerys, the Daltons, and the Craigs are. That it held up so well for a 40-year-old movie (yep, 1969) is surprising.
I've also softened a bit on the new Casino Royale after seeing it in sequence with the tail end of the Brosnan films, some of which had bits that were wincingly bad in ways closely related to the bad Moores. Part of my problem with CR was that they tried to bring in the Bourne style without getting what the important bits of Bourne were, and also that they made Bond too naive. In particular, I'm never going to think that the bit where Vesper saves Bond's life in the car and the follow-on scene with Le Chiffre work, but I've come around on the rest of it. I like it better as a piece with Quantum of Solace, which I'm not sure I would have liked at all on its own.
I understand why and even how they're revamping the franchise, which is a good thing if they're going to continue to modernize it, but I really do wish they'd do a Mad-Men-style 60s-era Bond instead. And, no, I don't want Olga Kurlyenko back; I didn't like her at all. I've seen that character in a Timothy Dalton Bond and she was better in that version.
I'm still working on New Whoverse, for all that I've given up on Torchwood. I expect to have completely caught up by early next year, although I'll be taking a break next month to catch up on another guilty pleasure (Season Three of the The Tudors). After that, I think our next series is going to be Brisco County, Junior and a bunch of the Diniverse DC cartoons.
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