Top 5 Worst James Bond Films

The James Bond franchise is the longest-running continuous series in film history and, behind "Harry Potter," the second most successful franchise in cinema history.  James Bond is arguably cinema's defining and most enduring archetype. It's not hard to see why: the series has all the puns, gadgets, girls and ludicrous villains you could wish for.
 What people forget is that not all Bond movies are created equal. There are stinkers, even if the movies to date  have offered remarkably consistent entertainment over the past 50 or so years. This list is a celebration of the five worst movies in the series.
Note:  This list does not include the unofficial James Bond films, Never Say Never Again (a remake of Thunderball which brought Sean Connery back during the Roger Moore era) or the parody film Casino Royale starring David Niven. Never Say Never Again and Casino Royale (the first one) have been deemed “not canon" and therefore do not appear on this list.

1. Moonraker

The "Bond In Space" angle is all we need to write Moonraker off as daft, but... the whole script is a messy disaster.  It's easily one of the silliest and worse ones in the series.  It’s the film where Bond goes to space, where Jaws - who had been terrifying - is suddenly a lovestruck gentle giant, where this just happens and everyone carries on trading bons mots -

 In addition, Sir Rodger Moore made for a lousy wisecracking Bond in the series, which was now firmly planted in the cartoon world.

2. Die Another Day

Pierce Brosnan, the second to worst James Bond ever, bids farewell to Bond with a stinker that could fairly be described as his Batman & Robin of the series. There’s nothing not ridiculous about this, whatsoever. Ceaseless digital spectacle (parasailing on a tidal wave is a series nadir), barrel-scraping gadgets (an invisible car?) and quite possibly the worst Bond girl ever make this a cringingly tough sit. When Madonna is your most likable performer (she cameos as a fencing instructor), you know something is majorly off.

3. Quantum Of Solace

So often does the bad accompany the good in life, perhaps out of necessity, so that we may truly appreciate the latter. After the ravishing James Bond reboot Casino Royale – arguably the best in the series to that point – it would appear inevitable that the next film ratchet things down a few notches.

Squandered from the opening, borderline-incoherent car chase onward, this film screams not only of the screenwriters contrived methods of exposition, but the directors unimaginative approach to filmmaking. Clueless is the only way to effectively describe the compilations of shaky medium and close-up shots that pose as action scenes in this movie. It fails to establish any sense of the spatial relationship between the hunter and hunted, they instead play out as motion without progression, like a videogame with respawning opponents and an unlimited ammo count. The follow-up to Royale turned out to be one of the worst of the series.

4. Octopussy

 

Octopussy was the thirteenth of the James Bond films and the fifth one for Roger Moore as 007. It's hard to make this Bond picture more silly or absurd, as it doesn't even make the slightest effort to hold onto a bit of reality. Moore barely seems involved in the story at all and even disguises himself as a clown in one scene, thereby sucking all the dignity out of an otherwise suave and exciting series. Even the worst Bond movies can be entertaining, but OCTOPUSSY seriously pushes the envelope.

5. On Her Majesty's Secret Service

Featuring the stunning nonentity George Lazenby, there are almost no redeeming features in this flick-though there is a wonderful ski chase scene. The 'plot' (a series of glossy set pieces) is the one about 007 tracking down a loony Swiss villain (Savalas) who's (guess what?) threatening the world with some scientific thingamyjig.  Overlong, poorly edited, with loads of sloppy action, this film is the epitome of a series low.