R.I.P. Roger Moore: The 2017 James Bond Archives - Final Edition Trading Cards Are A Fitting Goodbye.

The Good: Archive box exclusives, Generally good collectibility, Some truly spectacular autograph card signers, Metal cards are neat, Cool relic cards
The Bad: Orientation issues,
The Basics: The 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards make a decent trading card set out of an unfortunately bad James Bond film!


Like many people, yesterday I awoke to the sad news that Sir Roger Moore had died. Roger Moore frequently was underrated and undervalued by James Bond fans, which is ironic because Moore had the most "canon" James Bond films under his belt (Never Say Never Again has licensing issues due to its distribution and its authenticity within the James Bond canon is frequently challenged and counting that film only makes a tie for Moore and Sean Connery having equal quantities of James Bond films). Sir Roger Moore was the James Bond whose films I grew up on and because it was the work I had seen him in the most (other Bond actors having effectively branched out from James Bond or came to Bond later in their careers), I most closely associated Roger Moore with James Bond. His death left me saddened and it seemed fitting that the day after he died, completely coincidentally Rittenhouse Archives released its 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards. As the name suggests, the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards are Rittenhouse Archives's last James Bond trading card set for the foreseeable future (unless they do some form of In Memoriam exclusive set for Roger Moore) and so James Bond fans are saying a lot of "goodbyes" over the last twenty-four hours.

The 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards are actually an incredibly fitting way for fans of the James Bond franchise to say goodbye to Sir Roger Moore, as the trading card set is very heavy in Roger Moore material - the set features four autographed trading cards by Roger Moore and bonus sets from three of Moore's James Bond films - Octopussy, For Your Eyes Only, and A View To A Kill.

The 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards allow James Bond fans to complete their Rittenhouse Archives James Bond trading card collection with a lot of flair and some truly impressive cards.

Basics/Set Composition

Fully assembled, the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading card set has 387 cards and is essentially four (or five) sets in one. As well, there is an oversized binder produced by Rittenhouse Archives that holds the entire set, with all of its associated chase cards, which has not always been the case for some of the bigger James Bond trading card sets! The set consists of 83 common cards and 304 bonus cards. The chase cards are mostly available in the packs of cards, though eight of them were incentive or promotional cards and could not be found in any of the packs. The 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards were released in boxes of twenty-four packs of five cards each.

Common Cards

The common card set for the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards consists of eighty-three modern-looking trading cards. The entire common set recaps the plot of Die Another Day (reviewed here!). Sadly, the common set for the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards are inconsistently oriented. While the backs of every card are portrait-oriented, the fronts of the cards vary between portrait and landscape orientation. That makes the cards something of a pain in the butt to place in the binder as there is no organic way to make the set look good from an orientation point-of-view.

That said, the photograph and writing for the Die Another Day common set in the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards is universally wonderful. The 2017 James Bond Archives cards have the traditional UV-resistant coating which is flawlessly applied. The 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards feature a great range of vibrant pictures that have not been overly-promoted (and are different from the shots from the Inkworks Die Another Day set from when the film was theatrically released). Interestingly, Rittenhouse Archives included the image from the promotional card within the common set, which is not a usual thing for their trading card sets. The cards have a fresh look to them that makes it a visually-interesting trading card set. The backs are well-written and the cards detail the plot of Die Another Day quite thoroughly. The writing for the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards common set is very entertaining and follows the plot of the film with a lot of detail.

Chase Cards

The 296 chase cards that can be found in packs and boxes of 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition essentially create three additional "common" sets and one bonus parallel set, in addition to more traditional James Bond chase cards. As is the habit in many of the newer trading card releases, there are no bonus card sets that can be completed with even a single case of trading cards; most require at least two cases with ideal collation to assemble the chase sets. The higher-end sets require three to six cases to complete.

The 2017 James Bond Archives trading card set features three extensive bonus sets that require multiple cases to complete. There are retro sets that retell the stories of For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy and A View To A Kill with 36, 32, and 30 cards each. The retro sets in the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards illustrate an overall problem with the way Rittenhouse Archives approached their throwback sets (as a holistic collecting issue). Prior retro Throwback sets had up to 102 cards and the detailing on the plot of each movie was as detailed as for the common sets, the films for which Rittenhouse Archives was able to yield less material made for smaller sets. The three retro throwback sets in the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards are well-written, though they have somewhat more condensed plotting than the common sets (the Octopussy set, for example, devotes a single card to the teaser mission whereas the Die Another Day common set has eight cards for the mission that came before the opening credits in that film!). Rittenhouse Archives did the best they could with the material they were able to cull from the three films in the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards, but James Bond trading card collectors are likely to feel like they are getting less for their money on the throwback sets in the Final Edition cards. If Rittenhouse Archives had produced all of the throwback sets at the same time and more evenly distributed them through the last six Archives releases, the throwback sets in the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards would not have been so anemic by the numbers.

That said, the photograph and the writing for the throwback sets maintains the high standards of quality that the other retro sets have embodied. The throwback sets, like many of the prior Throwback retro sets are inconsistently oriented and are more problematic to try to put into binder pages in any sensible way. All three of the Throwback sets in the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards are made of a more retro cardboard stock to make the cards from the older films seem like they were from the period in which the films were released. The For Your Eyes Only and A View To A Kill sets features black and white photography on some of the card backs, but this is nowhere near as problematic as the Throwback sets for the color films that have black and white images on the fronts.

Two per box there are gold parallel cards for the Die Another Day set. The gold parallel set was limited to only 250 of each of the cards. The gold parallel cards are a particularly boring parallel card; they are distinguished from the common versions of their cards by limited gold foil lettering for the title on the front of each card and an individual foil-stamped number on the back, at the bottom of the card. While they are substantively similar to prior James Bond parallel cards, the parallel cards lack any real flash quality to them.

As part of finishing the James Bond trading card line, the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards feature 24 SPECTRE and Skyfall Expansion cards. Found one per box, the twenty-four Expansion cards continue the common card sets from prior releases as bonus cards. The 9 SPECTRE cards for The Complete James Bond come together to form the movie poster for SPECTRE on the back, just like every nine-cards in the common set did. The other fifteen Expansion cards extend the Heroes & Villains, Bond Girls Are Forever, Bond Villains and James Bond Archives sets from prior releases with content from SPECTRE and Skyfall, perfectly continuing those sets and concluding them in a fashion consistent to the original releases.

The 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards concluded the 007 Double-Sided (Mirror Cards) card set that was begun early in 2016. The eight cards found in this subset in the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards work together with cards found in the two prior sets to create a 24-card bonus card set. These beautiful trading cards feature the incarnation of James Bond on one side and the primary villain on the obverse for each of the James Bond films. The eight cards in the 007 Double-Sided set found in the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards are every three Bond films starting with the third M3,M6, M9, etc. While this might create a weird ultimate collation the cards themselves are stunning and cleanly printed on a vibrant-looking mirror board that is very fresh looking.

Also found only two per case are two of the twelve Metal cards for the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards. Featuring the movie posters for each of the last twelve James Bond films, the Metal cards are individually numbered on the back and they concluded a very cool set that was begun in the 2016 James Bond 007 Archives - SPECTRE Edition trading cards. Rittenhouse Archives has recently gotten into metal card production and the metal cards in the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards reinforces the argument that Rittenhouse Archives knows exactly what it is doing with that technology!

The 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards feature fifteen Relic cards, split between fairly traditional costume cards (albeit in an uncommon portrait orientation) and relic cards of James Bond props. Rather cooly, the Relic card set features a dual relic card with prop materials from two different props from Quantum Of Solace. The costume cards are limited to 200 each and they are pretty typical costume pieces - James Bond suits, a top from a Bond girl and a supporting character or two's costume pieces. Unlike something like a Star Trek costume that has a variety of fabrics or colors, the James Bond costume cards with costume materials from Casino Royale, Quantum Of Solace and Skyfall have fabric swatches that are very consistent and unimaginative. Fortunately, the rarer relic cards are much more variable and intriguing for card collectors and James Bond fans.

As with most media-based trading card sets, the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards feature autographed trading cards. This set of trading cards features a whopping fifty-six autograph cards, which includes awesome autographed materials like autographed costume cards and a gold signature card. The bulk of the autograph cards in the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading card set are split between the familiar format of the 40th Anniversary set – which had very small pictures of the character’s head and were oriented in a landscape format – a single Women Of Bond autograph card and the vastly more popular full-bleed style which was portrait oriented with giant images of the characters and a minimal signing space at the bottom. The seven 40th Anniversary style autographs are highlighted by autographs by three different Roger Moore autographs and one extremely limited Daniel Craig autograph. I was pretty psyched that Ben Whishaw signed another card for this set.

In the full-bleed autographs, the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards Rittenhouse Archives included one of the most incredible autograph line ups of all Rittenhouse Archives James Bond card set releases. In addition to a full-bleed Roger Moore autograph, there is yet another George Lazenby signature card. Rittenhouse Archives included first-time signer Tula alongside highly-coveted celebrities like Judi Dench, Halle Berry, Dave Bautista, Michelle Yeoh, Berenice Marlohe, Lea Sedoux, and Jeffrey Wright. Rather impressively, Rittenhouse Archives had held an incredible autograph card from fan-favorite villain Jaws portrayed by Richard Kiel before he died, which they released in the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards. Most of the autograph cards in the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards are from recognizable actors and characters from the James Bond films. This is one of nicest-looking autograph card sets for James Bond trading cards that Rittenhouse Archives has ever produced.

Non-Box/Pack Cards

The 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading card set has eight cards not found in any of the boxes or packs. There are three promotional cards – the usual general release, an exclusive one that Rittenhouse Archives is distributing at conventions, and the binder-exclusive promotional card.

The casetopper for the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading card set is a pretty cool Die Another Day movie poster metal card. The Die Another Day variant movie poster cards are not individually numbered, but it is a metal card and it features artwork from the most recognizable movie poster for the film.

Then there are the incentive cards and they are split between the average and the incredible. For every six-cases ordered, collectors of the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards received a Gold Signature Maud Adams as Octopussy autograph card. This card, predictably, looks amazing, though the value of it is not likely to be on part with prior 6-case incentive cards. The nine-case incentive card is an absolutely wonderful Christopher Lee full-bleed autograph card, posthumously released. This Scaramanga autograph card might well be the rarest Christopher Lee autograph card from Rittenhouse Archives and they look incredible!

The final two cards in the 2017 James Bond Archives set were exclusive to the Archive Box. Filling in one of the gaps in the Women Of Bond autograph card set is a Yvonne Shima autograph that was released as an exclusive. As well, Rittenhouse Archives released a true grail card in the form of a Sean Connery cut signature card, which could only be found in the Archive Box. The cut signature cards - the ones I've seen - look absolutely amazing with vibrant, clear signatures from Connery and they represent the only Sean Connery James Bond autograph card from Rittenhouse Archives.

Overall

The 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards might not be flawless, but they are a fitting tribute to Roger Moore and the final James Bond films that Rittenhouse Archives had yet to make card sets for. Collectors will want to hunt down everything they can from this set as it closes the book on James Bond - at least for the time - with a very high level of quality.

This set culls images from the James bond films Die Another Day, Octopussy (reviewed here!), For Your Eyes Only (reviewed here!) and A View To A Kill (reviewed here!)!

These cards are available in my online store! Please check them out here: 2017 James Bond Archives - Final Edition Trading Card Current Inventory!

For other James Bond trading card reviews, please check out my reviews of:
2009 James Bond Archives
2015 James Bond Archives
2016 James Bond Classics
2016 James Bond Archives - SPECTRE Edition

8/10

For other card reviews, please visit my Card Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The 2016 James Bond 007 Classics Trading Cards Are More Than Enough To Please Most James Bond Card Collectors!

The Good: Comparatively easy to collect, Awesome bonus cards, Some truly decent autograph cards, Good writing
The Bad: Annoying orientation issues
The Basics: The 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading cards are a pretty wonderful expansion on the concept Rittenhouse Archives developed several sets ago!


Until one of my biggest customers as a trading card dealer set me upon a quest to fulfill his James Bond trading card collection, I had not had anything to do with James Bond cards. Now, I deal in James Bond cards, along with Star Trek, Marvel, and DC Comics-themed trading cards! One of the nice aspects of coming late to the phenomenon of James Bond cards is that, in order to get the requisite product knowledge to satisfy my customers, I learned quite about James Bond cards and I have now a perspective to see what has worked for the franchise and what has, alas, not.

While a handful of James Bond trading card sets had a single Throwback set as a bonus card set in them, starting with the 2014 James Bond Archives cards, Rittenhouse Archives started creating trading card releases that had a primary set (focused on a single James Bond film) and three Throwback sets - essentially four sets in one. That format has been fairly popular, though some of the sets have been less successful than others given the bonus cards and autograph selections in them. But one of the solid conceptual winners was the 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading cards!

The 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading cards were produced in 2016 by Rittenhouse Archives, one of the biggest producers of non-sport trading cards in the industry, as one of two James Bond trading card releases for 2016. Unlike some of the prior sets that have same basic format, the 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading cards are well-written, have some wonderful bonus cards to flesh out the series and some truly wonderful autograph cards.

Basics/Set Composition

Fully assembled, the 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading card set has 455 cards and is essentially four (or six) sets in one. As well, there is a binder produced by Rittenhouse Archives that does not quite hold the entire set. The set consists of 72 common cards and 383 bonus cards. The chase cards are mostly available in the packs of cards, though seven of them were incentive or promotional cards and could not be found in any of the packs. The 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading cards were released in boxes of twenty-four packs of five cards each.

Common Cards

The common card set for the 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading cards consisted of seventy-two trading cards that look as fresh and new as any current trading card release. The entire common set recaps the plot of The World Is Not Enough (reviewed here!). There are few problems with the 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading cards, but the common set is not at all flawless. Arguably the most problematic aspects of the 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading card common card set is that the cards are inconsistently oriented. Some of the common cards are oriented with a portrait orientation, though most are oriented with the pictures in landscape format. That makes the set problematic to ty to arrange in any sensible way in a binder. The backs of the cards are universally in portrait orientation.

The 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading card have the traditional UV-resistant coating which is flawlessly applied and the footage from The World Is Not Enough is bright and clear, which makes for a very compelling trading card set. The common card set has decent images and it is hard to complain about some of the obviously reused footage - Rittenhouse Archives used the image on card 58, for example, on a prior autograph card. The writings on the backs of the cards is well-written and compelling, retelling the story of The World Is Not Enough without the tiresome action sequences or occasionally corny dialogue! Despite that, it is irksome to not have a consistent orientation for the common set's images.

Chase Cards

The 376 chase cards that can be found in packs and boxes of 2016 James Bond 007 Classics essentially create three additional "common" sets and two bonus parallel sets, in addition to a handful of high-end James Bond chase cards that are very cool.

The 2016 James Bond Archives trading card set features three bonus sets that require multiple cases to complete. There are retro sets that retell the stories of The Man With The Golden Gun, On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Licence To Kill with 50, 60, and 65 cards in each set, respectively. These sets, like the The World Is Not Enough set are inconsistently oriented and are more problematic to try to put into binder pages in any sensible way. The The Man With The Golden Gun and On Her Majesty's Secret Service throwback sets are made of a more retro cardboard stock to make the cards from the older films seem like they were from the period in which the films were released. The set for On Her Majesty's Secret Service is rendered in black and white . . . even though the film was in color. This follows the trend of some of the other sets and is met with mixed reactions from fans. Despite that, the writing for all three chase sets is pretty decent.

One per box there are gold parallel cards for the The World Is Not Enough and License To Kill sets. Each of those sets were limited to only 125 and 150 of each of the cards and the cards are individually numbered on the backs. The gold parallel cards are a particularly boring parallel card; they are distinguished from the common versions of their cards by a gold foil rendering of the film's name on the front of each card and an individual foil-stamped number on the back, at the bottom of the card. The parallel cards lack any real "wow" factor to them, but they are consistent with prior parallel sets and they do look nice enough.

The 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading cards feature three high-end chase sets, though James Bond cards have not gotten to the level of difficulty in collecting that sets that have sketch cards have! The most common of the three primary chase cards in the 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading cards are Relic cards. James Bond trading card collectors have had a lot of costume cards over the years and the "relic" cards in the 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading cards are exclusively costume cards - from the three newest James Bond films that were out when the set was released. As a result, James Bond trading card collectors get some new, portrait-oriented costume cards from Casino Royale, Quantum Of Solace, and Skyfall. Each one is individually numbered on the back out of 200 and there are thirteen different cards with costumes from a decent variety of Bond villains, Bond girls, and James Bond as their subjects.

Found only two per case (one in every six boxes of cards) were the 007 Double-Sided (Mirror Cards) and they are a generally neat idea, reminiscent of the "Mirror, Mirror" cards from the Star Trek Season Two trading cards (reviewed here!) that Steve Charendoff (the CEO of Rittenhouse Archives) designed when he still worked for SkyBox in the late 1990s! The front of each card in this bonus set featured James Bond and the back of these beautiful foil cards had the primary villain from the film. There are eight cards from this bonus set in the 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading cards, spread out every third film - M1 Dr. No, M4 Thunderball, M7 Diamonds Are Forever, etc. This set is obviously incomplete and will be expanded upon in future sets! This is a bonus set well worth looking forward to the subsequent sets to complete.

Also two per case are one of ten SPECTRE Metal Gallery Cards. The metal cards are, like similar cards produced for sets like Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 2 (reviewed here!) are thick metal cards with big images of the characters on the front and an individual number on the back (there are 150 of each card). The SPECTRE Metal Gallery Cards are metal trading card replicas of the promotional images of the ten essential characters from SPECTRE and they look beautiful.

The 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading cards features thirty-three autograph cards, which is another step down from the prior few James Bond sets. Autograph cards in the 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading card set are split between the familiar format of the 40th Anniversary set – which had very small pictures of the character’s head and were oriented in a landscape format – and the vastly more popular full-bleed style which was portrait oriented with giant images of the characters and a minimal signing space at the bottom. The twelve 40th Anniversary style autographs include big names - Roger Moore and Jeffrey Wright - and actors with minimal influence or interest to collectors. Count Prince Mille, Safira Afzal, and Jimmy Roussounis had incredibly minimal roles, though it is cool Rittenhouse Archives tracked them down to get them to sign!

As for the full-bleed autographs, the 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading cards had some prime signers - most notably Daniela Bianchi, Ben Whishaw, Naomie Harris and Jeffrey Wright, all of whom were first-time signers for James Bond cards! Popular actors like Pierce Brosnan, Maud Adams (as Octopussy this time!), and Sophie Marceau signed full-bleed autographs and they look great, enhancing the overall value of the 2016 James Bond 007 Classics set. This set features autograph cards from Samantha Bond, David Hedison, and Stanley Morgan yet again, but I found there was little to complain about; truly all one could have asked for that was not present in this set would have been an autograph from On Her Majesty's Secret Service, as that was the only of the four films in the primary chase sets not represented with autograph cards!

Non-Box/Pack Cards

The 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading card set has seven cards not found in any of the boxes or packs. There are three promotional cards – the usual general release, an exclusive one to Non-Sport Update Magazine, and the binder-exclusive promotional card.

The casetopper for the 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading card set is a fairly bland The World Is Not Enough poster card, which continues the downward trend of casetopper cards (they used to be cool autograph, sketch or autographed costume cards!). The The World Is Not Enough casetopper card is not individually numbered, foil or even sealed into its toploader! The casetopper is essentially a variant poster from the common card #1, which is a pretty disappointing casetopper.

Then there are the incentive cards and these follow the trend of recent Rittenhouse Archives releases! For purchasing six cases, dealers received a silver series autograph of Judi Dench as M. I think it is pretty much impossible to complain about getting another Judi Dench autograph and these look great! For buying nine cases, dealers were given a Daniel Craig gold series autograph card. The two copies of this card I found had fairly anemic signatures from Craig, though he doesn't have the strongest signature. Despite that, the contrast with the gold ink on the black background looked amazing!

The final card in the 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading card set is the Archive Box exclusive Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore full-bleed autograph card. Found only in the archive boxes, which were randomly inserted into cases in addition to being an eighteen-case incentive for dealers, the Honor Blackman autograph looks great and is a wonderful incentive. Given that Blackman is 91, the fact that her signature looks so good is pretty amazing! The Honor Blackman incentive autograph card is likely to be one of the most enduringly valuable cards Rittenhouse Archives ever inserted into an archive box!

Overall

The 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading card set is a wonderful tribute to the James Bond films it explores and a nice way to celebrate the franchise with some of the new autograph and bonus cards! The bonus cards look great and this is one of the newer James Bond trading card sets that has a wonderful mix of autograph signers that will thrill James Bond fans!

This set culls images from the James bond films The World Is Not Enough, Licence To Kill (reviewed here!), On Her Majesty's Secret Service (reviewed here!) and The Man With The Golden Gun (reviewed here!)!

These cards are available in my online store! Please check them out here: 2016 James Bond 007 Classics Trading Card Current Inventory!

For other trading card reviews, please check out my reviews of:
2009 James Bond Archives
2015 James Bond Archives
Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 1 trading cards

7/10

For other card reviews, please visit my Card Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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If You Get The Allusions, SPECTRE Utterly Fails.

The Good: Acting is fine, Action is entertaining
The Bad: Relies upon the canon to pay off its biggest moments, No deep acting moments, Minimal character development
The Basics: SPECTRE might be an all right action-adventure movie, but it is a lousy James Bond film and relies entirely upon the prior films to make the pass at sensibility.


Every now and then, I run into a film from a movie series that is exceptionally difficult for me to consider on its own. I want to consider each work I encounter - be it a television episode or a film or a beverage - on its own merits, as it stands as a unique creation. Every now and then, I encounter something that is virtually impossible to do that with and the latest James Bond Film, SPECTRE, is one such work. SPECTRE shows a continued lack of understanding among the writers of the James Bond film franchise as to the nature of the beast they are working with, much the way that Skyfall (reviewed here!) did. In fact, SPECTRE goes even further down the rabbit hole of ignorance and ridiculousness by attempting to tie together disparate elements of the James Bond franchise.

The reason I ultimately landed on panning SPECTRE was because it is, very clearly, not intended to be a standalone film at all. Instead, the entire film's final act hinges on understanding the relationship between James Bond and the criminal enterprise S.P.E.C.T.R.E., which was introduced in some of the earliest James Bond films. In other words, SPECTRE only works as a film if one understands the adversary who is orchestrating the carnage against James Bond and the worldwide spy community. S.P.E.C.T.R.E. was the foil of MI-6 and the C.I.A.; it was an international criminal intelligence organization that was out for profit and world domination from the shadows.

The problem is, to understand what S.P.E.C.T.R.E. was and to buy into the concepts of how it is operating in the world now, one has to accept the entire canon of James Bond films that came before. One also has to understand how the intelligence communities in the James Bond franchises work and that is entirely where SPECTRE collapses. The intelligence organizations in the James Bond franchise operate entirely on aliases. M is an alias for the leader of MI-6, Felix Leiter is an alias, Q is an alias . . . James Bond is an alias. In Skyfall we see the transition from one M to another and in prior Bond films, Judi Dench's M is referenced as having replaced the old man version of M. Felix Leiter loses a leg in one film, pops up as a black man with two legs later on. James Bond has not only been recast, but the line in the teaser of On Her Majesty's Secret Service (reviewed here!) obliquely refers from one Bond incarnation to another! Even the trademark "My name is Bond, James Bond," makes more sense in the context of an alias than as an inorganic catchphrase. If one has to condition oneself to recognize themselves by a new name, they would learn it by rote. Multiple people being conditioned the same way supports both the concept of the alias and the unchanging methods of the organization that hired its spies. Even, as The West Wing pointed out, the drink choice by the various incarnations of James Bond is intended as a dupe; it sounds like a specific drink choice, but it is the spy's attempt to remain alert while on duty while having the appearance of imbibing to blend in.

Amid all of the background stuff, the James Bond franchise includes films with specific dates, times, and technology levels, so unless the Daniel Craig incarnation of James Bond is in his 70s, SPECTRE does not work. And the personal nature of the villain in SPECTRE and his key line about their past undermines the potential ambiguity about the alias's going the opposite way. S.P.E.C.T.R.E.'s leader was familiar to a prior incarnation of James Bond, yet is younger than when last he was seen; things in a franchise have not been so muddied since the casting of Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness (reviewed here!). Like that film, SPECTRE relies upon the bang factor of fans knowing the rest of the franchise, while completely betraying all they actually know about their beloved franchise.

Opening in Mexico City on the Day Of The Dead, James Bond is on the hunt for thugs who plan to bomb a theater and then kill the Pale King. Shooting the bombmaker leaves the would-be assassin on the run and their meeting spot entirely destroyed. While Bond recovers a S.P.E.C.T.R.E. ring from the assassin and escapes via helicopter, the crowds below remain ignorant; having just seen what looks to them to be an amazing display of helicopter flying skills. Returning to England, Bond is benched by M and meets with Moneypenny, who informs him that MI-6 is abuzz with rumors that Bond went too far in Mexico City and is on the verge of being fired. Bond plays for Moneypenny a video left by the previous M ordering him to kill Marco Sciarra. Putting his trust in Moneypenny, Bond pays a visit to Q and learns that the double-0 spy program is set to be replaced with drones and all the good tech is being routed to 009.

Stealing 009s car, Bond heads to Rome for Sciarra's funeral, where he meets with the widow. Bond uses the ring he recovered to get access to a high level secret meeting of the criminal organization that is planning the murder of the Pale King. Moneypenny informs Bond that Mr. White is the Pale King and Bond confronts him. Bond keeps his word to White by tracking down White's daughter, Madeleine Swann and trying to keep her safe from S.P.E.C.T.R.E. Q confirms that all of Bond's recent adversaries have been working for S.P.E.C.T.R.E. and as Bond works to keep Swann safe, he unravels the mysteries surrounding the reorganization of S.P.E.C.T.R.E. and comes face to face with an old adversary.

Any analogy between SPECTRE and Star Trek Into Darkness is a decent one as both hinge upon moments intended for huge reveal and "wow" factor, but either leave newbies mystified or die-hard fans groaning and rolling their eyes. Take, for example, the revelation in Star Trek Into Darkness of John Harrison admitting that his name is Khan. The moment only lands for those who know who Khan is; Spock Prime's revelation to Spock later on that Khan is the most dangerous adversary the Enterprise crew ever faced is a weak, expository attempt to fill in the gaps for those who have not already seen the prior two works that included Khan. In an entirely analogous way, the revelation of who the shadowy man played by Christoph Waltz is absolutely fails to land if one has no context for him . . . and is utterly baffling for those who do understand who he is supposed to be.

Beyond that, within SPECTRE the time frame makes no real sense; Waltz's S.P.E.C.T.R.E. leader was thought dead twenty years prior . . . which would have had to been on one of James Bond's earliest missions given Bond's age in SPECTRE.

What SPECTRE does well is use the four recurring characters in the James Bond franchise exceptionally well. SPECTRE does not rely simply upon James Bond; this is very much a team effort between Bond, M, Q, and Moneypenny to save MI-6 from a hostile takeover from S.P.E.C.T.R.E. Despite containing all the familiar tropes - a villain who makes his plans annoyingly explicit, car chases, a literal ticking time bomb for a deadline and women who Bond appears to love (and at least one other he just shags) - SPECTRE becomes a decent team effort that uses the talents of the whole MI-6 team well.

On the performance front, Daniel Craig, Naomie Harris, Ralph Fiennes, and Ben Whishaw effortlessly slip back into their roles of Bond, Moneypenny, M and Q. Their characters may not substantively develop, but the performers work the material as well as they can. Even Christoph Waltz does a fine job as the film's primary antagonist; despite the character not making sense in context.

Ultimately, SPECTRE is more mindless fun than it is substantive. Fans of the spy thriller will get all that this film offers without the baffling continuity issues out of Captain America: The Winter Soldier (reviewed here!).

For other James Bond films, please check out my reviews of:
Dr. No
From Russia With Love
Goldfinger
Thunderball
You Only Live Twice
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Diamonds Are Forever
Live And Let Die
The Man With The Golden Gun
The Spy Who Loved Me
Moonraker
For Your Eyes Only
Octopussy
Never Say Never Again
A View To A Kill
Die Another Day
Casino Royale
Quantum Of Solace

4/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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A Parody Of Itself, Tomorrow Never Dies Is Fun James Bond!

The Good: Some great lines, Decent performances, Good pacing, Entertaining
The Bad: Some terrible, over-the-top lines, Very predictable plot progression, One of the least satisfying endings of any Bond film
The Basics: The final James Bond film I had to watch, Tomorrow Never Dies is remarkably average Bond . . . when it is not delivering laugh-out-loud funny one-liners.


With Tomorrow Never Dies, I am done with the James Bond franchise! As of now, I have seen all of the James Bond films in the franchise (at least until S.P.E.C.T.R.E. comes out later this year!) and I'm ending on an odd note. Tomorrow Never Dies is an emotionally-enjoyable film in many ways, though much of that comes from the writing and casting, as opposed to the film being an objectively good work. In fact, for the first half hour of Tomorrow Never Dies, the film is written in such a way that it seems almost like it is a parody of a James Bond film. A decent portion of the film has incredibly quotable one-liners that are funny and create a surprisingly light tone for the film. But the moment the Bond villain, Elliot Carver, gives his first, over-the-top presentation to his inner circle of slimeballs, the film takes a turn into utterly groanworthy territory.

Such is the "split personality" of Tomorrow Never Dies, a film smart enough to note that (even in 1997) a military incursion into Vietnamese waters by anyone with U.S. tech could be disastrous for U.S. foreign policy and dark enough to include a "long lost love" for James Bond who is horribly murdered, but features more tongue-in-cheek gags and ridiculousness (James Bond is beaten up by three characters who are, essentially, the Three Stooges, while at the Carver Media network launch!) than any other Bond film in memory. I was excited going into Tomorrow Never Dies because of my love of Jonathan Pryce from Brazil (reviewed here!) and my general enjoyment of Pierce Brosnan's portrayal of James Bond. But the positive elements are weighted pretty much equally with the film's detractions, making for an average (albeit enjoyable) movie.

Opening at a terrorist "supermarket" on the Russian border, where MI-6 is monitoring the potential sale of a small army's worth of hardware (including nuclear torpedoes on a Russian jet), James Bond has to outrace a British missile and terrorists when things go south. The H.M.S. Devonshire is in the South China Sea, where it is attacked by a stealth drill submarine operated by minions of a billionaire media mogul, who is launching a worldwide cable news network. The attack, triggered by the Devonshire's GPS system rerouting the boat out of international waters, is designed to bring about World War III and is used by Elliot Carver as the first big story for his news network. With the British Navy 48 hours away from being able to fully deploy in the South China Sea, M tasks James Bond with gathering the evidence needed to avert World War III.

That takes Bond to Hamburg, Germany, where he meets Carver. At the party, Bond meets Wai Lin, a spy posing as a Chinese journalist and he reunites with his lost love, Paris, who is now Carver's wife. Carver utilizes tech genius Henry Gupta to learn that Paris still has a soft spot for Bond and he easily discovers that she has betrayed him to Bond. After Elliot implicates Bond in the murder of Paris, Bond and Wai Lin find themselves exploring the sunken Devonshire together. The pair works together to try to avert a war between Britain and China and stop Carver from attaining world domination through media manipulation.

Tomorrow Never Dies is enjoyable in that it is one of the Bond films that has Bond balanced by a superspy that appears for all intents and purposes to be his equal. Wai Lin is anything but the typical Bond Girl, which balances the especially easy Paris in the film. Wai Lin comes with her own tech and, like the C.I.A. ally of Bond Jack Wade, Bond is forced to rely upon both her help and her assets to achieve his mission objectives.

Wai Lin is credibly played by Michelle Yeoh, who is a martial arts expert and is able to completely sell the film's action scenes. She and Pierce Brosnan have decent timing for the quips their characters deliver. While some might not like how Bond's reliance upon an ally weakens the superspy, after watching dozens of Bond films where Bond alone accomplishes impossible things, it is refreshing to see some level of realism where he cannot achieve everything on his own. Moreover, the realism of the team of super-spies balances the almost cartoonish nature of the film's villain.

Elliot Carver is a great concept for a villain and it is hard to criticize Jonathan Pryce for how he delivers the worst, most over-the-top lines of the film (and the franchise). Carver is a brilliant idea who is written as a quip-spewing maniac who has all the weaknesses of a Bond villain. He details his plans as exposition, he trusts all the wrong people and he is handicapped by a desire for power that is utterly unrealistic. Pryce does the best he can, but the role is a pretty lousy character.

The result is a funny, action-filled film that is filled with ticking clocks, decent actors, ridiculous characters, good lines, chases and gadgets. Tomorrow Never Dies is fun, so long as one disengages much of their sense of reason and just goes with it.

For other works with Geoffrey Palmer, please check out my reviews of:
Paddington
The Pink Panther 2
"Goodbyeee" - Blackadder Goes Forth

5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Casting Works Against Suspense In Goldeneye!

The Good: Decent performances, Moments of character, Entertaining
The Bad: Predictable plot, Opening credits spoil the film’s surprises
The Basics: Goldeneye gives Pierce Brosnan a decent-enough start to his tenure in the role of James Bond . . . a franchise which was pretty stale long before he arrived to it.


As I near the end of the James Bond franchise, I find myself wondering about the long-term appeal of the films. The James Bond franchise utilizes a number of conceits pretty consistently and that makes it tougher to watch them over and over again. Sometimes, it’s tough for me to even get into the new-to-me Bond films. Despite being excited about seeing Pierce Brosnan’s debut as James Bond in Goldeneye, by the end of the opening credits, I was already wary of the film. Goldeneye is a great example of how films can work against themselves and in a spy thriller that hinges on suspense and surprise, that is a severe drawback.

Goldeneye stars Sean Bean and his name is the first below-the-title acting credit in the film. Given that his character is killed in the teaser, it becomes impossible for viewers to believe they have seen the last of his character given the credits. Given how Famke Janssen’s Xenia Onatopp dominates the first third of Goldeneye, her lack of top-billing makes no sense . . . unless Bean’s Trevelyan is going to resurface in the film. So, from the outset, anyone who recognizes Sean Bean will be waiting for the film’s “surprise” to be revealed.

Opening at the Archangel Chemical Weapons Facility in the U.S.S.R., James Bond repels down the structure to break in. Inside, he meets Alec Trevelyan, who assists him in setting charges to blow up the facility. Trevelyan is shot, but Bond makes a daring escape. Nine years later, after the fall of the U.S.S.R., Bond finds himself in a car race with the former Soviet assassin, Xenia Onatopp. After killing an influential man, Xenia makes off with a prototype Tiger Helicopter, moments ahead of Bond reaching the conclusion that she was about to steal it. Bond returns to MI-6, where the intelligence agency has learned of an attack on a Russian weapon’s facility where Onatopp and a rogue General stole the access codes to Goldeneye, a satellite that has the ability (which is soon revealed) to launch an EMP strike. Bond and M, at the MI-6 headquarters, monitor the aftermath of the EMP attack. Bond notices a survivor of the attack on Severnaya and believes that she might know who the inside man at the facility was.

While the Russians downplay the EMP strike as an accident during a training exercise, General Ourumov delivers a false report on Goldeneye to the Russian Ministers. He is alarmed to learn that the hacker, Boris, was not the only survivor of Severnaya. While Bond tracks down Xenia, who leads him to the (very much alive) Trevelyan. Trevelyan puts Bond and Simonova (the other Severnaya survivor) in the Tiger helicopter to try to kill them, but they manage to survive. After a series of captures and escapes, Bond and Simonova make their way to Cuba to find and destroy the second station which controls another Goldeneye satellite. Intending to thwart Trevelyan and Onatopp once and for all, Bond and Simonova find themselves in danger every step of the way.

Goldeneyeuses some of the regular Bond conceits in addition to the un-surprise of Trevelyan, like the flirtation with Moneypenny and the trip to Q’s lab. Moneypenny is upgraded in Goldeneye as a specialist who cites sexual harassment policies as opposed to simply going with Bond’s charm. Q gets the usual quips out of Bond and supplies him with tech and the scene is amusing, but predictable. On the plus side, while Bond movies have multiple chase scenes, Goldeneye freshens the mix some by having Bond chase after Simonova and Ourumov in a tank! That is entertaining, at the very least.

Pierce Brosnan’s first outing as James Bong might be flawed on the storytelling front, but he proves himself an able actor for the part (which is unsurprising given his years on Remington Steele). Brosnan has the ability to present Bond with steely resolve and efficiency to credibly be a superspy. In fact, the only way Brosnan underwhelms as Bond is with the wisecracks. Brosnan plays Bond so seriously and with so little in the way of smiles and innate charm that when he delivers his one-liners, they do not seem to fit the character. Brosnan is by no means stiff in his delivery, but his Bond seems initially so much more serious that the humor does not fit his character.

Goldeneye is one of the few Bond films that bothers to delve into James Bond’s backstory. Revealed to be an orphan, Bond’s personal history is used as a foil for Trevelyan’s. As with Silva in Skyfall (reviewed here!), that gives the villain in Goldeneye a personal grudge against MI-6. Trevelyan would have worked better as an adversary for Bond if only the franchise were a bit more serialized. Trevelyan talks about himself as if he knew Bond for years and was a good friend; that would have worked much better had viewers seen him before he popped up in Goldeneye.

Sean Bean is good as Trevelyan, but the impressive performance in Goldeneye comes from Famke Janssen. Janssen plays Xenia Onatopp as an over-the-top sexual psychopath and the role is completely different from any other that she has played. Janssen is completely convincing as a woman who kills with her body, in addition to other weapons. Her ability to portray delight almost simultaneous to presenting a sense of concentration and ruthlessness is impressive.

Martin Campbell does an adequate job directing Goldeneye, but it is still a fairly typical Bond movie. Those who watch closely will notice a number of odd cuts – transitions between shots that are fairly poor – but otherwise, Campbell makes Goldeneye look good.

For other works with Famke Janssen, be sure to check out my reviews of:
X-Men: Days Of Future Past
The Wolverine
X-Men: The Last Stand
Hide And Seek
X-2: X-Men United
X-Men
Rounders
“The Perfect Mate” - Star Trek: The Next Generation

6/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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All The James Bond Conceits In One Place: The World Is Not Enough Is Unfortunately Unremarkable

The Good: Characterization of Elektra King, Performances are good
The Bad: Formulaic plot, Dull, repetitive chase scenes
The Basics: By the time The World Is Not Enough pops up in the James Bond chronology, the conceits are overplayed and there is little to recommend the film.


It seems that I’ll manage to finish watching and reviewing all of the films in the James Bond franchise before the release of SPECTRE later this year. That’s exciting for me, though the truth is, I’ve been finding myself far less excited about the films themselves. Today, I finally took in The World Is Not Enough and, despite the intriguing start, soon found it to be plagued by all the most familiar aspects of the franchise with little that is truly original or even intriguing.

So there are chase sequences and The World Is Not Enough seems to have more than the usual two (in this case, speedboat, skiing, a scene formulated like a chase sequence in which the villain removes a nuclear weapon from an underground facility, ). There are the gadgets. There are the Bond girls. There is a megalomaniacal villain (who is essentially a super villain more like a Marvel adversary than a Bond villain). And there are the puns. Oh, so many puns. There is little compelling or even stunning in The World Is Not Enough, which is pretty much the death knell of an action adventure movie.

Opening in Bilbao, Spain, Bond recovers money belonging to Sir Robert King, who has illegally bought MI-6 reports (Bond is trying to determine how). While Bond escapes and is able to bring King’s money back to M (where King is very much alive), it turns out to be a trap that results in an explosion of the MI-6 headquarters to which the money is brought. After a high speed chase, Bond’s quarry kills herself rather than allow herself to be captured. With their only lead gone, Bond realizes that the murder of King is related to the prior kidnapping of his daughter, Elektra, who is now inheriting King’s construction business. M and Bond reason that the kidnapper, Renard, is going to come after Elektra and Bond is sent to Azerbaijan to protect her.

After Bond encounters Renard along King’s pipeline in Kazakhstan where his team is removing nuclear materials, M comes into the field. Alerted by Bond’s suspicions, M manages to survive being captured by Elektra King. Bond and the nuclear physicist Christmas Jones have to recover the plutonium stolen by Renard and King before they can kill M and hold the world hostage with their weapons!

The World Is Not Enough is notable for being the final appearance of Desmond Llewelyn, who has appeared in the Bond franchise as Q (albeit by a different name) since From Russia With Love (reviewed here!). Llewelyn was given a fine exit, which was emotional (if subtle) for fans of the franchise. He is one of the few classic Bond actors who was given a proper send-off (others simply disappeared or the actors died between films).

The other notable aspect of The World Is Not Enough is the character of Elektra King. King is initially characterized as a victim who is fighting to be strong. She is entirely convincing, as an early scene has her and Bond getting trapped in a small area and she freaks out, as one would expect from someone who was captured and confined in a small space. It is rare in the Bond franchise for characters to suffer realistic consequences for their experiences. King starts intriguing and, despite her goals, is one of the more realistic Bond villains, at least as far as her motivations go.

Renard is an adversary who seems initially like a Bond villain before being exposed as an exceptional villain’s lackey. He might not have the name recognition of Odd Job, but he is basically an enforcer like he was. He also has a bullet in his head from 009 which is slowly killing him.

The World Is Not Enough is the Bond film that features Denise Richards and her performance is one of the least-convincing of the entire film. Robbie Coltrane keeps a consistent Russian accent and Judi Dench adapts very well to having M in a more physical role, but Richards is terrible and there are a disturbing number of times when Pierce Brosnan does not get eyelines or emotions quite right. Instead, there are moments Bond is in pain or exertion that Brosnan seems to phone in and that is disappointing (I’ve always felt bad that Brosnan was unceremoniously dropped as Bond and thought he did well in Die Another Day, reviewed here!).

But the mixed performances are not enough to sink the film. The World Is Not Enough is unfortunately formulaic and familiar; the puns fall short, the chases have the tension choreographed out of them and the reversals are unsurprising. Anyone who loves James Bond might enjoy the scope and moments of character in The World Is Not Enough, but the film is entirely unremarkable.

For other works with Robbie Coltrane, please check out my reviews of:
Brave
The Harry Potter Saga
Van Helsing
Blackadder’s Christmas Carol

4/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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So Dependent Upon Prior Sets, The 2009 James Bond 007 Archives Trading Card Set Wobbles On Its Own!

The Good: Attainable, Some neat autographs and relic cards, Cool retro look and feel
The Bad: Weird bonus sets, Thematically dependent upon prior sets
The Basics: For my first experience with James Bond cards, I take on the retro-looking 2009 James Bond 007 Archives, a set that falls more in the average range than striving for the extraordinary!


One of my goals for last year was to finish watching all of the James Bond films. I failed. The franchise can be repetitive and there is surprisingly little character development over the course of the films. And continuity issues in the franchise are just awful. And so on and so on. I have four left and I actually am preparing to finish the franchise. My sudden renewed interest came, arguably, as a result of my getting in a couple of cases of 2009 James Bond 007 Archives trading cards.

As the name implies, the 2009 James Bond 007 Archives trading cards (not to be confused with the 2014 James Bond 007 Archives trading cards) were produced in 2009 by Rittenhouse Archives, one of the biggest producers of non-sport trading cards in the industry. For the 2009 James Bond 007 Archives cards, Rittenhouse went with a retro look and feel, much like they did for the Star Trek The Original Series 40th Anniversary Series 1 set (reviewed here!). The interesting aspect about the 2009 James Bond 007 Archives set was that, in addition to going retro, Rittenhouse used the opportunity to flesh out prior James Bond trading card sets with cards in their style featuring Quantum Of Solace. The bulk of the bonus cards were designed to interface with these prior sets – Complete James Bond, James Bond: Dangerous Liaisons, and 40th Anniversary. There is also a “Quotable” Quantum Of Solace bonus set, but it is not numbered as if one would stick it into the “Quotable” James Bond set (which is all the more baffling for it).

It is also worth noting that while the 2009 James Bond 007 Archives trading cards include from Dr. No to Quantum Of Solace, Never Say Never Again is not represented in the set (the license agreement Rittenhouse Archives has was with Eon, so Never Say Never Again was not part of it). All that means is there are no cards of the aged version of Sean Connery’s James Bond, nor any of Kim Bassinger as a Bond woman!

Basics/Set Composition

Fully assembled, the 2009 James Bond 007 Archives trading card set has 175 cards and there is a nice binder produced by Rittenhouse Archives that easily holds the entire set. The set consists of 66 common cards and 109 bonus cards. The chase cards are mostly available in the packs of cards, though seven of them were incentive or promotional cards and could not be found in any of the packs. The 2009 James Bond 007 Archives trading cards were released in boxes of twenty-four packs of five cards each.

Common Cards

The common card set for the 2009 James Bond 007 Archives trading cards consisted of sixty-six retro-looking cardboard cards. The entire set consists of cards that look like they are from the 1970s or 1980s and feature decent-sixed images of characters on their fronts. One of the nice aspects of the 2009 James Bond 007 Archives trading card common card set is that it is entirely oriented in a portrait orientation, which makes it very easy to look through the set (one need not turn cards, binders, or one’s head to see all the images in their proper orientation!).

The subjects of the common cards are generally a rotation of James Bond, a Bond Girl, and the film’s primary Bond Villain. There are exceptions to the rule - Thunderball does not have a card featuring James Bond, Moonraker has Jaws, who was not actually the villain of the film – but the pattern generally holds. The cards are generally good, though there are some truly baffling choices made by Rittenhouse (Goldfinger, for example, does not have a card of Auric Goldfinger). The backs of the cards list the character’s name and the film and there is a decent level of consistency to the set to make it interesting. Having three cards per film, though, made the set come out to 66 cards, which is an awkward number for collectors as most card pages have 9-cards. Still, given that the days of the giant sets (Rittenhouse had some early sets where there were more than one hundred fifty cards in the common set!) are gone, the 2009 James Bond 007 Archives trading card fits the modern size and feel of what a common set should be fairly well.

Interestingly, the 2009 James Bond 007 Archives trading cards do not have the traditional glossy coating that protects cards from UV light. Instead, the satin matte finish maintains the retro look and feel of these very cardboard cards. What is surprising about this is how well the cards have been maintained over the years; these have not faded, warped or showed any signs that they will not endure (unlike their vintage counterparts). Despite some of the eccentricities, this is actually a very cool common set!

Chase Cards

The 102 chase cards that can be found in packs and boxes of 2009 James Bond 007 Archives trading cards are very easy to spot in packs because they do not have the same retro cardboard backs as the common cards. Unfortunately, of the six sets of bonus cards, only two of them have broad appeal to James Bond collectors. The four more common bonus card sets merely expand prior sets and they leave the collector with the odd conundrum of whether or not to keep the bonus set with the 2009 James Bond 007 Archives or assemble their prior set to its new level of completion.

The reason I gripe about the first four levels of chase cards is because most of them are not really chase cards at all. The nine cards of the Quantum Of Solace: Dangerous Liaisons set, Complete James Bond 007 Expansion Set, and Quantum Of Solace Expansion cards, each found one in every twelve packs (2 per box) merely expand the common sets of the Dangerous Liaisons, Complete James Bond 007 and 40th Anniversary sets Rittenhouse previously produced. In other words, these are cards that have a quality that would have made them multiples per pack if Quantum Of Solace had been produced before those common sets were made. There is nothing special about any of these bonus cards, save that they are so rare! The same can be said of the “Quotable” Quantum Of Solace cards. The one cool aspect of the Quantum Of Solace Expansion cards and the Complete James Bond 007 Expansion set is that they both pick up the numbering where prior expansion sets ended. So, if one actually was working to complete the Complete James Bond 007 set by adding the 9-cards from Quantum Of Solace that were released in the 2009 James Bond 007 Archives trading card set (and form a 9-card movie poster for the film!), they are properly numbered 190 – 198 and fit seamlessly into that set!

What redeems the chase cards are the relic and autograph cards! I’m not sure why Rittenhouse Archives bothers to call the cards in the 2009 James Bond 007 Archives trading card set “relic” cards when they are all costume cards, but Rittenhouse got some neat costumes and made some very cool cards out of them. All of the costumes in the 2009 James Bond 007 Archives trading card relic card set feature costumes from Quantum Of Solace. Cards range from single fabric swatch cards of Camille’s dress and James Bond’s tie (the hardest to find in the collection!) to a single quadruple costume card that features Bond’s jacket and pants and Camille’s camisole and skirt. My favorite was actually the less-rare triple costume card of Mathis . . . one of the fabric swatches on the card I pulled was actually bloodstained from the character getting shot! Relic cards were found two per box and there were twenty-seven, which means that even with ideal collation, one needs to open two cases to pull a complete set. Given that there are three relic cards which were numbered 375 and under (the back of each card has an individual collector’s number stamped into it!) most collectors will take more than two cases to complete the set.

Then there are the autographs. Autograph cards in the 2009 James Bond 007 Archives trading card set are split between the familiar format of the 40th Anniversary set – which had very small pictures of the character’s head and were oriented in a landscape format – and the vastly more popular full-bleed style which was portrait oriented with giant images of the characters and a minimal signing space at the bottom. The six 40th Anniversary are all of characters and actors with minimal influence or interest to collectors – in fact, five of the six are duplicated in this set in the full bleed autographs! In the full-bleed autographs, there are some impressive and hard-to-find autographs, including 2 Bonds (Moore and Lazenby), Olga Kurylenko (Camille), Famke Janssen, Wayne Newton, and John Cleese! Honor Blackman, despite having signed for several sets before, still has one of the grail cards from the full-bleed set. The full-bleed autograph cards are unnumbered, which might be in keeping with prior releases, which is really annoying for collectors trying to complete the set.

Non-Box/Pack Cards

The 2009 James Bond 007 Archives trading card set has seven cards not found in any of the boxes or packs. There are three promotional cards – the usual general release, an exclusive one to Non-Sport Update Magazine, and the binder-exclusive promotional card.

The casetopper for the 2009 James Bond 007 Archives trading card set is a pretty awesome relic card of the Aston Marton’s Windshield from Quantum Of Solace! The windshield pieces are cracked and the thick card was limited to 700 and individually numbered on the back. This is one of the coolest-looking cards in the set!

Then there are the incentive cards and these are some of the hardest-to-find of any Rittenhouse Archives product! For purchasing three cases, dealers received a full-bleed autograph of Judi Dench as M. For buying six cases, dealers were given a Women Of James Bond style autograph of Famke Janssen and almost impossible to find now is a full-bleed Jonathan Rhys-Davies autograph that was a fifteen-case incentive! All three of these incentive cards have exploded in value and are virtually impossible to find on the secondary market now!

Overall

While somewhat dependent upon prior sets to get the most bang for the buck, the 2009 James Bond 007 Archives trading card set nevertheless has some of the most valuable James Bond cards without being an oppressive-to-collect set!

This set culls images from the James bond films from Doctor No through Quantum Of Solace, with a special emphasis on that last film, reviewed here!

These cards are available in my online store! Please check them out here: 2009 James Bond Archives Trading Card Current Inventory!

For other trading card reviews, please check out my reviews of:
Star Trek Aliens
Star Wars Jedi Legacy
Cryptozoic DC Comics The New 52

6.5/10

For other card reviews, please visit my Card Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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(Mostly) Managing To Combat The Notion That “If You’ve Seen One James Bond Film, You’ve Seen Them All,” Skyfall Remains Mixed.

The Good: Acting, Character depth, Specific plot feels fresh
The Bad: General plot is still terribly formulaic, Niggling continuity issues, Pacing
The Basics: Redressing many of the familiar elements of James Bond films, Skyfall manages to make the familiar plot feel fresh and new again.


Before summer began, one of my new friends expressed an interest in seeing all of the James Bond films before Skyfall hit theaters this Fall. I told her that seeing the other Bond films was not at all necessary to understanding the new one and, in fact, the more one sees of James Bond films, the less one feels they need to see the new one. I had no way of knowing how true that would be with Skyfall, at the time, but now . . .

Skyfall is an exceptional example of how style may trump the perception of substance in films and while my instinct is to say that the only people who will be really disappointed by the latest installment in the James Bond franchise are those who are the die-hard fans, the early buzz appears to be just the opposite. I credit that to director Sam Mendez more than anyone else as, objectively, Skyfall contains almost all of the familiar elements of any number of James Bond films, simply dressed up differently. Those raised on SPECTRE and Blofeld may want to extol the virtues of Silva and the other villains of Skyfall, but the similarities certainly outweigh the differences.

In fact, the fundamental difference between Skyfall and most of the other (but not all) James Bond films is the target and the stakes. The world is not explicitly on the line as it is in many of the classic James Bond flicks and the target of Silva’s machinations is MI-6 and M it- and herself. This makes the stakes far more personal for James Bond and M and allow Skyfall to feel much more intimate while it works toward the usual “defeat the villain” resolution one expects from a James Bond film. The attempt to develop the James Bond character is not lost on me; it merely becomes harder to justify or suspend disbelief for with the new, post-Casino Royale James Bond . . . at least for those of us who pay attention to things like continuity.

Skyfall finds James Bond partnered with Eve to stop a villain who has the potential to compromise MI-6, a mission that leaves James Bond effectively dead and on the outside of MI-6. That mission also puts an exceptionally valuable hard drive in the hands of villains who want MI-6 dismantled, a goal that starts with executing embedded operatives around the world and threatening M with the certainty that more deaths will follow. It does not take long for M, the leader of MI-6 (or at least James Bond’s section of it), to realize that the attacks are intended to hurt her personally and weaken her within the organization. So, she turns to the one operative she believes she can trust when he resurfaces: James Bond.

Pulling Bond out of retirement, despite the fact that he is unable to pass the physical and psychological requirement necessary, and arming him with the requisite munitions and information, M and James Bond come into conflict with Silva, a man whose motivations are more grounded than eccentric. Let to Silva through an assassin and then the woman who was waiting to see who would cash in the payment for the assassin, Bond confronts Silva on a deserted island. In combating Silva, James Bond and M find themselves as guardians of MI-6 itself and the stakes in their mission even higher as they capture and lose Silva, resulting in a chase that puts a small personal army on M and Bond's tail.

Skyfall is not bad, though it feels every bit as long as its two and a half hour running time, but it is by no means as original as many of the reviewers praising the film would have one believe. In fact, in several ways – most notably with the appearance of the Quartermaster, Q - Skyfall feels like a “Best Of James Bond” with names, actors and motivations changed (in a Mad Libs insert name/word/weapon here type way) to create the illusion of freshness.

Even so, it works. The reason Skyfall feels fresh enough to recommend is that the combination of the stylistic changes adds up to a film that feels substantive after a long rut of movies that left viewers wishing for (or inferring) a significance that was not actually present in the films themselves. In Skyfall, M becomes a fully viable, interesting, complicated character. In her – and the performance by Judi Dench – the viewer sees the weight of a lifetime of secrets weighing upon her character. In Skyfall, she is not the monolithic assigner of missions or the subtly-smirking leader who accepts the eccentricities of James Bond. Instead, in Skyfall, she is quietly wounded and there are moments when she feels the sting of her adversaries attacks on all she has built.

Fleshing out M allows Skyfall to explore loyalty and the sense of duty James Bond has. On its own, Skyfall excels at portraying a bond of trust and loyalty between Bond and M in a way that feels like more than just platitudes of honor and obligation. In Skyfall, protecting the world and MI-6 has a personal component and that binds Bond and M. Daniel Craig and Judi Dench play that brilliantly in the looks between them and the quieter moments their characters share. In fact, this is one of the difficult aspects of Skyfall to accept in context; this version of James Bond is still rather new to M and the level of trust she has in him is uncharacteristic for someone who has had such a history in an office such as hers. The best comparison I can make would be in the Star Trek franchise; the bond between M and Bond in Skyfall is treated as deep as the one between Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Data in Star Trek: First Contact (reviewed here!). The emotion, the love, that leads Picard to singlehandedly brave the Borg to try to rescue Data after everyone else has abandoned the ship in Star Trek: First Contact is viable entirely because that relationship has been developed for years and years over hundreds of missions where the two have shared risks and explicitly depended upon one another and their judgment. Skyfall’s M and Bond asks viewers to make the leap that Bond would have such a trust for M, despite the fact that she has administered from a greater distance (to extend the metaphor, Skyfall is like watching first season Picard exhibit seventh season loyalty and affection for Data; it makes no rational sense in context).

That said, the other aspect of Skyfall that pushes the film up into the higher ranges of an average genre film is the acting. Daniel Craig and Judi Dench have great onscreen chemistry as M takes to the field more and provides Bond with more of a hand’s on direction in Skyfall. Both performers make the character shifts work (and well!) and that change in chemistry makes the film feel fresh. Equally compelling is Javier Bardem as Silva. Bardem is able to be far more expressive than he was as the villain in No Country For Old Men (reviewed here!) and that makes the Skyfall villain feel unsettling and dangerous. Bardem brings energy to his performance that is matched by the younger performers, Naomi Harris and Ben Whishaw, to raise the level of peril in Skyfall; for a change, the Bond villain seems an even match for the resources of MI-6 (not some comic mismatch that makes the success of Bond’s mission seem utterly unrealistic).

As Skyfall develops, the film becomes a battle of wills and strategy between Bond and Silva and the credibility and gravitas of the actors sells the conflict. After so many James Bond movies that feel like generic action-adventure (and innumerable action adventure films that seem derivative of James Bond), Skyfall redresses and reinvigorates the spy drama well-enough to recommend it.

For other James Bond films, please check out my reviews of:
Dr. No
Thunderball
Die Another Day
Casino Royale
Quantum Of Solace

6/10

For other film reviews, be sure to check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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