Diamonds Are Forever (1971)
After previously retiring from the role coming out of You Only Live Twice, Sean Connery came back for one last outing as James Bond in 1971's Diamonds Are Forever. Also serving as director Guy Hamilton's return to the franchise after Goldfinger which is easily one of my favorite early Bond films. With these returns to the franchise, it is fair to say that I had quite high hopes for this film but quickly I realized that this movie was bound to disappoint me. James Bond (Sean Connery) is hot on the trail of his enemy Ernst Blofeld (Charles Gray) which leads him to Las Vegas where Bond discovers a ring of diamond smugglers which Bond sets out to stop.

The very first scene of this film is honestly inspiring, featuring Bond angry as he finally looks to end his conflict with Blofeld, it seemed like this movie was going to act as a solid closing chapter to their story. With Connery clearly fired up this seemed to have an easy layout of how to be an effective and focused Bond film that has been built to over the previous decade of Bond films leading to this one. Instead, they quickly move past that actually interesting and inspired plot to enter the new overly complicated and lifeless plot involving the diamond smugglers that made me bored from the first 20 minutes of it. Again this is a film that decides it needs to stretch itself out to a 2-hour film with tons of unneeded twists and turns that at this point failed to add anything as far as the enjoyment I got out of the film. Part of that also could be that the actual location of this film felt uninspired and uninteresting. Probably because nearly every Bond film previously has featured a casino scene in it but unlike Japan from You Only Live Twice or even the tropical island of Thunderball, Las Vegas added absolutely nothing to this film and felt so dull.

Part of why this film felt so uninspired was also how bad the acting was in this film. Where Sean Connery continues to be a solid presence everyone around him is just terrible. From Jill St. John to Lana Wood the women not only have little to do but also outright disappoint in any scenes of dialogue. The side goons that Bond has to face also stick out like a sour thumb clearly lacking an understanding of what they were supposed to be doing. This is one of the first Bond films to all around have pretty bad acting and continually took me out of each scene.
With this sense of lifelessness, Diamonds Are Forever easily is the most boring Bond film up to this point. Where Casino Royale might all around have been the worst film it was at least baffling enough to where it didn't feel like it was just going through the motions with no motivation or effort. This film was such a pain to get through and was so disappointing especially considering it is the last outing Sean Connery will have as Bond. Hopefully, this change will inspire the franchise to find new life but after seeing how they handled Connery's first departure with On Her Majesty’s Secret Service I have my doubts.
With this sense of lifelessness, Diamonds Are Forever easily is the most boring Bond film up to this point. Where Casino Royale might all around have been the worst film it was at least baffling enough to where it didn't feel like it was just going through the motions with no motivation or effort. This film was such a pain to get through and was so disappointing especially considering it is the last outing Sean Connery will have as Bond. Hopefully, this change will inspire the franchise to find new life but after seeing how they handled Connery's first departure with On Her Majesty’s Secret Service I have my doubts.