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Agreed. Good post.
The attitude is totally flawed too. Read Fleming and then create your own version as an actor. He’s basically admitted to trying to copy past actors. Especially, when you can’t live up to either. Not a wise move.
Oh yes, absolutely.
Wow! Shows how huge a star Connery was at that time. ^:)^
Oh I feel they are on the same level acting skill wise. Craig is more stoic and does not show a wide variety of emotions in his acting. Craig is boosted by added makeup showing blood, his battle scars, tattered clothing, etc.
Outside of that last fight with 006 the artists never had Brosnan have blood and such on him.
Brosnan is on the same level as Craig at acting, my God you gave me a good laugh with that.
I forgot being smarmy and cheesy was an acting quality.
Skill wise you kill me, Brosnan was all surface, Craig acts Pierce off the screen.
Not since Connery has there been an actor in the role so comfortable in his own skin from the get go.
Just my opinion from what I have seen. Craig's acting capabilities are only bolstered by superb make up showcasing the roughness around him. His Bond persona is the same persona as the ones in Cowboys and Aliens, Defiance, Layer Cake, etc. Even the character he portrayed in Golden Compass, his Bond is no different.
This is not a knock against Daniel. It works for him but he is not on the level of say a Jack Nicholson, DiCaprio, Brando, etc.
Ikr.
But didn't he sign a two picture deal anyway? :-?
Have you seen Infamous?
And while I'm a huge Nicholson fan, he's not the most versatile actor in the world. The same goes for Pacino and Dicaprio. But it's their charm & intensity that makes them great. There's a difference between dull or bad (like Jim Caviezel) and not being "chameleonlike". Like Gary Oldman, who is imho the greatest actor of all time.
+1
That's always cited as a cold moment for Brosnan, but I never bought the idea that he's "cold" in it. Given how the emotions are heightened in the scene, especially with Brosnan's performance, it's more hot blooded than anything. He even goes to her corpse to mourn her looking regretful of what he had to do.
I think Brosnan's coldest moment is in bits nobody seems to bring up, like him knocking out Xenia swiftly "sweet dreams". He's such a dick in that moment, it's wonderful. Also shooting Davidov and making a joke that's enough to make him grin "he was buried with work".
In terms of Bond performances, yes.
But if we are speaking generally, Brosnan is a very capable actor and his resumé is filled with many extremely good performances in different genres.
Craig does too. They're both good.
Shooting an unarmed woman is cold regardless of the emotions running through the scene, I feel. She could have easily been incapacitated, but he chose to kill her.
I do like that moment with Xenia you mentioned, though. A good example.
To be clear, the term "cold blooded" literally means being being calm, without showing feeling and remorse. And throughout the scene it's very obvious Bond is NOT calm, is highly emotional, and then goes on to display remorse over her dead body.
I think a more accurate description is "merciless".
To date Connery is the most versatile of all Bond actors. I consider the rest to be above average actors.
By versatility I am taking about the actors who can portray a wide variety of characters and knock it out of the park. A good example is Matt Damon, as Bourne he exhibits the type of stoic behavior found in Craig but is able to pull off a wide range of characterization in his other works. Craig works solely as a alpha male tough guy.
Props, makeup, clothing" etc cab boost an actors believability and Craig has benefited the most from this. I call this a learning curve by EoN from the old formula to Craig era.
Now the worlds greatest actor cannot be suitable for the role of 007.
Interesting.
Shooting Davidov is easily one of his coldest moments as Bond; smiles at him, kicks him in the face and pulls out his Walther and starts firing before Davidov has even reached into his jacket. Tossing him in a dumpster is just icing on the cake.
Love that scene.
Our Friends In The North negates anything Brosnan has done, it blows away any other actor who's played the role.
Craig has never been better and no other actor who has played the role has approached the depth, commitment and acting craft that his performance of Geordie Peacock in this masterful BBC drama contains.
This is why when it comes to acting Craig is the best, more depth and range than anyone else in the role.
Brosnan had done some TV series, a bit part in The Long Good Friday and some tat like Taffin and Death Train before he took on the role.
Craig had done OFITN and worked with Spielberg as well as having the reputation as one of the most sort after character actors in the UK by the time he was cast as Bond.
Also I maintain that DC will have by far the most interesting and exciting career of anyone else who's played the role after NTTD.
By Brosnan's own admission he never really got a grip on the character. He didn't know who he was playing and this comes across more often than not as Brozza just going through the motions. Reading his lines and trying to look cool.
I don't know whether Pierce was fundamentally miscast or whether it was just an unfortunate time for the series when they didn't know what direction to take after Dalton. Throughout the Brosnan. era it all feels a bit like EON are just going through the motions and the whole thing is sliding towards total pastiche.
Any way I am inclined to say I'd be more inclined to watch a non Bond film if Pierce was in the lead than if it had Craig, or Dalton starring. I've seen too many films where Craig sort of bores me to death. Pierce is less consistent but when he's well cast and has good direction I think I find him a more engaging screen presence. Shame that never came across as Bond though, where I prefer Craig by a considerable margin.
This conveniently excludes quite a lot of great work that Brozza has done in the last two decades, but I don't think anything I could list would change your mind.
In these moments Roger demonstrated an infinite amount more of cold-heartiness then Brosnan, but more so then that it's actually believable because of the contrast between his usual light-heartiness. The moment where Bond shoots Drax's assassin out of the tree in Moonraker is one of my all time favourite moments in the franchise and Moore is perfect in that scene. I always feel with Brosnan it comes off a bit contrived and forced, personally. I'd also argue Moore portrayed a lot more believable vulnerability then Brosnan ever did with moments like the Centrifuge which I've always felt is quite Flemingesque or even when Bond has to approach Anya about killing her lover. It's in these moments that Moore gave us a look into the flawed side of his Bond, without them coming off aloof.
Definitely one of Brosnan's better moments, but then how the other henchman buy into the fact that Brosnan is his replacement it is really daft, IMO. Compared to them Brosnan looks like a male model who stepped off a runway. He's wearing a Tuxedo in the middle of no-where, yet they still don't question his credentials. I've also never liked how Brosnan's Bond mourns those who he's killed/be killed like Elektra or Paris, personally.
I never see any of that in Moore's Bond. Those moments you mentioned above are good, but they need to be supported by something that we actually see and he was rarely (if ever) convincing, physically, as a secret agent in the way that the other five have been, so those moments don't ring as true to me as they do to you. It doesn't mean I don't like him as Bond, he was very enjoyable to watch and I think Moore was a fascinating dude in real life, but I never found him believable in those moments.
You are really gonna bring up that undone tux in the middle of the night when you have countless of episodes where Bond is overdressed?
Captain spamalot.
Not sure I agree with this. Connery still stands head and shoulders above anyone else who played Bond, and that includes Craig.
Watch The Offence or The Hill, and you'll see a masterclass in acting. Connery's work after Bond is a difficult one to beat. Sure, he did some forgettable crap in the 70's and 80's, but The Man who would be King is a stone cold classic. The Untouchables also gave Connery his Oscar too. Craig still hasn't won one of them yet.
Throw in The Rock, Hunt for Red October, The Name of the Rose, Robin and Marion, Indiana Jones, etc. and that is some body of work to beat.
Even when Connery has a bit part like Highlander, A Bridge Too Far or Time Bandits, his performance shines through and ends up being the most memorable thing about that movie.
I think Connery struggled to find his place in the cinematic universe for many years though. Fortunately he had that late blooming period that reestablished him as amongst the top of the Hollywood A listers.
Will people be searching out OFITN in decades to come? I find a lot of Craig's non Bond stuff pretty bland to be honest. He's frankly sunk a fair few promising franchises. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo should have been a guaranteed hit given the success of the books but his film essentially tanked. He managed to deliver similar non cinematic screen gold for the Golden Compass, which also should have been something of a sure fire hit.
Craig is a decent actor but I don't think he's the best to have played Bond and I genuinely think he's probably more of an ensemble/character actor than a leading man outside of Bond.
There era's (well Craig's so far) have a fair bit of symmetry to them. Both have a a fantastic film (GE+CR) which happen to be there debut's. Both have had a good solid film, that have at equal points either been overrated or underrated by fandom (TND+SF) and both have had two fair to crap efforts (TWINE, DAD, QOS, SP).
Now, the symmetry doesn't end here. Both of their first films where some measure of a reboot, albeit GE was a softer one. And by far, both actors best efforts.
Their second respective films both had huge script problems and writers strikes to deal with, and ended up being action heavy.
Their third films, both tried to scale back and focus on the more introspective elements of the character.
Both of their fourth efforts ended up tonally and creatively messy, as Pierce himself said 'neither fish, nor fowl'. Both with a villain who is essentially two people in one, and both with a personal embitterment with Bond from the past. Also, both films are largely reviled by most of the fan base.
+1
Connery is the only movie star to transcend from the Bond franchise and have a pretty big career outside of Bond. Moore, Dalton and Brosnan have had respectable careers post-Bond , but certainly nothing on the same level as Connery.
Craig may have a future with the KNIVES OUT franchise, with the first being a sleeper hit, so his work is already cut out for him in his first step towards post-Bond.