TBH, I haven't watched the Connery/Moore movies for about 18-20 years now. I should give them a revisit, to see how I view them now. Although I think Christopher Lee was the baddie (?), it was funny seeing Herve whassisname in the same movie, since I automatically mentally then try to match him with Ricardo Montalbon. I also never saw many of the Pierce Brosnan showings -- I think only GoldenEye had decent reviews, but the truth is that I got bored with Bond by that point and just stopped watching, they all seemed too derivative ... a copy of a copy of a copy... until the new iteration came around.
Yes, Christopher Lee was the baddie. I suppose that he wasn't as menacing as he is generally known for.
I thought the Brosnan ones were decent, particularly
Tomorrow Never Dies and
The World is Not Enough. Both underrated. I thought
TND was a great way to modernize the franchise to reflect the cultural climate at the time, much like what the Connery/Moore movies did.
TWINE was great because it had the sexiest Bond girls, even if Denise Richards was a very silly casting choice...but who cares?
I didn't have as much of a problem with
Die Another Day as much as some did. I thought that the disappearing Aston Martin was mostly believable within the Bond universe, and considering what was happening within cinematic culture at the time (MTV-style editing, and
Matrix-style slow-motion), I felt it fit in quite nicely. And while the face altering device was a bit far-fetched, I think that this should be brought back if the rumors of Craig's replacement as Bond are true -- Idris Elba might replace him as the first black James Bond. They could work it into the story somehow. (And before I'm accused for being racist, I wouldn't want a white Shaft or a white Blade.)
I think the biggest problem with
Die Another Day is not its overuse of CGI, but rather the poor CGI in general, which made the film very distracting. I do believe
DAD was the first Bond movie to use CG stunt doubles. And they were horrendous. But every other absurd thing was nothing that we haven't seen before.