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• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000LY2L1Q
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #162,682 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

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8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lots of Gadgets and Details, March 12, 2007

By 

Lonnie E. Holder "The Review's the Thing" (Columbus, Indiana, United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Diamonds Are Forever - 2-Disc Ultimate Edition (DVD)

Sean Connery returned in the seventh Bond film after George Lazenby's one movie interlude. Of all the Connery Bond films, this one was probably the most jam-packed with goodies. Of course, the goodies may distract some from the plot line, but they sure are fun.

The basic story, with numerous distractions, is that Ernst Blofeld is using diamonds to create an ultra powerful space laser that will allow him (not that you would have guessed) to blackmail the world for more millions than anyone could count in 1971. This Bond film has numerous subplots that nearly become vignettes in themselves.

At the very beginning of the movie we have an opening scene where Connery rips the bikini top off a beautiful woman while quipping that he wants her to get something off her chest. After a flash of breast, clearly seen in slow motion on DVD, the next scene leads to Bond finding Blofeld in a secret lair. The purpose of the secret lair later turns up as one of the subplots in the movie, and partially explains why Blofeld is hard to kill (can we say doubles?). The opening scene is loaded with tongue-in-cheek remarks that become the hallmark of this film, and presage the Roger Moore tendency to do the same.

The opening credits feature Shirley Bassey of "Goldfinger" fame belting out "Diamonds Are Forever," another wonderful Bond song.

Once you get into the actual movie, the details are so numerous that to describe them all would take more space than I have available. Some highlights:

- Jill St. John is beautiful, looking really great in a bikini in this movie.
- Mr. Kidd and Mr. Wint, two hit men that normally do a good job, but struggle with Bond, are the first overtly gay men in a Bond movie.
- Thumper and Bambi; no Disney characters here, and must be seen to be believed.
- Bond's Mustang Mach I; holy shades of the early 70's.
- Gadgets, gadgets, and even more gadgets.
- Here's a trick. Starting out by tipping your car up on the right two wheels, and somehow popping it up on the left two wheels during the chase.
- Exiting from a hidden underground tunnel through a camouflaged exit that Batman would have been ecstatic to have.
- Desert chase in a moon buggy.
- Being trapped in an underground pipe and chased by an automatic welder.
- Climbing up the outside of a hotel, with walls that are angled out.

The closing scene of this movie will seem familiar. Just as in "Thunderball," we have an assault on an enemy stronghold at sea. Last time it was ships and boats attacking a heavily defended Disco Valente. This time it's helicopter gun ships assaulting an oil platform with machine guns.

The Ultimate Edition provides extremely clean picture, worth having if you are either upgrading from VHS or have the first DVD release of this movie. If you have the Special Edition, you may wish to pass this version by.

The Ultimate Edition does have some features not present in the Special Edition. There are two more deleted scenes, one of Shady Tree being killed and one of the Mustang coming from the alley in the proper direction. There is footage of the oil rig attack that was deleted. Test footage of the satellite and explosions are included. Extensive footage of the elevator fight scene forms its own feature. A 1971 BBC interview with Sean Connery is another feature. Note that the Ultimate Edition claims that all these features were never previously seen on DVD, even though four of the deleted scenes were included in the Special Edition. One of my favorite features in the Ultimate Edition is the slide show feature used for the image gallery.

As with the Special Edition, an audio commentary and two featurettes are included.

This movie is one of my personal Bond favorites. However, I like it for the science fiction gadget aspects more than being a spy movie. As a spy movie it is probably too contrived and cute, and while occasional tongue-in-cheek may relieve tension, here it becomes too omnipresent for some. I rate this movie 5 stars because it is just way too fun and has many cool gadgets for 1971. This movie is worthy of your attention and a bowl of popcorn.

Enjoy!

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Connery clocks on at the Bond factory again, February 13, 2008

By 

Trevor Willsmer (London, England) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Diamonds Are Forever - 2-Disc Ultimate Edition (DVD)

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.

The two-disc Ultimate edition boasts a fairly modest upgrade in extras from the previous 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.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Sean Connery's Swan Song, June 16, 2007

By 

Paul J. Moade (Jacksonville, FL United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Diamonds Are Forever - 2-Disc Ultimate Edition (DVD)

Yes, I know he was back one last time in "Never Say Never", but that was not one of the syndicated films. At best it was a poor remake of "Thunderball"

"Diamonds are Forever" I have to say has a love/hate relationship for me. I love Connery in the role of Bond. For me, he was the only real Bond. But I also found the movie frivolous and empty. For those who have bothered to read the novels, this is one of the better stories. But the screenwriters and producers sure gummed it up.

Earlier films had villains who were vile. This Blofeld (same guy who played Henderson in "You Only Live Twice") is just laughable. Wint and Kidd in the book were terrifying shadows of revenge. Those in the movie were just pathetic, punstering queers.

The Bond series was always known for special equipment, but here they went overboard (as they did with later Roger Moore stories). It's also somewhat unrealistic for the office staff (Moneypenny and Q) to be on location with Bond when MI6 is supposed to have an entire agent network at it's disposal. It was almost like 'the office takes a holiday' theme.

It's a small wonder when most affectionadoes are asked, "what is your favorite Bond film"; the answer in general is "From Russia With Love", "Goldfinger" or "Thunderball". The magic was right in those films and why the producers want to mess with a winning formula is beyond me. Some say that this film was a spoof of the earlier more serious films. I think, let the spoofs (Matt Helm, Derek Flint) do their thing, and keep Bond doing his.

There were some good parts to the flick ... Bond's fight with Franks, Bond mountaineering outside the Whyte House and .... I guess that's it. The plot is the same old tired 'hold the world for ransom' type thing which is so overdone that it's tiring.

The music of John Barry is a plus as is the title song by Shirley Bassey. The rest of the movie needs an enema.

*** Recommended with reservations for Connery fans.

~ pjm ~