Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is the continuing adventures of the crew of the starship Enterprise from the 1960's TV series. This time Kirk is an admiral that gets pulled into a game of revenge by his old nemesis Khan(Ricardo Montalban), who he left in exile over a decade before.Khan is by far the best of the Star Trek films and it achieves this by having the simple plot of being a revenge tale. Khan simply wants to avenge the wrong he believes Kirk has done to him. By keeping it simple it becomes an enjoyable film without having to whip out some 2000 page Star Trek guide to decipher what's going on. The Genesis device that appears in the film is merely a Maguffin, the piece that everyone wants and therefore pulls them all together. Star Trek II represents a well executed film that is the peak of the series in my opinion.
Yes, it's true. I gave this film four stars AND have it included on the most underrated movies list. Is Roger Moore getting old in this one? Yes, of course. But Eon still wanted him (if he hadn't of said no he would have been in The Living Daylights). Other than the age factor this film is a very good Bond flick mainly because of the awesome screen presence of Christopher Walken.The film is about French industrialist Max Zorin (Walken) who has a plan to corner the worlds microchip market by destroying Silicone Valley (it's hilarious to see microchips in this film that are bigger than my iPod). It's up to Bond to stop his plan of turning the San Fernando valley into Atlantis.Yes, once again Moore was getting pretty old in this one and it was probably time to hang it up. He's quoted as saying that when the Bond girl's mothers started getting younger than him it was time to end his run. He's still Bond, just a Bond at the end of his run. It's Walken that shines in this film, a glowering supervillain that by the end is blatantly gunning his own workman down with Uzi's. And this was before he became such an icon. As usual with a Bond movie the locations are spectacular and as much as you can complain about the plot, you can go through the previous franchises entrys you can find things that are more ridiculous than A View To A Kill. An underrated film that was a great swan song for Roger Moore.
You Only Live Twice finds James Bond (Sean Connery) going to Japan to find the people responsible for stolen space travel equipment belonging to both the USA and the Soviets. Bond finally meets Blofeld (played to perfection by Donald Pleasance) and yes he is in a secret volcanic lair. This is one over the top Bond flick. Ninja schools, volcanic lairs, personal rocket equipment are just a few of the things you'll discover in You Only Live Twice. There are some plot points that are odd (Connery posing as an Asian?) but the film is a great and fully loaded action romp that Austin Powers would rob from thirty years later.
Roger Moore takes over the role of James Bond in Live and Let Die, which has Bond spending most of his time in the Western Hemisphere as he investigates the connection between a Caribbean prime minister and an American drug lord. What's interesting about Live and Let Die is that there are supernatural aspects in the film, mainly with red hot Jane Seymour's portrayal of the tarot card reading Solitaire. These aspects don't overpower the film that has really become a love it or leave it entry into the series, most of which comes from the public's obsession with Sean Connery as James Bond. Yaphet Kotto plays the lead baddie Kananga as almost a black Blofeld, cool instead of aristocratic. Live and Let Die is as fast paced as they get. You have to remember that Roger Moore's Bond and Connery's Bond are different, yet the same. It's still Bond. The only real problem with the film is how racist it can be perceived to be. Imagine that instead of SPECTRE you are saying that the entire black populations of Harlem and New Orleans are involved in an international drug conspiracy. Yeah, this was before the P.C. world we live in now. But overall Live and Let Die is a great action flick with Moore taking the role smoothly.
Roger Moore proves that a person other than Sean Connery can play James Bond more than once. The Man with the Golden Gun (Christopher Lee) is the best assassin in the world commanding one million dollars a hit and he's set his sights on 007. The plot of Scaramanga's (Lee) admiration becomes wrapped with the films MacGuffin, a device that will make solar power cost effective.The plot is simpler than most Bond films. There really isn't an over the top world domination scene until the last ten minutes and even then it's not a huge scheme at all. The film is mainly wrapped around these two assassins who are the same, yet different. Both seem to show admiration to each other. Lee plays one of the most suave Bond villains to date. He doesn't really seem a bad bad guy at all. Maud Adams plays Lee's mistress who seems essential to the plot, yet ends up disposable in a role where she doesn't really do much. Britt Eckland plays good night, Bond's contact in China and provides some very poor comic relief as the dumb blonde. One mustn't forget the true villain in this film, the excessively evil Knick Knack played by Herve Villechaize. He's just a creepy guy throughout the film.The film is like a scaled down Bond flick with a good story and excellent casting in the form of Christopher Lee as the title character. A real treat.
After going to space, James Bond decides to slow down a bit and stays on earth in this nicely wound tale about a lost British decoder that east and west both want. Roger Moore returns as 007 in this film that feels more like an old school Bond film than the lackluster space epic Moonraker. Bond is plunged into a world of Greek smugglers, avenging off spring, horny figure skaters, doped up East Germans, and Topol as he chases the films MacGuffin, a device that commands the British fleet of submarines. For Your Eyes Only sports a much better script than Moonraker and Moore has command of the James Bond role, even though he was starting to show signs of age at this point. Julian Glover (the most awesome bad guy EVER!) plays the main villain who is courted by the west while working for the east. It's a great Bond flick that gets back to the roots of the series.
Sean Connery defined the role of James Bond in Dr. No, the first official Bond adventure that takes him from Britain to Jamaica and the mysterious island occupied by Dr. No, scientist for SPECTRE, the evil organization intent on controlling the world. This first attempt at a full length Bond film really set the standard for how 007 would be portrayed for close to forty years. This was the prototype film that was added and subtracted from as the series went on. The film is very basic and feels almost low budget by Bond standards, but it stands as one of the best of the series and ushered in a new era and a new icon on the silver screen.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is the continuing adventures of the crew of the starship Enterprise from the 1960's TV series. This time Kirk is an admiral that gets pulled into a game of revenge by his old nemesis Khan(Ricardo Montalban), who he left in exile over a decade before.
