I watched them roughly once every night or two. And I’d previously seen them all.
And I was rather surprised at how I felt about the films afterwards. It seemed really clear that the quality of the films went continuously down after Casino Royal.
I thought Skyfall would stand out as the best followed by Casino Royal. But, in sequence, nah. Despite having clearly positive qualities, it seemed bloated and empty by comparison.
I also thought Quantum of Solace would rank pretty low as I recall thinking little of it at the time it came out. Instead, I thought it paired really well with Casino as a great follow up.
In fact, it felt like the Craig-era was basically Casino + Quantum and “other things”. And yea, the “post-Skyfall” films just didn’t feel like they were worth the effort. I thought they’d be more passable than they were, but after Casino + Quantum, which, for me, had a real punch and through-line, Spectre + No-Time-to-Die just felt like they were going through the motions and taking up space. At times, they really seemed to be badly flawed. And that’s where my impression of Skyfall really hit … it seemed that was the “what do we do now with this character?” moment and that Skyfall belonged with Spectre etc not the other way round.
Is this common among Bond fans or am I off base here?
I know many people loved Casino Royale, but from that movie onward they shifted to be too serious and no longer fun, action movies. The set pieces are great, but I stopped enjoying myself watching Bond movies because from the Craig era they all took themselves way too seriously. I think they just saw how well the Bourne series was performing, and like they’ve always done, switched gears to copy whatever’s popular. But by doing so got rid of the main reason why I enjoyed the series in the first place.
It’s not that the Bourne trilogy did so well, it’s that the Austin Powers trilogy did so well. That took the comedy from Bond.
Yea … I think this is the issue I ran into. For Casino … and Quantum too, IMO, as a previous hater I’m a defender now … the seriousness works, it’s part of the darker more violent energy. But afterwards, the stories and directing just don’t capture that same energy … so at some point you start to sort of see through what they’re trying to do and lose immersion.