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A question to those who care not for Brosnan's Bond
chrisisall
Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
Was it an instant dislike based on a perceived tonal change from Dalton's movies?
Was it a reconsideration later after his movies had been around a while?
Is it that you just don't like Brosnan as an actor?
I'm sincerely curious, because he used to be my favourite Bond actor, however since I've read the Fleming novels & re-discovered Dalton's work, Brosnan has moved down a notch for me, but he's still in 3 of my top 10 Bond movies...
Was it Die Another Day? Is that what did it? ;)
Was it a reconsideration later after his movies had been around a while?
Is it that you just don't like Brosnan as an actor?
I'm sincerely curious, because he used to be my favourite Bond actor, however since I've read the Fleming novels & re-discovered Dalton's work, Brosnan has moved down a notch for me, but he's still in 3 of my top 10 Bond movies...
Was it Die Another Day? Is that what did it? ;)
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Comments
Seriously, if Pierce got to play Bond the way HE wanted, his era would have been more than just "GE is a good film". It could have been amazing. Thanks for nothing, P&W. >:P
This pretty much sums it up.
The less said about the Moore era, the better.
IMHO of course.
No, the stuff in Moore's era were there for the purpose of a quick laugh.
P&W were idiotic because what they exactly intended is exactly what we got. Which is sad.
its hilarious
the other two i can understand
I broke my ankle and managed not to moan, groan, or grit my teeth. It's not having a metal bar pivoted into my spinal chord, but it's pretty damn close.
Not to make fun though, my last nose break was goofy-looking at best.
b-(
Pierce Brosnan was constantly brought down by his scripts. I do believe that Brosnan is a pretty good actor (watch The Matador or The Ghost Writer), but some of his moments as James Bond wouldn't have you believe that. With the scripts he was given, he often over compensated dramatically (ex. confronting Elektra) and with the humor (see any one liner in DAD).
2002 was the year which CGI was overabused while scripting sucked i mean look at the hollywood films of 2002- The Matrix Reloaded, Star Wars Episode 2 (god the dialogue sucked- worst star wars film so far), Men in Black 2, Resident Evil, 8 Legged Freaks, XXX (the vin diesel film that producers MGW and Babs was worried that it would rival Bond) and unfortunately Die Another Day followed that trend of being a film that was trying to win favours with the MTv Generation.
Pierce was let down by script writers, directors and the producers who played it safe- personally i loved all of Brosnans 3 adventures because they were part of the 90s and i grew up watching them. but for 2002 they should have played risk like what they did with CR..they should have kept Michael France and Bruce Fiernstein while just letting Robert Wade and neal Purvis write just TWINE (and maybe CR) and if they didnt have Lee Tamahori (who was the joel shumucker of Directors) and they should have had more directors like Martin Campbell
Brosnan is a good actor- look at The Ghost Writer, The Greatest, The Matador. he had a lot of good moments as Bond especially in Goldeneye which was his best film and if the producers had let him keep the seriousness his era would probarly have more reptuation than it has today (according to some fans)
I was a big Dalton fan and was therefore disappointed when after I'd been waiting for 6 years he stepped away from the role. For me Dalton had made the part his own from the first scenes of TLD (I don't think any one else has done this quite so convincingly apart from SC and perhaps DC). I was not a huge fan of LTK but still enjoyed elements of it and appreciated Dalt's performance. I was looking forward to his third film being a return to something more like TLD. Dalton had given interviews saying he was not particularly happy about the tone of LTK (he only got the script days before filming) and that he wanted his third to be a bit more light-hearted. Any way, wasn't to be.
Unlike many of our US members, I had never heard of Brosnan in the UK. Remmington Steel was not watched by anyone that I knew and Brosnan was therefore an unknown quantity. He appeared at the press conference in a shaggy beard and he wasn't Dalton, so I wasn't automatically well disposed towards him, but at the same time I wanted a new Bond movie and wanted it to be good, so I was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt.
However, my dislike for his Bond was almost immediate. There was something slimy about him. He had none of the toughness of Connery of Dalts and none of the charm of Roger. When his first appearance on screen was hanging upside down in a toilet my heart sank. I thought back to Dalton's first appearance on Gibraltar - the epitome of the screen hero - and compared it to what was unfolding before my eyes. The PTS (and the rest of the film) was dreary. The whole film is a mix of machine gun fire and excessive hair products in my memory. The plane going over the cliff was a metaphor for the movie for me and it never improved after that.
I therefore went into Tomorrow Never Dies with low expectations but was pleasantly surprised. It has a decent PTS and the first half at least of the film is half decently scripted and directed. It remains IMO Brozza's best effort. He isn't great in it but he's slightly better than in GE. However TWINE and DAD demonstrated that Brosnan's Bond wasn't really going anywhere.
I was however surprised not long after TWINE to see Brosnan in The Tailor of Panama, in which I thought he was excellent. This changed my view of Brozza as an actor, because I realised he could actually act. Shame he never approached Bond with any seriousness. I think he saw the role as a bit of a laugh. It's unfortunate that he bought the line that Dalton's Bond was a failure, because I think this made him think there was no point in pursuing a more serious Bond performance. DC has of course shown how wrong he was.
Which leads us to the biggest problem and one of the reasons he doesn't hold up - scripts. The films have the worst dialogue of the whole series, have Bond firing machine guns all the time like it's Commando, and have nothing fresh to offer instead remixing familiar elements so that we end up with a pale copy of the 70s (though I still prefer him by a country mile to Roger Moore). It's as if his whole era was populated by a team that were just so happy to be making Bond films again after the interruption at the start of the 90s, that they didn't consider what they wanted to do with the series' direction once production started afresh. This extends to Brosnan himself IMO, he waited so long for the role that it was all about getting the role and less about defining it for his era.
The final factor for me is Daniel Craig. In my case I just think we have a better actor, as a better fit for the role, making vastly superior films, off better scripts for the most part. This had led to people reappraising Dalton and, in some but far from a majority of cases, people at least trying to find out what the characteristics of the literary version of the character were (not necessarily reading the books, I accept the average member of the public who likes a Bond film now and again won't do this, but they may wiki it). This has led to a general shift in perception as to how the character can be played and what we can expect from the films, thus leaving an already limited era exposed as a bit redundant and - I cannot overstate this - currently unfashionable.
This.
The two Dalton films changed the game. I loved Rogs' films but we needed a change. Tim was like a tornado. He actualy read the script, decided on character reaction and adjusted his acting accordingly. He didn't just saunter in, say the lines, and collect the cheque. I found his two films edgy and electric.
And then we seemed to go backwards.
We were back with a shallow conventional characterisation. A cartoon characterisation where he just went with the cliches. All the good work that Dalton did was undone.
@002. He is a limited actor. In The Ghost he wasn't that good. Adam Lang is an interesting character full of pathos of a self-inflicted disaster. I got none of that from Pierces performance.
I have always had the suspicion that he has got so far on his exceptional good looks which women like.
However I agree with @actonsteve that he is a somewhat limited actor. I enjoyed him in The Ghost and found him funny (see the below clip) but he is effectively playing an exaggerated, theatrical (I love that word haha) version of Blair.
It doesn't help that everytime I see him in another film I think "James Bond".
Maybe Brosnan is a good actor andd I have seen the wrong films of his, but I doubt it.
Could Dalton have saved The Tourist?
I agree that the Dalton films were game changers for the franchise. In fact having seen SF yesterday, I think Dalton holds his own for the era he played them in. I am not comparing the actors as their films could not be more different.
SF is a game changer. Even more so than CR to me. I got way more than I imagined and anyone who has not seen SF, should check it out as it took me by surprise.
I could not point any fingers at SF, whilst after DAD, I wanted it to be the end of the franchise if that was the direction of future movies.
He certainly is not the reason why the film was not as good as some say.