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Is the world is not enough Brosnan's best performance ???
What do you think I personally can't decide between GoldenEye and the world is not enough.
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So, in complete contrast to @moore45, I thought he was better in TND and DAD
I love the way people blame everything on the scripts. If only he'd have done one more he'd have redeemed himself.... Yeah right.
Take a mediocre script and add a mediocre actor and you will always get a mediocre performance.
I agree completely.
I thought his attempts at dramatic acting let him down, as these were not his strongest areas.
He was best when he played it confident and straight, and that was most evident in the early parts of DAD (up to & including his meeting with Jinx at the beach where he was also solid), and during most of TND. In my opinion he was weakest in DAD when sympathizing with Jinx's plight at the end & also when interacting with Carver in the hotel room in TND ("you've made your bed"). Although his big smooch sendoff to her later in TND after dispatching Kaufmann was pure Bond.
GE - he was very wooden in this one but could be forgiven as he was getting his feet wet. The supporting cast carried this movie for me, but Brosnan looked good as he always does.
TWINE - don't get me started on this one. This is what did Brosnan in for me, and I could never quite accept him as Bond after this, despite his acting improvements in DAD. Particularly painful moments for me include: 1. touching the computer screen while sympathizing with Electra's plight as a captive at the MI6 HQ, 2. almost crying like a love-sick teenager while berating her for betraying him in Baku (that confrontation was quite troubling to me "Knew where to hurt me......There's no point in living if you don't feel alive"), 3. his high school drama expression when realizing again that he had been betrayed by Electra while holding a gun to his head in the mine (the 'huh' moment), 4. his expressions during the fight with Renard in the sub and when being choked by Electra in the chair. So in summary, I think TWINE was by far his weakest effort, and this was precisely because he was trying to be dramatic & attempting to emote. It came across quite 'cheesy' to my eyes. Even his delivery of some of the quips were off: "Er.....He was buried with work"
For a textbook lesson in how Bond should emote, I reference Daniel Craig during the end of Casino Royale, and for most of QoS. Or Roger Moore (despite his generally comedic approach) during certain scenes with Barbara Bach at the Mojaba Club & after the car chase in TSWLM when she confronts him with killing her beau.
Even Dalton laid it on a bit thick in LTK in my opinion, although he was meant to have been hurt. Craig did it much better in QoS
I agree with most of what you've said here, but the bit I've bolded just made me laugh.
I mean, I like Brosnan - I've even enjoyed some of his non-Bond films - but seriously, if an actor struggles with 'dramatic acting' (what other kind is there?) then that's about as fundamental a flaw as you can have, surely?
I should clarify my statement, as I have nothing against Brosnan as an actor really. I think his attempts at dramatic acting "while playing James Bond " let him down. I believe this may because he never quite got a proper read on the character, rather than necessarily his acting prowess.
I've actually found him to be quite good in other movies and in other roles of a dramatic nature.
I totally agree. It's almost as if he was overwhelmed by Bond. I would also argue of course that he was miscast. Some actors, like Sir Rog, essentially just bring themselves to the set and magic results - that's a bit unfair to Rog, but you know what I mean. Others like Tim and Dan have to act their socks off and have the talent to 'become' a different character on screen. Brosnan, I would argue, is not technically a good enough actor to take the Craig or Dalton approach.
And I would also argue (this is where it gets controversial) that the traits he naturally brings to the screen are not those that you automatically associate with Bond. His best roles IMO have been those where he is cast as slightly weak, vain, morally compromised characters. This is not meant as a criticism of Brosnan, as I think he actually does those roles really well, but I just don't think he was well suited to Bond.
I sincerely think he is the only actor in the history of the series who was fundamentally miscast. He primarily got the job because of his looks as far as I can tell.
I could not have said any of this better than you have above @Getaflix, and you've captured my opinion perfectly above.
I think he was also trapped by Cubby in trying to bring a lot of Roger's Bond to the role (since Tim's portrayal was not that successful commercially despite it having gained a lot of fans critically) as well as capturing the essence of Sean's Bond. So he was essentially trapped by two very successful Bonds before him. To make things more difficult, he also was forced by someone to capture a 90's metrosexualism (almost too well fitting Brioni & coiffed hair, shiny Omega, yuppy obvious BMW product placement, sensitivity to women's feelings etc.) that became a bit overt...his Bond became a bit of a watered down mismash caricature in my mind.. One could argue that he should have had the confidence to have been able to overcome this and create a definitive portrayal (Dan did) but that may be a bit harsh. Maybe he was just trapped during a directionless, transtional era and perhaps the producers are as much to blame. I guess we'll never know.
I do know that his performance in the The Tailor of Panama during his Bond reign was much more befitting of Bond
I think Tarantino saw the same qualities in Brosnan that I'm describing, and this is one of the reasons he wanted to keep him for his Casino Royale. You can really imagine Tarantino really messing with the heroic cinematic Bond cliches and turning Bond into someone much more morally compromised. I think that could actually have been brilliant, but EON would never have allowed Brosnan to play Bond that way - i.e. to his strengths. Which is why Brosnan was miscast by EON - because they wanted him to be something that he simply wasn't.
And before anyone says it, I don't think Brosnan would have suited LTK or CR/QoS - those films work well respectively for Dalton and Craig, but would not have been right for Brosnan. He required an even more radically different take on the character IMO, something EON are probably never going to agree to.
I just love all the lines in that movie. Somewhat comic book-like but so memorable even to this day: "For England James?..... No, for me"
But if you must ask - none of Brosnan's performances were particularly good (he admits this himself, and I don't mean in that typically modest kind of way). He was stiff and bland in GE, decent but hammy in TND, painfully out of his depth trying to act hurt etc. in TWINE and by the time he got to DAD, in which he gave glimpses of a good performance, he was basically buggered as 007 'cause the series went t*ts-up :-\"
You sir are a literary scholar. In a few well chosen words, you have said what I have taken paragraphs above to try to articulate. Thank you.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/10755167/Pierce-Brosnan-I-was-never-good-enough-as-Bond.html
“I felt I was caught in a time warp between Roger and Sean,” he says, “It was a very hard one to grasp the meaning of, for me. The violence was never real, the brute force of the man was never palpable. It was quite tame, and the characterisation didn’t have a follow-through of reality, it was surface. But then that might have had to do with my own insecurities in playing him as well.” Has he ever re-watched the movies? He mock-shudders. “I have no desire to watch myself as James Bond. ‘Cause it’s just never good enough.” He laughs mirthlessly. “It’s a horrible feeling.”
“The leading man arena can be fairly vacant and vacuous,” he says. “Who the hell am I within this role or on the page? They want you to bring your own persona, and that gets a little tricky at times, when it’s just you bringing yourself to a role which is thinly written.”
...and also perhaps when you're miscast in the role?
Ouch! Another well placed blow to the crown jewels of the Brosnan fan-boy-affiliation :>
DAD, for all of its flaws, is Brosnan's best performance in my opinion.
No, we can't have so-called grown up conversation. We are social animals, and when we smell blood, it's time to attack- that's where the bashing frenzies come from. Emotion trumps reason, and intellect is employed to construct artificial logic to justify it.
So, in general for everyone, we could actually try this. You could state your opinion without bashing on the regular discussion threads, then to get it out of your system head over to the designated bashing thread. That way, the negativity and relentless hammering of it as fact down other people's throats can be contained in an appropriate form and not pollute the other threads. I'd say Brosnan, Moore, and Lazenby would need these. At least.
O:-)
Respectfully, that's when the debate can begin, and those with the best set of facts to back them up wins. I feel like grown-up conversations can be had, and even disagreed upon, like adults using their wits and facts to back them up.
Example: a LOOONG time ago I posted about how I felt LTK was not a very good film, and some blokes here said I should try it again since I hadn't even seen it in over 20 years. I acquiesced and found that not only was it better than I remembered, it became one of my top two Bonds.
This to say, discussion is about discovery, not a war of points.
Very well said. Very well said indeed.
Yet I would defend your right to have an opinion, regardless whether the other posters had changed it.
Pretty much agree with you here. I would say Brozza's performances in order of quality are:
TND
DAD
GE
TWINE
The Mexican soap opera script in the Elektra scenes and the leaden direction can only cover up so much. Brozza is pretty poor in a lot of scenes (although he's class in the PTS to be fair).
A tad rich from the bloke who thinks random quotes from Rotten Tomatoes constitutes a weighty body of persuasive evidence!!
That being said, it's not his best performance imo. He does overact in a few scenes, people have mentioned the whole "hurt me" bit with Elektra and I agree that it is pretty cringey.
I think his best performance is DAD. In GE he's not as settled, in TND he's good but it's a pretty lightweight film and in TWINE he does overact at times. In Die Another Day though, he's perfect. He's effortlessly cool and confident as always but there are also some great dramatic moments in the first half of the film where he's really good, there's more challenging material than in TND. He sells the Korea stuff really well (EG- when he's being traded for Zao and he thinks he might be executed he seems genuinely scared) and he's great on the bit on the boat with M. Even later on when the film has gone to shit and fallen apart he has some great moments (like when Miranda asks him about Korea and you can tell he doesn't like remembering it, and when he tries to kill Miranda when she turns out to be a traitor). And I like the bit where he saunters into the hotel, all beaten up, scruffy and in his pyjamas, and asks for his usual suite. I couldn't see Dalton or Craig pulling that off but Brosnan does.
There are still some dodgy moments in his DAD performance (like when Jinx is unconcious after being in the freezing water and he's trying to wake her up), but overall I think that's probably his best. He was really good there. Shame the film around him was so terrible.
I do think Brosnan was a fantastic Bond who deserved at least one more, to go out on a high note.
Oh, and the people who think TND is his best performance: he calls his mobile a cell phone. James Bond, British secret agent, does not speak American English. It's unforgivable and for that reason alone, his DAD performance is better :P
=D> :)>- B-)