Five Underrated James Bond Films

When you've been chasing bad guys, driving fast cars, drinking vodka martinis and bedding hot babes for the sake of queen and country for more than forty years, it's only natural that the details might start to run together. Ian Fleming's classic superspy James Bond has appeared in 21 films (and that's only the official ones) with a 22nd, Quantum of Solace, on the way. It's had its ups and downs, but four and a half decades after Sean Connery created the screen character in Dr. No, the series is riding high again. We've seen a hugely successful reboot in Casino Royale and, some will argue, the best actor to ever wear the tux in Daniel Craig.

But with that many movies, some will naturally get lost in the crowd. Ask someone to name a James Bond movie and they'll pick the newest, or a classic like Goldfinger. Some Bond films don't get the recognition they deserve, and some are unfairly pilloried. Here, in no particular order, are five Bond films that deserve more love than they get.

You Only Live Twice (Sean Connery - 1967)
Granted, this one's not all that disrespected. It comes from the classic Connery era after all, when 007 was the biggest thing in the world. But that's its problem. Next to the iconic Goldfinger and Thunderball, it's hard to stand out. But You Only Live Twice is the last of the great Connery Bonds, and just as good as the ones that came before it.

You Only Live Twice has spacecraft getting hijacked from orbit, some brutal fights, a cool sports car, an even cooler autogryo, and a secret volcano hideout. Granted, the idea of plastic surgery and skin dye turning Sean Connery into a Japanese fisherman is a bit much. But that's a small price to pay for a whole lot of fun. One highlight comes when Bond follows a clue to the docks and is attacked by an army of thuggish longshoremen. Look for a really great helicopter shot tracking the fight across the roof of a warehouse as Bond runs and defends himself from one attacker after another.

Licence to Kill (Timothy Dalton -1989)
Okay, this one really is underrated. It features Timothy Dalton, easily the most underrated Bond actor, it was a disappointment at the box office, and it was the last Bond movie for six years - the longest gap in the series history. At the time, this led people to wonder if 007 had just run his course, if there was a place for him in a post cold war world. But this isn't really the movie's fault. Timothy Dalton does a great job in a story that's tailored to his strengths in the character.

Bond goes rogue in Licence to Kill and sets out to take down a South American drug kingpin who maimed Felix Leiter and murdered Leiter's bride on their wedding night. Bond is pissed off, a loose cannon who's making it up as he goes along, not really expecting to come out of this one. Lots of nice reversals as Bond plays the bad guys off each other and wreaks havoc on the kingpin's empire. Perhaps the weakest part of the film is the climactic chase scene between a bunch of gasoline tankers on narrow mountain roads. It's not horrible, but there are some cheesy stunts that break the tone for the first time in the film. And if one part of your movie's going to miss the mark, you don't want it to be the ending. Still, many of the other action sequences are fantastic, and Licence to Kill is a lot better than its reputation would suggest.

For Your Eyes Only (Roger Moore - 1981)
The later Roger Moore films get a lot of grief, and a lot of it's deserved. Moore stayed in the role far longer than he should have, and his style took the series way too far into clownish light comedy. But For Your Eyes Only is a refreshing change from the typical Moore approach.

Bond and the Russians are both after a nuclear weapons control unit from a sunken ship. A marine archaeologist who's been searching under cover of an expedition is murdered, and Bond gets tangled up with his daughter who's out for revenge on her parents' killers. The bad guy and his nemesis are both old men, criminals who've been at each other's throats all their lives and are still driven by hatred. It's a dark and vengeful movie with a grittier, less over the top story. The approach is one that isn't hurt so much by Moore's advancing age. (He was 51 at the time.)

Just ignore the pre-credits sequence, which is apparently some kind of bizarre inside joke, and quite possibly the worst of these sequences in the entire series. Otherwise, For Your Eyes Only is surprisingly good.

The Living Daylights (Timothy Dalton - 1987)
Yes, the other Timothy Dalton Bond film. Dalton gets no respect, and there's no reason for it. Yes, he was far better at being grim and angry Bond than the kind of light and funny Roger Moore Bond, but that's a good thing. And The Living Daylights is actually one of the best entries in the series. The villains and their plot are refreshingly plausible, the major henchman's big ability is that he can do a lot of accents. It's a movie that does a lot with a little and seems like a Bond adventure that could actually happen. Well, sometimes. It does still suffer a tiny bit from the things that made the Moore films so silly.

It's especially interesting to watch the back half of the film, where the Afghan mujahideen are the good guys, from a modern perspective. And some of the stunts are maybe hard to buy, like the ski chase where Bond and the girl end up zooming down the slopes in a cello case. But other sequences, like the one where the supposedly defecting Russian general is taken from MI-6's safe house, are really gripping. It's got a great opening sequence too, one of the best introductions of a new actor in the series. The Living Daylights is an entry that's at least as good as the Pierce Brosnan films, and can stand shoulder to shoulder among the classic Bond movies.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service (George Lazenby - 1969)
The ultimate underrated Bond movie. On Her Majesty's Secret Service has been dumped on by everyone since almost the day it was released. The reaction scared the producers so much that they threw money at Sean Connery until he agreed to phone in one more film (the mediocre Diamonds Are Forever). And yes, it's far from perfect. But it gets so much hate that people tend to overlook what's really great about it.

Yes, George Lazenby. He wasn't Connery, but there were some things he did really well as Bond. Watch the beach fight scenes, for example. He really nails the physical stuff. And it's got a fantastic climactic set piece in the helicopter assault on Piz Gloria. And probably the best Bond girl of the whole series in Diana Rigg. Her Tracy is the perfect combination of great character and casting - a girl who can go toe to toe with 007 in a classic pre-feminist style that's a refreshing contrast to the way the series would later match Bond against female spies and gun-toting agents who were just as tough as he was.

What makes On Her Majesty's Secret Service a classic though, was that it was the first Bond film to give Bond a real human side. He marries the girl in this film. And we see him crying at the end. After all those tough Connery films, it's one of the most shocking things the series could have done. And when Casino Royale went to a lot of the very same places, everyone said it was brilliant. On Her Majesty's Secret Service is a flawed masterpiece to be sure, but it's still a masterpiece and it's time it was taken out of the closet and dusted off and given the credit its due.