Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Sean Connery returns , 6 Dec 2008
After departing the Bond series following You Only Live Twice, Sean Connery makes a welcome return as everyone's favourite secret agent. At the time Connery received a record fee which he donated to the Scottish Educational Fund. Connery said the one of the aspects that persuaded him to return was the scrpt for the film which had in his words "a beginning, a middle and an end". As usual with a film by director Guy Hamilton, the pace never slackens. There is a memorable opening sequence and the film then transports us to Amsterdam, Las Vegas and California. The supporting cast are all good, including the memorable henchmen, Mr Wint and Mr Kidd, played by Putter Smith and Bruce Glover, an excellent turn by Jimmy Dean as the Howard Hughes like character, Willard Whyte, and British actor, Charles Gray as Blofeld. Gray brings much more suaveness to the arch villain, than that of his predecessors, Donald Pleasance and Telly Savalas. Despite the anti climax scenes set on an oil rig, Diamonds is a memorable film and I never understand why it isn't more highly rated.
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3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not a great comeback, 26 Dec 2008
When Sean Connery came back to bond people where very happy but what we got was a very average movie. Connery seemed to just go through the motions Charles gray wasn't great as the villan and an air of nastiness was throughout the movie. On the plus side bambi and thumper were great and funny. But overall I wasn't that impressed with it Seans worst by a country mile still better than some though.
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3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Connery clocks on at the Bond factory again, 3 Nov 2008
Connery's last Bond film for Broccoli and Saltzman is very familiar stuff. Diamonds Are Forever is one of those once popular Bond films whose reputation among the faithful seems to drop every year as OHMSS's rises. Certainly it makes for a poor follow-up and the weakest of the `Blofeld Trilogy.' Its biggest sin is the incredibly lazy pre-title sequence of Bond tracking down and disposing of one Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Aside from the lazy TV-movie look, this isn't a man hunting the murderer of his wife but someone having a bit of a laugh at work. The sequence only really makes much sense if you regard it as a sequel to You Only Live Twice that's determinedly pretending OHMSS never happened after Lazenby incurred the producers' wrath by walking out on the series.
Once you can get over the massive shift in tone from the previous film, or the fact that the film rarely makes much of an effort in its determination to part you from your money, it's still moderately entertaining in its very undemanding way. But there's no disguising the fact that after the first half the film becomes increasingly reliant on Connery's starpower, leaving a shoddy patchwork of half-hearted setpieces and weak puns as the filmmakers imaginations dry up. Unfortunately Connery walks through it all with the satisfied laziness of a man who knows he's being paid too much and is on triple-overtime while Guy Hamilton directs like a man determined to finish on the dot of 6:00pm come hell or high water rather than lose those restaurant reservations. It's particularly telling that when Bond trips slightly when walking with M after the title sequence they didn't even reshoot the scene - too much of the film has a "Nah, that'll do" feel to it.
It's also one where the rejected motive for the film's diamond smuggling - to stockpile enough to perpetually blackmail all the diamond companies with the threat of flooding and destabilizing the market - is rather more promising than the giant space laser-weapon that they opt for instead. It's not helped by the distinctly unthreatening villains, who take camp to new lows. Despite having a few good quips, by turning Charles Gray's Blofeld into a virtual standup comedian it's hard to take him seriously long before he turns up in drag, while the film's pair of camp killers, Wint and Kidd, are an even more unmenacing pair, played purely for cheap laughs. The sight of Putter Smith shuffling towards the camera with a pair of burning kebabs in the post-plot murder attempt that became a regular feature of Moore's outings and which here looks seemingly tagged on as if an afterthought, certainly qualifies as one of the series lowpoints. Still, there are a few nice moments like the opening smuggling montage or the fight in the elevator, John Barry delivers a nice score and there are a couple of nice Ken Adams designs - particularly the Slumber Chapel of Rest, designed like a stained-glass diamond. Connery's worst Bond film is still better than Moore's worst, but you really need to dial your expectations down low for this one.
This repackaged two-disc Ultimate edition boasts a fairly modest upgrade in extras from the original release - a 1971 BBC interview with Connery, a featurette on the elevator fight, a few alternate and expanded angle scenes, some test footage and an additional couple of deleted scenes.
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