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Thanks for the memories!

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

"Oh, James..." becomes a joke here. Middle-aged Connery (offering the first glimpse of his oncoming paunch) appears bored, tired, rather over the whole Bond thing. Jill is lovely but just provides the eye candy and the last gasps of the T & A jokes for this genre. Poor Lana Wood reaches the pinnacle of her career here only to be tossed off a balcony into a shallow pool without her top on. How any one of their careers survived this film is amazing!? Sean purposely killed Bond off in this one although one could see the blase weariness crawling over him in the previous 'You Only Live Twice'. Unfortunate for the films that follow in this series that forever more Bond becomes a parody of a spy--a cartoon man. Lazenby was too pretty, Moore too old, the others just a yawn. One went to see them only for the special effects. This particular film does not age well especially because of the boobie and fag jokes popular at the time. One can almost feel the liberation movements of later years rising in the background like a drumbeat. "Your days are numbered." The Bond character here would be equally at home on the Vegas stage of the time with Sammy, Dino et al boozing and broading their way into early bloated deaths. Goodbye James! Nice knowing you.

After George Lazenby decided not to appear in another James Bond movie after OHMSS, Eon Productions offered Sean Connery a boat-load of money to come back to the role...and Connery was only too happy to phone it in. Yeah, I'm not going to be too subtle about this, I am really not a big fan of this particular entry in the series. It ranks up there with "Die Another Day" as one of the absolute low- points of the series. The plot is pretty boring and un-involving, Jill St. John is absolutely irritating as Tiffany Case, Charles Gray feels completely miscast as Blofeld, and the Las Vegas setting is pretty drab despite it's overload of glitter. The whole thing feels more like a big budget Saturday-morning cartoon and most of the action sequences are a complete joke. The only action sequence that is sincerely great is the elevator fight. But worst of all is Connery's completely indifferent and charmless final performance in the official 007 movie cannon. What a way to go!! Regardless, some shining spots can be found on this crappy diamond. Mr. Kidd and Mr. Wint are a great villainous pair and the actors knock it out of the park, preventing this film from completely falling flat in the villain department. There are also some sincerely funny moments of witty dialogue (Right idea Mr. Bond, but wrong pussy). After this, Connery officially steps down as James Bond for good...at least until the unofficial Bond entry "Never Say Never Again." Coming up, Roger Moore!!

DAF reminds me more of a dreadful Roger Moore as 007 film than a Connery 007. My immediate reaction was that it is abundantly clear that everyone involved with making it just did not care anymore (which carried over into several Roger Moore era films).But as I found out later, it's a sloppy mess from start to finish due to the budget not being large enough to meet what the plot required. Consequently, the special effects and stunts suffered and any of the plausibility required to enjoy a 007 film was compromised. The lack in attention to detail throughout is DAF's downfall.This is one movie that actually deserves to be remade with a proper budget.

Following the previous On Her Majesty's Secret Service, the Bond series was in a state of flux, having lost both it's key star, and it's new successor. George Lazenby famously turned his back on the Bond franchise, looking at the brave new counter culture films like Easy Rider as the way forward, and Bond as a rapidly moulding relic of the 60s. We know now that Bond has continued to pack out cinemas on each release, but following Lazenby's departure, the question was a troubled 'what now?'.Bond traditionalists are still crying out 'bring back Connery!'. And for DAF, they did. Connery was tempted back with a record-breaking 1.25 million, which he did donate in full to the Scottish International Education Trust, but this is rather the only positive that can be said about this involvement here. Connery was tired with the Bond franchise, and it's clear from his performance that he did not have his heart in the film, and gives a rather cynical performance. He had also visibly aged and put on weight. Ironically, he looked far fresher in his return in Never Say Never Again some 12 years later.Just like the decade itself, DAF is much more violent than it's predecessors, with some pretty grisly deaths (immolation, drowning, and a scorpion dropped down the back of the neck), however, the brutal fight in the elevator with Peter Franks is superbly choreographed, and in an era where Bond appeared to stroll through his fights with ease, this scene showed Bond meeting a true equal, fighting with a real sense of grit and intensity not seen elsewhere.One of the real weak points of DAF are the locations. Whilst other films in the series were set in places that the audience dreamed of going to (or sometimes didn't dare to go to), 1970s Las Vegas looks naff and lacks any kind of glitz, giving the film rather a cheap wood-panelled 'made for TV' veneer. However, what I really found unforgivable about DAF was it's continuity following OHMSS, something that has given some Bond fans cause to rather consider DAF to be a sequel to You Only Live Twice, and OHMSS to follow on from DAF. Following the murder of his wife, Theresa, on his wedding night, Bond should be explosive with anguish and rage. Although the opening scene shows Bond roughing up a few suspects, he seems to regard Blofeld, now a camp caricature better suited to a 1970s sitcom, little more than an old rogue, seemingly no more angry with him for murdering his wife, than he would be for keying his car. This was such an opportunity missed, and leaves me wondering how it would have been if Lazenby stayed and DAF intentionally scripted as a direct follow- up.DAF for me is the 'interim Bond, lost between the optimistic pop- Bond of the 60s, and the escapist romps of the later 70s. Fortunately the follow up, Live And Let Die, tapped into a new fun, playful Bond, and gave the franchise a lifeline, one that was later cemented with The Spy Who Loved Me. Connery on the other hand was finally allowed to act his age, and followed up DAF with 1973's The Offence, in my opinion the most intense and outstanding performance of his career.