The Room 102 thread - for things you love or just having a bloody good praise!

[Animalmother]

I forgot Tomorrow Never Dies, actually do like that one.

[Raid]

Alright, sod it. Folks; your top 5 please.

1) Skyfall - One of my favourite films even outside the franchise. Also has one of the best themes - I haven't listened to a lot of Adele, but Skyfall is a sumptuous piece of music.
2) You Only Live Twice - It's *the* Bond film. It has to be, it's the blueprint for all of the parodies. Hidden Volcano Lair, henchmen riding silly monorails, a self-destruct system for an entire facility, Blofeld's scar, Blofeld's cat, insensitive cultural stereotyping... The intro song for this one is fantastic too.
3) The World Is Not Enough - I actually really liked the plot of this, in fact in 2026 it honestly doesn't feel at all implausible - I think the idea of a media mogul being a supervillain was lambasted at the time, but today? Jonathan Pryce was such a good pick for a Bond villain, and I love Michelle Yeoh despite the gratuitous "H'yah!"s they dubbed over her fight scenes. I think it's one of my favourite cold-opens too.
4) A View to a Kill - Something of a guilty pleasure I guess, but I love the antagonists in this. Walken was always going to play a Bond villain at some point, the rhythm of his speech is like the verbal equivalent to Blofeld's cheek scar, but Mayday's great too.
5) Casino Royale (2006, I wouldn't want any confusion) - The reinvention felt pretty fresh after the dismal last Brosnan outing, which surely has to be the worst film in the main series. It really hit the ground running, with a fantastic cold-open, stunning title animation, and it's an ironically low-stakes (for being set in a casino) plot that still maintains the level of excitement that the rest of the franchise goes for.

I will say that my memory of the earlier Connery films is somewhat lacking. I think I might end up rewatching a few of them.

[Mantis]

I watched a bunch before they left Prime not too long ago and I feel like Die Another Day gets very unfairly treated. Yes, it is stupid as hell, but then so are a lot of the classic era ones. Toby Stephens absolutely chews on the scenery with how sneering and pomp he is as Graves, it's great.

I would probably rank mine:
1) Casino Royale (2006)
2) Goldeneye
3) Octopussy
4) Tomorrow Never Dies
5) You Only Live Twice

[Lenny Solidus]

1) Casino Royale 2006
2) Goldeneye
3) The Living Daylights
4) Moonraker
5) Live and Let Die

[Animalmother]

Not in any particular order.

Live & Let Die
Love the music and the sheer ridiculousness of it all. The boat chase with the amazing jump scene is awesome.
Also.. "My name is Bond. James Bo..."
"Names are for tombstones. Take this honky out an waste 'em"

View to a Kill
Walken is just hilarious and is obviously having a great time.

Moonraker
Jaws, space battle and wrist dart. Awesome

Casino Royale
Just overall excellent


This is possibly the funniest thing on the entire Internet.

[Wrathbone]

1) Goldfinger. Others do it bigger and sillier, but it’s purest Bond from start to finish.

2) Casino Royale 2006. Near flawless and such a different Bond than what came before.

3) Thunderball. I think this one is often overlooked for reasons I don’t quite get, as it’s got just about every Bond trope you could hope for and it’s done really well.

4) You Only Live Twice. On a par with Thunderball, really, for the same reasons. I’d love to know whether Bond’s Japanese ‘transformation’ was ever meant to be taken seriously or not, but it’s hilarious either way.

5) On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. I enjoy this one more each time I see it. It does some interesting things with the character and I wish we’d got more of Lazenby. Superb instrumental theme too.


And just for the sake of it, the absolute worst Bond without a shadow of a doubt is Die Another Day. Brosnan checked out, Halle Berry never checked in and Madonna’s godawful song is the worst Bond theme of all time.

[Raid]

I really need to re-watch OHMSS; I've only ever seen it once, and it was probably 25 years ago. To be honest there's probably half a dozen I need to re-watch.

I feel like Die Another Day gets very unfairly treated. Yes, it is stupid as hell, but then so are a lot of the classic era ones. Toby Stephens absolutely chews on the scenery with how sneering and pomp he is as Graves, it's great.

Would you put any other Bond films below it? It's not a totally unenjoyable film by any means, but it's lousy as part of the franchise.

[Wrathbone]

I missed Dave's comment about it before I posted my thoughts on Die Another Day. I might have dialled it down slightly.

[Mantis]

Don't worry Pete you haven't upset me. It's not exactly making my short-list for greatest movies of all time. In answer to your question, Chris, I think I'd have to rewatch a lot of the earlier ones to say for certain how I feel they hold up now, but Die Another Day is still definitely down near the bottom of the list. I just enjoyed it for how daft it was really and it does have some good moments in and entertainig quips.

The only one I can definitely say I'd rank lower is No Time To Die. It just missed the mark entirely for me.

[Mantis]

You guys want a really contentious opinion? It didn't make my top 5 but I still rate Quantum of Solace in my top 10.

Sorry, not sorry.

[Wrathbone]

I didn't hate No Time to Die or Quantum, but they're bottom 5 for me.

Another one I don't rate that highly is The Spy Who Loved Me. Excellent intro, but otherwise I find it oddly boring aside from the submarine car.

[Raid]

I've seen Quantum of Solace at least three times, and I still don't remember what it's about - something to do with water maybe? - it's Bottom 5 for me. I've only seen No Time To Die the once, but I think it was probably in the middle of an ordered list of Craig films behind Skyfall and Casino. Spectre was probably the one I was most disappointed by - it had so much potential but it just wasn't very good.

[Lenny Solidus]

Quantum is fairly passable once viewed a few times, but still in the lower 5 for me.

[ManBearSquid]

Of the Daniel Craig movies, I've only seen Casino, Quantum, and Skyfall (assuming that's the one with the Home Alone set up in Scotland), and I'd also rank them in that order.

For Brosnan, only Goldeneye was any good for me.

I love the Roger Moore era movies, they're delightfully daft.

[Animalmother]

I enjoyed No Time to Die but will be buggered if I can remember what the main plot was about or why the villian was villianing.