Day 25 - Conclusion + Movie Rankings

Happy Holidays everyone! And screw you COVID! The decision to embark on this project was taken right at the start of the year, and it probably won't come as much of a surprise that today was supposed to be a review of 'No Time To Die'. However, due to COVID, the film has been pushed back twice and we now won't see it until Spring next year at the earliest. I do of course understand why this decision has been made, and keeping people safe should absolutely be the priority... but goddamn is it annoying. It all lined up so perfectly: finish the project with a new freshly released film, twenty-five films over twenty-five days... oh well. When the film does get released next year, I'll make sure to review it - you'll have to think of it as a James Bond December epilogue.

But while we may not have 'No Time To Die' to talk about, I'm not about to miss doing something for this last day. So instead I figured I might as well use it to wrap things up and rank each film from best to weakest. So without further ado, here are my rankings of every Bond film:

Now I'm not going to elaborate too much here on why each film is where it is, as I've already penned just shy of 30k words giving my thoughts on each and every one. But I understand that listing them all together like this might prompt a few questions and I might have to defend some of my decisions. First of all, there are only two films on here that I can comfortably call bad, and that's 'Octopussy' and 'For Your Eyes Only'. Putting 'Octopussy' last but one probably won't surprise anyone, but 'For Your Eyes Only' ranks at the very bottom simply for how forgettable and tepid it is. More than any other film, it's the definition of Bond being done by the numbers. 

Ranking higher than both of them, but still fairly low are a couple that I feel I have to justify. Firstly, 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service'. Time has undoubtedly been kind to this one, but I'm afraid I'm still unconvinced. The decision to put it that low down hasn't got much to do with George Lazenby, so much as it is just overly long and dull. If we were just to take the last half hour or so then it would fare a lot better, but until then it's like wading through treacle to get to the good stuff. Putting 'From Russia With Love' so far down may also need some defending. While this one seems to be pretty universally liked, I'm afraid I still found it a step down from 'Dr. No'. For all the complaints targeted at the Sean Connery era for its reductive view of women, his second film is where that casual misogyny is most prominent and it's absolutely aged the worst out of Connery's films.

Moving up the list, I imagine most films towards the middle won't require much of an explanation. So let's talk about my top three. It still hasn't sunk in with me yet how unappreciated 'Tomorrow Never Dies' really is. While I share in the love for 'GoldenEye', this is absolutely my favourite Brosnan film. Michelle Yeoh plays my favourite Bond girl of the series, it has a great villain and plenty of social commentary which continues to remain relevant. Top that off with plenty of strong action sequences, and I'd really encourage everyone to re-watch this - it's a lot of fun and holds up well. In second place, we have 'The Living Daylights'. I can't bring myself to rank the different Bond actors, since like every actor to play the Doctor in 'Doctor Who', I don't think there's been a bad egg among them. However, Timothy Dalton's brief stint was definitely a highlight for me this past month. It should come as no surprise that both of his films made it into the Top 10, and 'The Living Daylights' is a joy of a film. It's able to keep the series moving with the times, while staying faithful to the original Bond formula. Although that's not necessarily the same formula as the Ian Fleming Bond novels, as I'm no fan of Fleming and don't really care how closely the film adaptations line up with his works. But there is something about Dalton that tapped into a quintessential essence of Bond. Last of all, my favourite Bond film turned out to be 'Skyfall'. It's only been two days since I was waxing lyrical about this, so I won't go into my reasons here as to why it came top. I do appreciate that it's not the best look for me to call the most successful Bond film ever the best one too, but I can't deny that it did well for a very good reason.

So yes, 'Skyfall' is my favourite Bond film and appropriately enough, its theme song is also my favourite Bond theme, with A-ha's 'Living Daylights' and Paul McCartney's 'Live & Let Die' following close behind. In fact just for fun, here too is my ranking of each Bond theme:

Now to reiterate, both of these lists are primarily here just for fun and not to be taken too seriously. In fact, ask me again in a few months and they might have even changed completely. So that about does it for James Bond December, and you know what, it's not been a bad run for a series that started out mostly as a male power fantasy. If you've been following this project, then I thank you sincerely. It would be nice to do another one like this next year, but for now I don't have any plans to follow this up with anything different, but never say never (wink, wink). It's business as usual from here and I'll be semi-regularly posting more reviews and content in the new year, hopefully including 'No Time To Die'. Until then, if you celebrate Christmas then have a great day, stay safe and fingers crossed for a much better 2021.