Overrated and underrated

When people list their favourite Bond films you'll invariably see the same ones at the top and the usual suspects at the bottom. In between are a number of films that some people love and some people find the least satisfying entries. The criteria is bound up in the reviews and the general standing of a film. We have decided to leave Casino Royale out of this experiment because that would be far too easy and predictable.

Robert Fossil

Overrated:

The most overrated James Bond has to be GoldenEye. The film drew superb reviews in 1995 and I expected something very special. I left the cinema with an inescapable feeling that what I had just seen was infinitely less satisfying than the two Timothy Dalton films that had been met with such apathy in the late eighties. Pierce Brosnan makes a perfectly respectable James Bond and does all that is asked of him but a number of things bugged me. Judi Dench right from the start was miscast as M. The over-long scenes in a bunker full of computer screens made you feel like you were watching a television series. A far cry from the charm of Bond going through those padded doors (and yes I know that's old-hat now and a modern MI6 HQ would have a LOT of computer screens but I miss the old style). The drift towards filming sequences on a back-lot instead of real locations and cutting and pasting it all together. I'm sure it's always been done to an extent but never was it so blatent, giving the film a slightly cheap look at times. Eric Serra's score. For reasons best known to himself he seemed reluctant to use the 007 theme...at ALL. I like a lot of stuff in the film. The bungee-jump, Sean Bean, the fight at the end, but something about GoldenEye seems synthetic. The tank-chase seems like a missed opportunity and the film lacks colour and a clear sense of direction. Lest we forget Alan Cumming too who shamelessly overdoes his small bit as nerdy computer geek Boris.

Underrated:

The Man With the Golden Gun will always be underrated by Bond fans, consistently cropping up whenever the worst Bond film is debated. It isn't flawless by any means, lacking a grand feel and and exciting situations at times. Roger Moore is required to play against his strengths by aping Sean Connery here too. On the plus side we get one of the most colourful entries in the series with great use of locations and the great Christopher Lee as Scaramanga, possibly the classiest villain ever. John Barry's score is superb and anyone who doesn't enjoy the car-stunt should be fed some anti-misery pills.

Michael Cooper

Overrated:

Diamonds Are Forever is overrated. I know Bond fans who have it in their top three but in another article on this site on George Lazenby I wrote:

Lured back at great expense, a heavy Sean Connery - temples flecked with grey hair - ambled his way through Diamonds Are Forever in a most jovial fashion, thoughts of the golf-course, you imagine, never far away. A campy adventure with a truly bizarre script,  DAF set the tone for the Roger Moore era. Strange as it seems, Connery actually served as a bridge between Lazenby's darker Bond and Roger Moore's lighter take on the character.

I do find the US set Bond films don't have quite the same atmosphere as the globe-trotting ones. It is slightly jarring to go from Diana Rigg to Jill St John in the space of one film and while Diamonds Are Forever is fun it is one of the few Bond films that I struggle with sometimes.


Underrated:

The Man with The Golden Gun. Whenever I watch this I enjoy the locales, the memorable score, the car-chase, Christopher Lee's effortlessly assured villain, Nic Nac, the sunken ship, the punch-up at the belly-dancer's club ("I've lost my charm!" "Not from where I'm standing") and find it odd that so many fans have this near the bottom of their list.

Luke Quantrill


Overrated:

For Your Eyes Only: Lynn-Holly Johnson. Bill Conti's disco score. "I'll buy you a delicatessen?" That French bird who went on to flog perfume. Topol constantly eating nuts. And yet this film has a reputation for being a radical and hard-hitting return to basics. I love the car-chase and the ski-sequences are well staged but I'm sorry, Bond in the middle of a gigantic battle inside a super-tanker beats Bond climbing a mountain for half an hour any day of the week and do we really need to see a mini sub scene again? Especially one this long. A John Barry score would have helped and Roger Moore is very good in the quieter moments (in a film that must have been planned for a new Bond actor) but For Your Eyes Only is overrated.


Underrated:

Octopussy. You know you're in for a couple of hours of nonsense when Bond appears at the start with a fake moustache and then gets into that acrostar jet for the most spectacular stunt imaginable. And as nonsense goes it doesn't get much more fun than this. A huge film that throws everything but the kitchen sink at the screen for the sake of entertainment. It has three climaxes one of which features Roger Moore attempting to defuse a nuclear bomb while dressed as a clown. I rest my case.

William Rogers


Overrated:

GoldenEye. Doesn't have the sweep and stylish action sequences of the previous Dalton films and looks cheap in places. Lurches into a tropical setting after the Russian scenes without even pretending to have any linear designs. There is a lot to enjoy but it has to be the most overrated set against its reviews at the time.


Underrated:

Licence To Kill. Great theme song, great Bond, great villain, a tanker chase finale that puts the muddy production of later Bonds to shame, and yet the film is remembered as a misfire! And those who regard this as devoid of humour clearly missed Q's finest hour. 

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