Rating: Summary: A Fairly Good Bond Collection to Say the Least (4.5 Stars) Review: The third and final volume of the James Bond DVD Collection is quite possibly the less alluring, most underrated set of the three volumes. All of the Bond flicks, save for Thunderball, are those movies in the series which you either love or for a huge chunk of Bond aficionados, love to hate. At least from my perspective, as a seasoned Bond veteran, I find all of the Bond films in the series, enjoyable, some more than others, despite the cheesiness and mediocrity that mires a good portion of the series. Therefore, this set is worth checking out. Here's my rundown of the Bond films in this set:1. Thunderball (1965): This is Sean Connery in his prime as the super-suave Agent 007. Connery seems to have a formidable feel for how James Bond is to be portrayed. As for the film itself, it echoes the same archetypal world domination plot laid out by 1964's Goldfinger. SPECTRE holds the United States and Britain for ransom by threatening to launch an atomic bomb at each nation. Thunderball is a classic Bond flick, despite the extensive action (i.e. the climactic underwater fight scene) which drag the film. 5/5. 2. On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969). Australian-born George Lazenby's first and last Bond film. If you thought you needed extra patience for watching rather tedious Thunderball, dig deep because this is the longest Bond film of all time, clocking in at 2 hours and 22 minutes. OHMSS, as Ian Fleming intended, is a passionate tale as we see James fall in love and eventually marry Tracy, Bond's ideal companion, wonderfully portrayed by Diana Rigg. Business must come before pleasure, as Bond exploits Blofeld's (Telly Savalas) master plan to release biological agents all over the world. The film is a must-see despite its noticeable flaws (i.e. the fast frame rate of fighting scenes, Lazenby's static acting), because it is a pivotal chapter in the Bond series. 4.5/5. 3. Live and Let Die (1973): Roger Moore's first outing as 007, ushering in an over-the-top feel, which stemmed from Sean Connery's last two Bond films, You Only Live Twice and Diamonds Are Forever. Moore portrays a Bond who is more dependent on his charm, grace, and arrogance rather than the grittier, keen Bond as featured in the Connery films. In Live And Let Die, Bond investigates the murders of three fellow British agents only to uncover a scheme by a black diplomat/kingpin, Kananga/Mr. Big (Yaphet Kotto) to release free heroin on American soil. Live and Let Die is rather comical, a bit controversial (i.e. black and southern white stereotypes), and rather quirky given the supernatural tone to the film. Nonetheless, a fun Bond flick. 4/5. 4. Octopussy (1983): A throwback to the more serious Connery films and a turn away from the extremely over-the-top movies, typical of the early stages of the Moore era. Bond ventures to India to spy on an Afghan prince, Kamal Khan (Louis Jourdan) and his association with a professional smuggler, Octopussy (Maud Adams) and with KGB officers. Later, Bond deduces Khan is utilizing Octopussy's circus front for a madman general to detonate a nuclear bomb on an American base in Germany and lead the Soviets to conquer Western Europe. Definitely, one of Moore's best, a close second to The Spy Who Loved Me. 5/5. 5. A View to a Kill (1985): Moore's final outing as Bond which turns out to be a train wreck of a film. In short, Bond keeps tabs on a psychotic microchip maker, Max Zorin (Christopher Walken), only to unravel his Goldfinger-reminiscent scheme to destroy Silicon Valley by way of forcing an earthquake and dominate the world's microchip market in doing so. Moore and Walken are so-so, but the leading lady, a poster child for a living Barbie, Stacy (Tanya Roberts) is really what drags the film down. 3/5. 6. Die Another Day (2002): The most recent Bond flick, the fourth with Pierce Brosnan at the helm. In celebrating the 20th edition of Bond and the 40th anniversary of the first Bond film released, Dr. No, Die Another Day is a tribute to its predecessors, in that it is a cornucopia of moments which resemble memorable events and nuances of the old Bond movies. The plot is much more outlandish than that of any Bond film, a far-out, over-digitallized, "cyber-technic" romp. It's highly overrated, too complex, much more than The Living Daylights, and just way too over-the-top. 2/5. In summing up, Volume 3 is a solid collection, although, most of the films here on this set are probably just placeholders to make your Bond collection complete.
Rating: Summary: A MUST own collection!!! Review: These DVD sets (1, 2 & 3) are an absolute MUST have! It's next to impossible to get some of these movies unless you get the sets. I already owned some of the movies, but I just sold the copies I already had on Ebay.
Each DVD's special features are very informative and almost as much fun as watching the movie. It's a blast to see all the behind the scenes stuff.
A must have collection!
Rating: Summary: Not bad, but not the best. Review: These movies are good, but I'm sure there is a reason they are in the last collection. "Thunderball", "Die Another Day", "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" and "Live and Let Die" are all pretty good. Even "A View to a Kill" and "Octopussy" are not bad. There are some awesome bond momments, such as George Lazenby sliddign across the ice and firing his weapon in "Her Majesty's" and the fight atop the Golden Gate Bridge in "View". As well as the car chase on the frozen lake in "Die Another Day".Then there are a few rediculous moments, such as Rodger Moore swinging from vines and yelling like Tarzan and later dressing like a clown in "Octopussy". Overall, though, entertaining.
Rating: Summary: Not bad, but not the best. Review: These movies are good, but I'm sure there is a reason they are in the last collection. "Thunderball", "Die Another Day", "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" and "Live and Let Die" are all pretty good. Even "A View to a Kill" and "Octopussy" are not bad. There are some awesome bond momments, such as George Lazenby sliddign across the ice and firing his weapon in "Her Majesty's" and the fight atop the Golden Gate Bridge in "View". As well as the car chase on the frozen lake in "Die Another Day".Then there are a few rediculous moments, such as Rodger Moore swinging from vines and yelling like Tarzan and later dressing like a clown in "Octopussy". Overall, though, entertaining.
Rating: Summary: Not bad, but not the best. Review: These movies are good, but I'm sure there is a reason they are in the last collection. "Thunderball", "Die Another Day", "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" and "Live and Let Die" are all pretty good. Even "A View to a Kill" and "Octopussy" are not bad. There are some awesome bond momments, such as George Lazenby sliddign across the ice and firing his weapon in "Her Majesty's" and the fight atop the Golden Gate Bridge in "View". As well as the car chase on the frozen lake in "Die Another Day".Then there are a few rediculous moments, such as Rodger Moore swinging from vines and yelling like Tarzan and later dressing like a clown in "Octopussy". Overall, though, entertaining.
Rating: Summary: The crappiest of the 3 bond sets. only ohmss is good Review: This dvd set has too many bad movies for it to sell as much as the other sets will. First of all, there are only six discs. Also, five dvds suck and one is GREAT. Not worth 60 dollars Octopussy-although some do not like this movie at all,I must say I enjoyed it.(HIGHLY). Roger Moore is a better James bond when he was old then when he was young,although never as good as Dalton but better than the rest. John Barry's score is great and a relief after Bill Conti nearly messed up For your eyes only. Moore already had done much better. Check the part where Rog is climbing outside the Monsoon palace and he sees Prince Kamal Khan greet General Orlov, Great MUSIC!!! On her majesty's secret service- This is in my three favorite Bonds section(along with For your eyes only and the living daylights). The story is GREAT and Telly Savales is the best Blofeld which after all is Bond's arch nemesis. This movie has an awesome score, Lots of great action and the story flows like water and does not EVER get boring, which some of Connery's previous ones do(like Thunderball). I cannot believe how many people have never heard of this movie or George Lazenby, MGM did to this movie what they did to CLOWNHOUSE, which was also a GREAT movie that is also highly underrated and deserves more respect LIVE AND LET DIE- this is not a good movie in any way.It is cheesy like most of Roger Moore's movies. Everyone loves the title song but i hate it.Roger Moore is at his best-looking though. The only good thing about this movie is that Yaphet Kotto, who is suprisingly vicious and a great villian!!! A view to A kill-If you are going to overload a dvd set with Roger Moore don't do it with his worst movies.(You might as well have put the man with the golden gun and moonraker in there too). If you want a Bond set and good movies in it, then get Volume 2 which has Moonraker and For your eyes only, two good MOORE films but completely different. A view to a kill plain out sucks. There is no good action, no story, and ATROCIOUS acting. How could they let this movie be made, they should have straight out skipped directly to the living daylights and give Rog the final good movie that he deserves to end his legacy with. TRAGIC THUNDERBALL-One of Connery's pretty good ones, GOOD score and great cast and locations, but the story needs a serious jumpstart. Connery really started to suck after this movie, but he is better than Brosnan ,at least. Sir Sean kicks some ass at the end of this one. His best line in it "can my friend rest, she's just dead". Terence Young was a great director to. This is the only good movie in this box set, except for Lazenby's. Die another Day- THIS MOVIE is just plain out awful and does not deserve to be in same class as these other movies i reviewed that are far superior. Was i the only one who noticed that at the end they totally duplicated "The Living Daylights" when Brosnan does the same thing with a helicopter that Dalton does with the jeep and they copy Licence to Kill because Bond goes rogue. They also copy the end of Goldfinger by trying to make a tense airplane fight, but the cheesy special effects make this movie even that much worse. Halle Berry is a horrible Bond girl. I wish Bond would strangle her for information or feed her to some sharks, but I never got that. My father's girlfriend told me this was good? What is wrong with people today. No real tense action, all crap. BUY the james bond collections volume 1 and 2 and buy ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE SEPARATELY, BECAUSE THE REST HERE SUCK!
Rating: Summary: Finishing the set off... with the bottom of the barrel. Review: This is quite obviously the final set in this collection, and I have to wonder if half the project team over at MGM wasn't in favor of just waiting 'til after the next movie comes out on DVD to put this together. It's such a cobbled-together set that it really feels like an afterthought when compared to the two previous well-balanced sets. Not just in terms of packaging (I will whine later about that), but three of six films are Moore-Bond-ness, with one Connery, one Lazenby and one Brosnan thrown in. That factor alone gives it a very "dated" feel -- and not in that "classic" way that we get from the earliest entries in this series. Anyway. Mixture aside, they're Bond movies, so obviously they're worth watching. Thunderball - Say what you will about badly-done film-speed effects or lengthy underwater fight scenes, this is one of the better Bond movies. It's got the standard end-of-the-world plot complete with SPECTRE-madman-with-bomb, but that's just part of the charm. I'm not even listing this as a favorite because I'm some kind of Connery die-hard fan. (Brosnan is rapidly becoming my favorite Bond for the way he manages to be a spy and an action hero at the same time.) It's just plain good. OHMSS - The un-Bond Bond movie. It is, yet it isn't, and therein lies the allure. Lazenby isn't what you'd call a talented actor, but there's something nice about his much more low-key portrayal of Bond. It's definitely a good thing that there was only one Lazemby movie, but I admit to being curious what it would be like. Worth watching, probalby worth owning, even if just for its novelty value. Diana Rigg is the quintessential Bond girl, and boosts this movie's value enormously by her mere presence. I'm twenty-six and I perfectly understand my dad's obsession with her. Yow. Live and Let Die - Yaphet Kotto is a thoroughly undervalued actor, and I'm very pleased to see him as a Bond villain. The plot wasn't *that* weak, and it's not Moore's worst outing, but I still felt like Kotto was wasted here. You gotta admit, though... it ain't a bad song. Octopussy - Why, exactly, did we bring back Maud Adams? She really wasn't good first time, and putting her in a *terrible* (bad, bad, bad, bad, bad) Bond film didn't improve my impression of her. A View to a Kill - I'm sensing a theme in this set. Good actor wasted in a mediocre role in a bad movie. No one will ever convince me that Christopher Walken did not have the potential to play the best Bond villain ever. Sadly, he wasn't given the chance to try. Grace Jones can't act, but she kicks butt. Christopher Walken didn't kick butt, but he can act. I guess there's some sort of balance there. Die Another Day - I shall not discuss the content of this film, because I have nothing to add on that subject... possibly because there *was* no content to it. What I *will* say is how ticked off I was to see one of those terrible pre-menu ads on this disc... FOR THE BOXED SET I WAS WATCHING. I mean, really. I know it would have cost a lot to release a wholly different version of this DVD, but in any event... Still, there's something to be said for any movie that has Judy Densch and John Cleese. The A-R nitpicker in me is annoyed that the packaging for Die Another Day is different from the other 19 movies in this set. But I won't go there. Yes, I will. A paper insert costs nothing, and I can't believe that sales of "Die Another Day" were all that huge; the market was CLEARLY the collectors, and hence, the boxed sets. So... disregard for the target market/audience? Is that what they're doing at MGM these days? It's the weakest of the three box sets, of course. But you'll buy it anyway, because if you bought the other two, you really have no choice. Capitalism and collections seem to work that way.
Rating: Summary: Great Pack Review: This pack is down right great--what am I talking about they are all great! THUNDERBALL, Connery's fourth movie. I think this is the best film out of connery's seven. 5 stars. ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE is the least coolist bond movie. Not a bad film, most people don't like it, I see why but it's a bad film. I liked it(not as much as a Connery film but I liked it) but when it got to the end......let's just say it sucked. The ending just isn't very Bond like, ok kill his wife but don't make some fat granny do a drive by and shoot her and some how not hit Bond, it's retarded. So what if it was in the book, take it out, this is why this film isn't well liked. LIVE AND LET DIE, Moore's first bond movie. cool but not moore's best. 4 stars OCTOPUSSY, is a new type of Bond movie. this one has alot more action than the others, way ahead of it's time. Easily one of the best Bond film of all time! 5 stars. A VIEW TO A KILL, is the final movie to feature Roger Moore as James Bond and he really go's out with a bang! 5 stars. DIE ANOTHER DAY, I LOVE IT!! one of my favrite Bond movies. Pierce Brosnan has never been better. 5 stars. As you can tell I love the Bond moves, there is not one i do not like and that is rare. when you read Reviews on Amazon.com, the only thing you see "ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE is the best movie of all time" and "Roger Moore (was bad)". Now tell me, how can you be a die-hard Bond fan if you don't like Roger Moore? He's in seven movies! If you are a Bond fan, how can you not like one of Moore movies? And out of all of Sean Connery's movies you think ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE is the best? I like it but Lazenby doesn't even come close to Connery.
Rating: Summary: Bond. James Bond. Review: This pack rocks! at last bond has hit DVD, I want be happy till I get every one.
Rating: Summary: Great Films, Horrible Marketing Review: Well, James Bond is being released yet again. These are the same special edition dvds that were released three years ago (replacing a few early barebones dvd editions) for the high price of $35. They were then pulled from shelves and placed on moratorium by MGM not long after initial release, when the dvd format started to take off, nonetheless. To coincide with the theatrical release of Die Another Day, MGM fed on our appetite for Bond by releasing seven films, both in a gift set and individually, only to make us salivate another year for the rest of them (they were going to release one in the spring but pushed it back to give the dissapointing Die Another Day a big lone payday on dvd). Now the rest of the Bond catalogue is being released for the holiday season in gift sets only. Currently, all of the early films' soundtracks and most of the films video is being remastered for new special editions to coincide with the next Bond flik in 2005. So, for those of us who purchased a few favorite films individually last fall and planned on purchasing a few favorites yet again this fall, are forced into buying these gift sets instead. I'd love to have the entire Bond library, but not if they're going to have new & superior editions in two years. Even if I decided to purchase the gift sets now, I'd be doubling up on films that I already purchased last year. Very few people want A View to a Kill for anything more than completing the collection, so does anybody really want to buy it twice in two different releases. MGM really wanted to squeeze us Bond fans dry I guess. After waiting so long for these films to be re-re-released, I just feel kind of duped and dissapointed. Too bad Q's not here to fix this poor and thoughtless marketing campaign for us.
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