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I saw plenty I didn’t like in his performance at the time.
But in the same breath, it’s very apparent he was the right man for the job— and that’s why I appreciate him (although he sits in dead last on my list of favourite Bonds).
But are we looking back in this thread? Or looking forward, 😂
Brosnan was too much of a mannequin. A pretty boy pretending to be dangerous.
Connery was the perfect balance. Handsome but a tough looking customer you wouldn’t want to cross.
It’s also easy to condemn his films when compared to the previous decades.
Yeah, that's the point. He was a 90s Bond. Everything was over-the-top in the 90s, even music.
I WISH it was as good as FACE/OFF. Getting John Woo for TND would have added the needed flair that was lacking in Spottiswoode’s direction.
I love a good John Woo movie, but M:I 2 might be an example of how he would do it.
I judged him in the present-time where I watched him. And I knew then, that this just wasn’t the era for me. I still went to each, but most of the time I was bored silly.
And @SecretAgentMan⁰⁰⁷ , I wish we were still making some of those titles you mentioned. Those popcorn flicks put to shame the CGI messes we have today.
Yeah, Face-Off is a favourite of mine. But do you really want to see James Bond in endless slow motion action scenes? Maybe that's why Woo turned down GoldenEye, because he knew that style wouldn't suit Bond.
Yeah, those 90s flicks were cool @peter Great practical stunts!
No, Bond should be Bond. No matter what the stories take from other franchises. In the end, James Bond is his own style. And by and large, most of the films maintain that feel.
It was in the Brozz Era where I felt the Americanization of the brand creeping in. And some of that was due to Brosnan’s thin portrayal with his mid-Atlantic accent…
M:I-2 was definitely more entertaining than TND/TWINE/DAD. If Brosnan’s films were gonna level up to what 90s action films were, I rather have John Woo directing rather than Spottiswoode.
M:I-2 is cheese, but it’s never dull like TWINE.
Agreed…. Watching the first three Indy films recently, and oh boy, Spielberg just knew how to set it up, and then, as the sequence played out, he’d elevate the struggle… So much fun to watch…. I know that’s the 80s, but the 90s continued some of the in-camera trickery and practical effects and stunts…
The 80s and 90s (especially), were the two eras of the spec-sale boom, so the writers had to really work concept and story… They had to dazzle on the page and really know their craft (of course, that eventually grew rotten when concept-as-king took over and we started getting strong ideas, handcuffed with poor scripts, that turned into films that bombed… And that was the end of the spec-sale boom)…
In fact, no matter what the @Mendes4Lyfe types say, Bond, with all his faults, is still more old school in character and stories and execution, and is therefore more unique and feels far more authentic than the likes of marvel/DC/FF etc etc…
That's about right.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/06/12/how-the-marvel-cinematic-universe-swallowed-hollywood
Bond does not need to copy Marvel.
Brilliantly explained!
You're welcome, @peter :)
Yeah I think every Bond has been more or less perfect for the time they were cast. Brosnan got a bad wrap for a good few years because people decided the 90s weren’t cool anymore, but he was the perfect Britpop Bond, and I’d argue had more to him than his detractors give him credit for. It’s nice to see him getting more praise on here these days. I think we’ll see something similar happen with Craig. He’s past the honeymoon phase now but give it a decade and people will be nostalgic for his run.
I’m not the biggest fan of Spectre, but:
The PTS and the costumes and the location.
The Spectre meeting is iconic in imagery.
The assassination of Lucia’s would-be killers.
The seduction of Lucia.
The uniqueness of the aeroplane chase vs Hinx and his men.
The train fight between Bond and Hinx.
NTTD:
An interesting PTS with Safin and young Madeleine.
Matera graveyard (and the excellent sound editing).
Matera’s car chase sequence.
Jamaica with Felix.
Jamaica with the new 007 (I know Mendes, a woman!).
Cuba sequence.
The one-shot attack on Safin’s compound.
And no matter how controversial, the finale is remarkable and unforgettable, whether one liked it or not.
I wrote this in ten seconds with no thought.
Once again, Mendes, you act like someone who is butt-hurt because BB and MGW didn’t give you the films you wanted. You act as if this is a personal affront to you and your tastes, that this was deliberate in some ways. Get over it, pal. You hate two films out of 25. Can any other series have that kind of winning percentage?
Honestly, get over yourself.
My sentiments exactly.
I agree with you there. It seemed people threw Brosnan and his films under a bus these last couple of years, but it is starting to look like Brosnan is undergoing a sort of renaissance.
I'm finding a lot more to enjoy in the early Craig films post-bond 25 release. For me, I now view his era in two halves, 2006 - 2012 and 2015 - 2021. In 2006 - 2012 it seemed like they had a clear vision for what each film was. I don't like Bond on revenge missions (including LTK) but you can understand quantum once you see that was the central idea, and explains the shakey cam, the performances, the frantic edits etc. Again, I don't like it necessarily, but I can understand where the decisions are coming from, and I can see the vision of what they were creating. I can also see how Skyfall was made from the ground up as an anniversary film, and the constant references to "old ways are the best" is a self referenial comment on the franchises long history. It's never going to be my cup of tea, or what I want from Bond personally, but I get it. The problem is from 2015 onwards the vision doesn't appear to be there anymore, and the movies become just a collection of elements with nothing holding them together. What, for instance, is the vision of SP? Bond and blofeld are brothers, but also M has sent him on a revenge mission to uncover SPECTRE from beyond the grave, also bond finds the love of his life, oh and something to do with surveillance. There's just no "there" there. No story. Nothing to latch onto. The end result of the story is that bond has to save the girl and shoot down a helicopter with his walther, so why was any of the personal angles, the relationship between bond and blofeld necessary to begin with? Bond could have just dealt with SP and Blofeld like a normal mission and they could be eachothers archnemsis, and that would be enough. I really don't know what the film was leading to in a grander meaning sense. Blofeld is built up as the "author of all your pain" and then he is imprisoned at the end, only to die in the next film. It feels like the bond blofeld relationship is supposed to be this films vision, but he ends up dealing with him how he would any villain, by foiling their plan, so I truly don't understand what the point was.
I can feel it too. Things are just perfectly lined up right now, and I think Nolan will want to do something a bit less serious after a film like Oppenhiemer.
Yeah, can't disagree. TWINE is okay, but compared to almost any other Bond film; design-wise, dialogue, acting... it's a raw deal. Look at that opening scene in a boring, small, cramped office... rubbish lines, obvious acting... it's weak old sauce. At least MI2 has some style about it, dated as it may be now.
I'd like to see to B26 go for it in terms of style: don't worry about looking dated in 15 years' time, you're not making it for then.
Absolutely right. It's not like you have to get very far into the first film Mendes mentions, Spectre, and you're hit with one of the most impressive sequences in the Bond films. So much so that the city which hosted it is now recreating it annually!