The Living Daylights (1987)

After helping a Soviet defector escape to the west, James Bond (Timothy Dalton) is dispatched to assassinate a Russian general who appears to have reintroduced a program to hunt down and kill spies from the west. Soon Bond discovers that the defector, who appeared to have re-acquired by the Soviets, is actually part of a criminal gambit to defraud both the USSR and an American arms dealer at the same time.

Released in 1987, The Living Daylights introduced movie-going audiences to Timothy Dalton's fresh take on the James Bond character. He was the fourth actor to take up the role as part of EON Productions' franchise, following in the footsteps of Sean Connery, George Lazenby and Roger Moore - who had played the role through seven films between 1973 and 1985.

Dalton only played the role of Bond twice, in this and in 1989's Licence to Kill. Following production on that second film, legal wrangles led to a six-year delay before the franchise returned with GoldenEye. Despite being offered the chance to return in that film, Dalton elected to move on. As a result he has a short tenure as Bond, but to my mind an excellent one. While not the best actor to play the role - that probably is still Sean Connery - Dalton is certainly by far the most underrated.

Spectre (2015)

Following the death of his spymaster M (Judi Dench), James Bond (Daniel Craig) goes rogue to assassinate a man in Mexico City. In his absence, the British intelligence services are undergoing a shake-up - with the Double-O branch facing immediate retirement. When a trail of names leads Bond to a mysterious terrorist organisation, it becomes clear that the end of the Double-O program may be premature. Or something like that. To be honest an equally accurate synopsis of Spectre could be that James Bond travels to a variety of exotic international locations, has some car chases, fist fights, gun fights and foot chases, sleeps with multiple women, battles a henchman and has a climactic showdown with a ridiculous super-villain.

When James Bond was rebooted with Casino Royale it felt like something genuinely interesting was being done with the character. Better motivation. More depth. A grounded and comparatively realistic fictional world. Supremely inventive and dynamic action scenes. This quality continued for the most part in its sequel Quantum of Solace, which stumbled a little with its storyline but continued to excel in terms of character development, supporting cast and its excellent relationship between Craig's Bond and Dench's M. Then came Skyfall.

The Pull List: 4 November 2015

This week Dynamite publish the first issue of their much-anticipated James Bond comic book, written by Warren Ellis with art by Jason Masters. It's a perfectly timed laugh, with Spectre unrolling into cinemas around the world over the next few weeks. What strikes me as unusual is that it seems to have taken this long for a proper James Bond comic book to exist at all. Sure there have been newspaper strips in the past, and a few miniseries adaptations of Roger Moore's films back in the 1970s and 1980s, but an original serialised comic book? I'm not sure there's ever been one before now. (Note: it turns out Dark Horse produced a few miniseries in the early 1990s.)

It's an odd issue, to be honest. Masters' artwork is great, and suits the material well with the sort of clean-line style I tend to prefer in comic books. Warren Ellis' script, however, seems to lean heavy on pastiche and stereotype, with Bond's own personality expressed in such an extreme fashion I felt inclined to check the cover to ensure I wasn't reading Archer instead. The action prologue is deftly handled. The subsequent scenes of Bond flirting with Moneypenny, getting a mission from M, and some equipment from Q, all feel remarkable old-fashioned and dreadfully creaky.

There's so much potential in a monthly James Bond comic book. The art is top-notch. The script needs a lot of work if it's going to stand out enough. One feels that in this case Ellis is taking the money and running. (3/5)

James Bond 007: Vargyr #1. Written by Warren Ellis. Art by Jason Masters. Colours by Guy Major.

Under the cut: reviews of two Doctor Whos, Detective Comics and Doctor Strange.

Quantum of Solace (2008)

In the aftermath of Casino Royale, James Bond (Daniel Craig) goes rogue in an attempt to track down the criminal organisation that murdered Vesper Lynd. The trail leads from Italy to Haiti to Austria and finally to Bolivia, where he uncovers a secret plan to rob the nation of its government and its water.

Quantum of Solace was released two years after Casino Royale broke box office records for the James Bond franchise and re-invigorated the series after its well had seemed to run dry. At the time I thought Quantum of Solace was an excellent sequel and a highly enjoyable Bond film. Many others around me seemed to believe the opposite. The reverse happened four years later, when Skyfall was met by overwhelming praise and accolades from almost all quarters; I found it to be the worst Bond film since Die Another Day.

With the fourth of Daniel Craig's Bond films, Spectre, about to hit cinemas I felt it was worth giving Quantum of Solace another viewing. Did it hold up to my initial impressions, or were the majority of fans correct in criticising it?

Goldfinger: 50 years on

The general wisdom is that sequels are never as good as the original film. There's an accepted law of diminishing returns that states that every time you revisit the well there's a little less creativity, a reduction of the originality. A little shine comes off each time.

Then there is the small group of sequels that actually manage to exceed the quality of their predecessors: The Godfather Part 2, The Empire Strikes Back, The Dark Knight, Toy Story 2. Sure, individual people are going to quibble over which ones are superior and which ones aren't, but generally speaking pretty much anybody can identify at least one sequel that was better.

The third film, though? No one says they're the best installment. No one holds Return of the Jedi above Star Wars, or The Godfather Part III over Part I, or Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade over Raiders of the Lost Ark. I think I've identified one, though: Goldfinger, the third EON Productions James Bond adventure, which celebrates its 50th anniversary today.

Skyfall (2012)

There's no avoiding the fact that this review of Sam Mendes' Skyfall, the 23rd James Bond movie, is going to contain spoilers. Major plot and character developments will be exposed and discussed, so if you haven't seen it yet and plan to, then you might want to skip over this review and come back once you've watched the film.


Skyfall is a maddening film, packed with as many admirable set pieces as it is infested with poor scripting choices. At times it made me want to punch my fist into the air. At times it made me want to punch the filmmakers in the face. Despite the great moments - and we'll discuss those in a second - my ultimate emotional reaction to the film is a mixture of frustration and rage. I feel frustration because the film can't help itself from being quite unpleasantly sexist and - in one specific scene - actively misogynist (in the sense that I wonder if the writers and director hate women). I feel rage because for all the character development and progression in the franchise we saw in Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, Skyfall exits with a status quo re-established that James Bond hasn't experienced since the mid-1980s. It's a backwards step not seen since Bryan Singer spent $200 million dollars of Warner Bros' money remaking an early 1980s Richard Donner movie in Superman Returns.