“Over-the-top performances” is not a defense in a Capital case. 
Go for it! It will be a blast. Don’t let the “critics” scare you away from any of them.
My first Bond movie was Live and Let Die when I was 12. I thought it was the coolest movie I had ever seen. Looking back I realize it may be a wee bit campy but it is still fun.
Some are better than the others, but I still liked even the worst. You will enjoy the evolution of the films.
I think Roger Moore gets a bit of a bum rap. (I had a crush on him around the time of Octopussy–never mind that I was going on eleven and he was in his fifties, although still very handsome. I’ve always had a thing for British gents.)
Sure, many moments in his Bond movies were ridiculous, but I don’t think he should be blamed for what was the director’s/scriptwriter’s fault. Whenever the script called for him to be a more serious Bond, he rose to the occasion.
Case in point: his confrontation with the mad General Orlov on the train in Octopussy:
So I guess you can tell I love that scene? The interplay between the two, the expressions on both actors’ faces, is just note-perfect. Roger hits every mark, and Steven Berkoff, who was a bit hammy during the rest of the movie, is perfect.
So basically Roger’s track record comes out to two unquestionably great Bond movies (TSWLM and FYEO), two very good ones with some questionable moments (LALD and OP), and three that are regarded as total duds (TMWTGG, MR and AVTAK). And even TWMTGG is entertainingly goofy, boasts Christopher Lee, and features a plot that could have been a great Bond movie if it hadn’t been buried under sillier elements.
See here’s the weird thing. Sometimes events carry from one film to the next. Sometimes the films act as if we are meeting the characters for the first time. Some characters carry over from one film to the next (like Jaws or Zukovsky) while most don’t (particularly Bond girls, who more often than not die or are abandoned by Bond shortly after the closing credits once he has sex with them). While the actor who plays Bond changes every 1-5 or so films, some actors who play supporting characters cross multiple Bonds (notably Judi Dench who played M during the Brosnan and Craig years and Desmond Llewelyn who played Q in almost every Bond film up to The World is Not Enough). Some supporting characters are played by a different actor in nearly every film (like CIA agent Felix Leiter). And to make it more confusing, the first Craig film, Casino Royale is a “reboot”, so we meet a new “Bond” and get a new Felix Leiter (since he lost his leg back in the Dalton days), but keep the same M from the Brosnan films).. Also given that most Bond stories reflect the geopolitical climate at the time they are made, there is also the question of whether Bond just magically stays in his late 30s to early 40s from 1962 to 201x, the world of Bond is an Archer-esque mix of anachronisms, futuristic tech, and alternate histories or whether MI6 simply replaces a Bond, M, Q, Moneypenny, etc when one dies or retires. Entirely possible as when Judy Dench’s M dies at the end of Skyfall, Ralph Feine’s character takes up the position and they just start calling him “M” as if he’s always been M. Previous Ms were also specifically different people - Admiral Sir Miles Messervy , Admiral Hargreaves, just “M” and more recently Lieutenant Colonel Gareth Mallory
Which was the last one based on a Fleming book, and 1st of created outcof whole cloth?
Depends on how you define your terms. Moonraker was the first, I believe, to just keep the title and a couple of character names. The previous movies kept at least a portion of the plot of the book, albeit a very small portion sometimes. Later movies borrowed plot elements from several books/stories in writing the scripts.
You misspelled, "Greatest Movie EVER!"
The plot of You Only Live Twice was drastically different from the book.
Fleming himself said of The Spy Who Loved Me “the experiment has obviously gone very much awry”. When he sold the movie rights, he told them to use only the title, and change everything else. (Although Jaws was loosely based on a character from the book.)
I was taken aback at how different the book was… and how much less enjoyable.
I second the “watch all of them” (or at least as many as you can stand), and then hurt your brain trying to fanfic your way into some sort of mega-continuity.
I personally am a fan of the “James Bond is also a code name in the style of Dread Pirate Roberts” theory even if the movies themselves don’t support it.
Bond Girl: Oh, thank you for saving me, the world, and killing the evil criminal mastermind! But you never told me your name.
JB: Bond. James Bond.
BG: Wait! My mother worked for Hugo Drax. She was there when they launched all those space shuttles back in the 80s. She told me that some British secret agent stopped Drax and saved the world. His name was James Bond.
JB: Yes, it was.
BG:That can’t have been you! And my grandfather worked for this guy named No, before he realized he was bent on world domination, and he told us how this British agent stopped No’s nefarious scheme. His name was James Bond, too.
JB: Yes, that sounds right.
BG: But, it couldn’t have been you! You’d have to be over 70! And you certainly don’t act 70. (Sly wink)
JB: I’m not.
BG: But then, how can it be?
JB: Well, you see, I am not really secret agent Bond, 007. My name is Colin and I inherited the name from the previous 007. The man I inherited it from was not the real James Bond, either. He inherited the name, or, as he puts it, “assumed the mantle” (whatever that means), from the previous Bond. The original Bond has been retired for years and is living like a king in Scotland.
BG: What?
JB: And actually, his name was not Bond, either. There never really was any agent named James Bond. MI-6 borrowed the name from some book about birds. They found out long ago that it’s the name that instills fear in the enemy. Since most villains don’t survive when their nefarious schemes are thwarted, they aren’t around to notice the change. The only thing that survives is whispered rumors of this incredibly adept agent who can’t be stopped. So all new 007’s go by the name Bond. No one would be scared of agent Colin.
BG: That’s incredible! No one has ever suspected?
JB: Well, there was this one guy who could have been an embarrassment, a whiney little guy with glasses, but he got killed on his first mission. Other than that, MI-6 always seems to pick the best. It’s a tough job to get. You know, the CIA does this, too. They call their guy Felix Leiter, but it’s the same thing. One time, they even hired a Black guy, but no one noticed. I heard that Spectre did the same thing, but it was fully destroyed as an organization before I got the job.
BG: How long will you be Bond? Do you do this forever?
JB: It’s fun for a while, but, well, you try to get out before you get killed. The reputation is both a help and a hindrance. People always trying to kill you for things the other guy did. And one guy got married on the job, but his wife was killed. He never worked again, poor bloke.
Works for me.
In Roger Moore’s defense… Ffolkes.
This shows the kind of James Bond that Moore could have played.
I liked ffolkes.
Maybe Bond is one of the Dúnedain.
Interesting that you mentioned that scene … it’s also one of my favorite Bond scenes, because it felt like something happening in the real world (as opposed to a fanciful spy-movie world).
Unfortunately, for me, that moment wasn’t enough to offset seeing Bond in clown makeup.
True dat. There’s also a considerable jolt of Fridge Logic in there–do you know how long it takes to properly apply clown makeup? To say nothing of the fact that it just happens to be (a.) the exact same makeup and outfit that 009 was wearing when he was killed, and (b.) the exact same makeup and outfit that another clown in the circus is also wearing. Don’t circuses try to make it easy to tell their clowns apart?
It would have made more sense if he’d disguised himself as one of the masked acrobats. We had a brief glimpse of one with a sort of deaths-head mask…that might have made an interesting touch, considering that he was trying to PREVENT mass death.
I have to defend that scene somewhat (not necessarily the clown makeup, though). I really liked how Bond decided at the crossroads to go for broke. He had a chance to phone in to the base and be a safe distance away, but he drove in knowing there was not enough time-he was either going to stop the bomb or die trying. The desperation he showed was palpable. I always fanwank that the reason Bond was allowed to disarmed it rather than the airmen was that it was a Soviet bomb, and he likely had been trained in how they work, and not because he’s the star of the movie.
Then of course he follows that bit of bravery up with the completely foolhardy riding on the outside of the plane. Tell me, James, did you think that one through before you did it? Like Bond following the bomber up the construction cranes in Casino Royale, I think he would have been better served by just following along on the ground - in both cases. they have to come down sometime!
Well, the bad guys had taken the girl hostage. It makes no sense that they would bother to do so, but whatever.
I haven’t watched Bond since my childhood, and I remember being a bigger fan of Moore than Connery. What’s so bad about Moore? Seems to be a universal dislike for the guy. He seemed to be a more fun, comic booky kind of Bond, which I enjoyed.