I'm a huge Bond fan. So believe me when I say this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you. Amanda Mae Meyncke got to play good cop with her Top Five, now I'm stuck with bad cop. But I have to concede, the franchise has hit a few low points. I'd still watch these over anything Vin Diesel's been in any day, and you might not necessarily agree with my picks. But if you're honest with yourself, in the deep dark night of the soul you'll have to admit: sometimes even James Bond sucks.

5) Never Say Never Again
I know there are people who will start screaming if I include any Sean Connery-era Bond (even if it wasn't in the "official" series). But while I love Connery, Never's failings are legion. He came out of a 12-year Bond retirement to remake 1965's Thunderball, which starred a noticeably much younger Sean Connery. Largo, Domino, Blofeld, the gang's all here ... again. They weren't allowed to use the James Bond theme, Kim Basinger was a particularly bland Bond girl, and Connery's toupee, which deserved separate billing, was a disaster.

4) Moonraker
Bond's gondola, cruising the canals of Venice, turns into a hovercraft; CIA agent Goodhead has a flame-throwing bottle of perfume; Jaws falls in loves and becomes a good guy. All groan-worthy in their own right. But it's the pandering to sci-fi audiences in the wake of Star Wars that sends this one straight into the dustbin. Spaceships, lasers, and satellites? What's a gentleman spy doing in this mess? A perfect example of the Bond concept going wrong, with dry wit devolving into broad gags and silly plotlines, and the Bond formula shoehorned into somebody else's genre. What next, Bond visits Middle Earth in For Frodo's Eyes Only?

3) Die Another Day
Pierce Brosnan was a very good Bond (GoldenEye is a personal favorite), but it's obviously tough for actors to keep banging away at the same role. By the end of Die, it was easy to see that the time had come for Brosnan to move on to Mamma Mia. Halle Berry can act, but she brought her Catwoman chops to this one, and the invisible car was laughable. But it was Madonna's presence, from ruining the idea of a Bond theme to stinking up the joint as a "sexy" fencing instructor that pushed this one over the top for me.

2) A View to a Kill
Even Roger Moore didn't like this movie, his last, painful trip to the Bond well. Let's put it this way: in the opening sequence, he snowboards down a mountain with "California Girls" playing in the background. Oof. Christopher Walken's turn as supervillain Max Zorin is serviceable, but Grace Jones -- who I think has a pile of Legos on her head -- seems to be in the wrong movie, and "geologist" Tanya Roberts sets a bar for vacant blonde dullness that took "nuclear physicist" Denise Richards's to top. And Moore kind of looks like Tanya Roberts's dad.

1) Casino Royale
Easy, I don't mean Daniel Craig's reboot (though some hardcore fans can't stand the new Bond). But forty years before, a bizarre spoof starring David Niven, Peter Sellers, Orson Welles, and Woody Allen ran through five directors on its way to winning a reputation as one of the biggest film disasters of all time. I actually have a soft spot for this movie -- it is one of the weirdest, messiest things ever put on film, and that's kind of admirable in its own right. But as a movie with, like, a plot and characters and events that lead to other events, it's an outright shambles. (Still worth watching, especially if you're an Austin Powers fan. A good portion of those movies was lifted more or less whole.)

Feel free to tell me how wrong I am in the comments. I know a guy whose favorite Bond movie is Moonraker. Seriously.

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