151 Proof Hangover: Diamonds Are Forever
It is only fitting that we kick off our 007-Drinking Game with Diamonds are Forever. The last official appearance of Sean Connery as James Bond is also his worst performance as everyone’s favorite secret agent. The movies had also reached a point where the tropes were in full bloom as you’ll find out in our review below.
Movie-2.5
Swan-3
I want to get this out in the open right away. I am not as big a Bond fan as our friendly, neighborhood Penguin is. Of course I do enjoy the movies but I have not seen everyone so this Bondtember is rather exciting for me. Getting to see Bond movies that I had not previously seen. And what better than to start with one I had never heard mentioned.
Right off the bat, this is not a bad movie, it’s not a good movie either. This movie is remarkably unremarkable! For every good thing it does, it does something either bad or adequate to balance out the scales.
The car chases and the fights in this movie with top notch, as most of them from this era of films are. They are all practical, realistic and interesting to watch. You never get the feeling that you are watching an over choreographed dance. The middle Bond girl in this was amazing as well, if even for only a few minutes. And the name! What a name. Plenty O’Toole. For a character only in the film for a few minutes she was easily the most memorable part of this movie.
As for the things I didn’t like, well, I am honestly having trouble remembering. I remember the opening scene being disjointed and awkwardly paced. I remember the movie seeming way too long. I remember some terrible accents. But as I said before this movies crime is being forgettable
Penguin-2
I won’t lie, I hate this movie. I hate it with a passion. And for good reason, but here’s the rub, my good reason was removed in this viewing so my anger was subdued just a bit.
See coming off the heels of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, which I hold as one of the best Bond films, this is just a slap in the face. More importantly though is the ending of OHMSS is just ruined in the opening credits of this movie. With Bond acting like a goof, going around the world asking everyone “Where is Blofeld?” and that’s it. A man kills his wife, a woman he loved, and we get 2 mins of him seeking revenge and then he is back to the fun-loving, pun pouting, Bond of old. And that hurts because Bond needed to deal with the consequences of his broken heart, but the audience didn’t want to see that apparently!
Anyhow, like I said this was removed because due to the timing of this film, we actually watched Diamonds are Forever before OHMSS. Taken apart with some time, this is still a bad Bond film. Probably not the worst, but still pretty much up there. At this point, Connery just doesn’t care and it shows in his attitude and appearance. The Bond girls are less developed than usual, there are 3 of them (Bambi, Thumper and Plenty O’Toole) who combine for less than 10 minutes of screen-time in a two hour movie. Tiffany Case started off as an interesting character, but that is quickly done away with and she becomes the ultimate, annoying damsel in distress.
The plot is rather thin, which is a shame because it is a fairly grounded movie but not a very exciting one.
Drinking-3
Swan-3
Our rules, as an all encompassing set for the series, worked well for this movie. I think this was a great one to start out the month on. We had steady drinking throughout without getting blitzed to fast.
Obviously the one liners and deaths were a constant source for drinks, as well as the music cues from the classic theme. We got off lightly on the Bond rule as Bond was undercover for most of this movie. And there were very few gadgets in this movie.
I think as we dive deeper into this series these rules may end up hurting us but for this movie, they were jolly good fun.
Penguin-3
The rules worked for the most part. I guess ideally they are what you would want from a movie. Never too many drinks at once, but never really a time when we were taking it easy with drinks either.
The Bond rule worked well for the most part, I’m almost tempted to add 007 to it as well since he tends to get called both fairly frequently in these films. The gadgets rule was fairly light in this film as well, but we hadn’t quite reached the Moore-era yet.. or worse yet the Brosnan era. :O
We decided, and this is a very small distinction, to switch the one-liner rules to a pun rule for this movie. One-liners can be puns and puns can be one-liners, but they don’t have to be each other if that makes sense. And this film is full of some truly horrible puns. I’m fairly certain that parts of this movie were written for a one-off joke.. much like Plenty O’Toole’s appearance.
We kind of backed down on the Bond bedding a chick rule because our 3rd party felt his drink was too powerful to finish so… next time!
All in all it is an enjoyable drinking game!
Diamonds are Forever isn’t my favorite Bond movie, and will never be. That said watching it before OHMSS has softened me on it just a bit. Instead of being my absolute least favorite Bond movie, it can now circulate in my bottom 3 with two other movies we’ll be watching this month! And for Swan, he got to experience a new low for the Bond series, but doesn’t know it gets worse…
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[…] Love train fell off the rails just a bit for a second. Since we did Diamonds are Forever and Moonraker as part of 151 Proof Movies, I figured those movies wouldn’t be covered twice. […]