Carver really must have gotten underneath 007’s skin to make him want to take warm Smirnoff Vodka shots. 😯
This scene from Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) has to be one of the weakest a Bond villain has ever looked. Who signed off on having the end of this scene? Cringe!
I’ve always thought that Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce) Tomorrow plot in TND is one of the most realistic/plausible villain plots of the entire series – controlling information and the media is a very powerful thing (hat-tip Elon Musk/Twitter). I’ll give credit to the double-entendre anchorman quote to Carver, but his end “imitation” of Wai-Lin’s (Michelle Yeoh) fighting skills is nothing short of the “pathetic” word he elicits himself. Gross!
The Q Branch scene from GoldenEye (1995) is one of my favorites of the series. It has it all: physical humor, great chemistry between Bond (Pierce Brosnan) and Q (Desmond Llewelyn), funny one-liners and quips and…the only time another movie’s theme is mentioned in a previous movie? Although it’s great, it does have its flaws.
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There are two times when Bond popped up in villains’ databases:
A View To A Kill (1985)
Die Another Day (2002)
The World Is Not Enough (1999) boasts one of the quickest gambling sequences in any of the James Bond movies. Elektra King (Sophie Marceau) playfully joins James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) at Valentin Zukovsky’s (Robbie Coltrane) casino, L’Or Noir (Black Gold). Bond fears for her safety as the casino is filled with people from rival oil companies, so he insists they leave right away.
Although she doesn’t seem like the gambling type anyway, King abides. They are taken to a private room where Zukovsky credits her with $1 million dollars from her late father’s casino account. Instead of risking it on blackjack or other casino games, however, King prefers a straight up single, high card draw. A pity – since a private blackjack sequence with Bond, King and Zukovsky would be pure entertainment.
The cards for the shortest game of war are revealed and King loses – her queen of hearts is beaten by Zukovsky’s ace of clubs. But not before she drops a significant quote: “There is no point in living if you can’t feel alive.” …the same quote used by Renard later in the movie that lets Bond know that Elektra is not who she seems.
The quickest gambling sequence of any James Bond movie in The World Is Not Enough (1999)…PS peek the cameo by producer Michael G. Wilson!
This is one of those frustrating James Bond movie chases where there are a hundred different scenarios where it could have been stopped or made less dangerous by some better decision making. For starters, why did the baddies here decide to use their mode of transportation as part of their strategy to kill Bond? Surely they knew, and would of course eventually find out, they had a death wish if anything disturbs the helicopter rotors.
And why doesn’t Bond and Wai Lin just stop? Get off the bike, disappear in the crowd?
Like all James Bond movies I see in the theater (save No Time To Die, of course), I walked out of my first viewing of Die Another Day amped up and declared it the best James Bond movie of all time. I was excited to see it again! And although DAD’s luster surely faded with subsequent viewings and definitely over the years compared to the other movies, as always, there are some bright spots in the movie. Gustav Graves’ introduction is one of them.
As Bond jets to the UK and is served a first-class vodka martini (by Roger Moore’s real-life daughter, FYI) and the Clash’s “London Calling” blares, we are thrust into the ostentatiousness that is the villain, Gustav Graves. Although the movie decays with subsequent revelations of his DNA-altered identity as Colonel Moon, poor acting by Halle Berry and many eyeroll moments, Graves’ intro scene feels like its from a different caliber Bond movie. His entrance (the Union Jack parachute an obvious nod to The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)) and cocky demeanor are spot on for a megalomaniacal Bond villain, and comes off as suave and in control, but definitely annoying and not self-aware. These days, I can’t help but see a bit of Elon Musk in Gustav Graves, unfortunately.
