Icarus

I have been watching a lot of 007 fanedits lately because I consider myself a huge James Bond fan. Yet, every time I watch one, I find myself remembering how truly awful some of the movies in the franchise have been. It is hard to choose the very worst James Bond movie, but this (not your edit, but the original) has absolutely got to be very close to being the most absolutely terrible entry. A lot of the Roger Moore Bonds kinda blend together for me because he did so many. Sean Connery remains the ultimate James Bond. Timothy Dalton was very underrated and I think Living Daylights is one of the better Bond films. And then there is Pierce Brosnon. I loved Remington Steele and thought he would make a perfect James Bond. But the scripts or the directors or someone mishandled the movies, and none was worse than this. From the opening where James Bond is captured, held and tortured fro an indeterminate amount of time (could there be a WORSE way to start a Bond movie!?!). And does our brilliant hero secret agent finally escape? Nope. He gets exchanged for a guy walking around with diamonds in his face. And about that: what the hell? I get that maybe right after the explosion some diamonds got lodged in his face, but there is just no logical reason for them to remain there. I cannot think of any Bond movie with such a ridiculous cartoonish villain. Even Jaws was more plausible---at least those teeth could be used as kind of a weapon. And then, he checks into the Hong Kong Yacht Club where they send up a masseuse with a gun. Why? They're going to kill him? While filming it behind a 2-way mirror? What for? This movie is so screwed up. Okay, I have yet to talk about the edit, but I needed to vent about what a dreadful movie this was to begin with, and seeing this made me realize how fully I managed to block it from my mind entirely.
The editing, sound, picture...everything was done flawlessly. I can't point to a single thing, major or minor to complain about. But it is just such a terrible movie, I think no amount of editing can save it. Certainly this is a vast improvement over the original, but "vast" is not enough in this case. There isn't enough vastness in the universe that could make this movie any good. Such a shame! I'm sure the budget was huge; Halle Berry looks amazing (and is the best thing about the whole movie), cool cars--although the green jaguar that the enemy is driving on the ice is cooler that James Bond's car, but what a misguided movie. This one makes me appreciate the Daniel Craig era quite a lot more. It even makes me feel like I could write a better James Bond script. It's amazing how all the elements can be there--good actors, good locales, the cars, gadgets---everything that you would assume makes a great James Bond movie, and yet fail so spectacularly. It almost makes Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull seem like a good movie.
Well that sure is a lot of negative comments for a movie I am ultimately giving a good review of. The positive numbers and the recommendation are entirely for your edit, which, as I said, is flawless. But it's like getting a bunch of Dr Frankenstein's together to try to recreate the ideal re-animated Hitler; even the best most perfect one is still...you know---Hitler. So this is an excellent, excellent edit of an irredeemably bad movie. Anyone who saw the original should at least give this a watch. It is still, probably the very worst 007 movie, but this version makes it a somewhat better worst 007 movie.

Only seen this movie once and it's been a very, VERY long time. Decided that when I watched it again I would watch an edit. It's always nice to experience a fanedit when you're not too familiar with the source material.

Being that I can't remember the original that well, I can't say much other than what I witnessed. The editing was tight. There were no awkward cuts and nothing felt out of place. The only thing that felt awkward was when Bond reversed his car and the bad guy drove through the ice. The editing was fine, but it just was slightly unclear what happened. I understand that this was due to removing scenes with the invisible car.

Watched this with a friend who was familiar with the movie and, bar a few cheesy lines that he missed, considered this a much better cut than the original. I thought it was an OK film, which I guess is an upgrade from the fairly naff film that I remember it to be. Although, no matter how much editing you do, you can't take away the fact that neither Halle Berry nor Madonna can act to save their mums.

Quality was DVD quality. No complaints there. Twas an average film so enjoyment gets an average rating. No fault to the editor.

The ending also felt a bit rushed, but from what I heard about what was cut, it's a small sacrifice!

Overall a good, professional edit.

Very good edit, really filters out most of the bullshit. The transitions are seamless, and i was able to enjoy this film a lot more. Nothing but love for the edit. The movie itself...well, there's only so much you can do. The first third of the film is actually very, very good. It could have been a SO much better film, it's unbelievable. It really goes off the rail near the end. Again, talking about the movie, not about the edit. Good job, keep it up!

I think the editor did an admirable job of cutting out some of the material that is silly and ridiculous, while preserving the plot, which is a difficult balance to strike when you are dealing with a 007 edit. Lately I have been re-watching a lot of the Bond films and so many of them are cluttered with annoying material that they risk being hacked to pieces by faneditors to the point that the plot is not longer understandable. Some examples of silliness that had to be left in this film for the sake of the plot are as follows:

- Bond and Company infilitrate an enemy foreign country by surfing the big waves. (gnarly dude)
- Bond meets Gustav for the first time and for some reason they get into an all out brawl of a swordfight.
- Bond and Jinx are able to get within 300 meters of their target in North Korea, yet they couldn't get a shot. That distance would be a "gimme" for a trained sniper. (Ok maybe this one is a little nitpicky, but it did take me out of the movie for a bit.)

Of course the list could go on and on, but the point is that the Bond movies are full of silliness and you definitely can't take them too serious. These are not the fault of the editor. He has to play the cards he is dealt as best he can. He really did do the best that I think can be done with such material by concentrating on the really bad dialog and some of the worst CGI stunts.

I have the 50th anniversary 007 collection and have been working my way slowly through the 60s, but having seen this makes me want to skip forward to re-watch some of the other Pierce Brosnan films to see if they contain as much silliness as Die Another Day. I think they probably do.

I also have not listened to the commentary, but look forward to it.