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He’s quite an inspired directorial choice as he had a run of making studio thrillers but principally is a documentarian.
There are some pretty amazing videos on this channel…..some amazing stuff from GE to SP here.
Brosnan has nothing on Connery.
Brosnan was always a handsome fellow with handsomely silky voice and a twinkle in his eye, but was the Irishman was just too nice to play Bond? Except for the odd fleeting moment in 1995’s GoldenEye, he never had the edge for the part. Bond is not a decent chap; he is, as Connery, Craig and Moore etc realised, a hard/ cold bastard. Poor Brosnan was also victim to what these days is the worst era of Bond movies, culminating in the black-hole awfulness of 2002’s Die Another Day.
I have to say I fully agree with you. That's why I hate those moments in TWINE when Brosnan badly emotes (I've highlighted a few of those cringe making moments in earlier posts) - apart from being poor acting - it's just too cheesy to be Bond.
Agree. The only watchable scenes in The World Is Not Enough are the Bilbao Meeting and Boat Chase. The so-called scenes where Bond demonstrates his 'vulnerability' are really poorly executed by Brosnan. Cringeworthy. Ironically, the world is not enough to make this a great film, IMO.
It's a shame that those Making Of A Blockbuster featurettes for TWINE never made it onto the Bluray's.
It's fascinating to see the preproduction, production and post all in a single feature,
especially when it's for my favourite Bond film.
The conclusion that I've reached is that Brosnan's strengths as a performer (other than his obvious good looks) are vulnerability and self-deprecation. If you've seen his star-making role on Remington Steele, you know that the character was a humorous foil to Stephanie Zimbalist's PI Laura Holt: Brosnan played a con artist who was a little dim, sometimes comically unsure of himself as he improvised in tough situations, and who often had to rely on Laura to solve the case (while still taking the credit). Brosnan's skill in this role, which was basically a subversion of James Bond, offered an engaging contrast to what would normally be a blandly confident heroic protagonist. Audiences understandably loved him.
In Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days, Brosnan was again playing someone unsure of himself: a cold man who gradually finds his strict sense of order and emotional stability thrown into complete and comic disarray when he falls in love. It's not just a funny performance but also a surprisingly moving one with a clear arc.
The excellent LIVE WIRE, which was intended for theatrical release but instead went to pay TV, has Brosnan as an alcoholic bomb squad officer traumatized by the death of his daughter. But rather than putting Brosnan through a series of unrelentingly dour scenes -- where he doesn't excel -- the writers cleverly allow for humor and poke fun at his macho image, particularly in a running gag of everyone in the city thinking that Ron Silver's sleazy senator has been sleeping with Brosnan's estranged wife. The combination of humor and vulnerability in this character go a long way in helping the film and Brosnan's performance.
Unfortunately, the Bond folks don't seem to have recognized these strengths, and they made Brosnan's Bond a mostly humorless snob with a boringly unshakeable confidence who never seems to be in any real danger and doesn't seem to go through any kind of personal transformation.
Obviously many people found it appealing because of the massive success of the films, but I really...don't. In TWINE Brosnan was given more challenging material in his scenes opposite Sophie Marceau, but with too much self-seriousness and an inability to tap into his playful (and more human) side, the drama just sits there. Perhaps with another actor -- Dalton maybe -- who can really sell the more emotionally intense scenes, it might have worked. But instead I watch these films and wonder why they even hired Brosnan, since it seems like no one gave any thought to tailoring the scripts to his strengths as an actor.
110% agree. I've seen Brosnan turn in quality performances enough times to know that the problem was not Pierce per se, but rather the lack of any coherent approach to his Bond characterisation. I have to say Brozza must take some responsibility for this himself. TWINE was by all accounts tailored for him and his demands for more 'dramatic' material to work with. It's just the material was very badly written and poorly matched to his acting abilities.
The Taylor of Panama and the The Ghost Writer both show Brosnan acting to his strengths and he turns in really good and highly entertaining performances. Helps having oscar winning directors at the helm
It was much more specific than that @Pierce2Daniel. Since Barbara took over, EoN was on a neverending quest (and still is) to make the franchise more appealing to women, and seem less sexist to the media that keeps on beating the same tired drum. That's also where all the "most independent, and strongest Bond girl"- talk started. Even though an argument can be made that it all started way earlier than that.
But as far as the Brosnan era goes, in GE we got M, in TND it was Wai Lin, and in TWINE they hired Apdet to focus more on the female characters than ever before:
Apted in 2017:
...Again, I’m always trying to put women in it; I think they give it a kind of texture and emotion that is indispensable to making a film people are engaged by.
That’s the reason I got the Bond film. I couldn’t figure out why they had asked me to do it, and eventually they came clean. They said they were aware that girls don’t really come to see Bond films and they were trying to expand the whole conception of it. They were going to do a film where a woman was the villain and where ‘M’ [Judi Dench] has a much bigger role. They were looking for directors who worked with women, and they landed on me. I really was gobsmacked when they asked me to do it because I didn’t think I’d ever done anything remotely like it. I thought what have I got to offer a big action film?
The whole interview goes more in depth:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/parade.com/597611/samuelmurrian/michael-apted-talks-about-powerful-women-doug-liman-and-unlocked/amp/
You're not wrong. Still... 2 out of 3, yay for progress.
I see this as no bad thing….in fact, I endorse it.
Apted as a storyteller was someone who understood character and the Barbara didn’t want to make a dispensable film. She had aspirations to create something more dramatic and rich. Whether she succeeded or not, is down to personal taste. I think she did….
Was Denise Richards that bad? I honestly can’t remember her being that awful.
I feel the reviews for her performance in TWINE are less based on her actual work in the film and more based on who she is as a person. That’s inherently unfair.
It be like saying Robert Pattinson will inevitably be the worst Batman as he was in the Twilight films.
I feel the knives were out for Richards as soon as she was cast in TWINE (especially as a scientist) based solely off her role in Wild Things.
I keep putting off watching this again, but will get around to it. I’ll binge all the behind-the-scenes documentaries this week in anticipation.
Don't get me wrong, i love TWINE. Nowadays i think it's Brosnan's second best. What it does right is the glamour, style and sexappeal that was almost completely missing from TND. They doubled down on that in TWINE.
What it botched unfortunately was the ending, they went with Moore-pastiche instead of keeping it consistent with the story (they chickened out basically) and Apted just didn't had it in him to really geek out on the action (except for the boat chase) everything else feels very stale and by the numbers. Those are the biggest weaknesses. But as far as Brosnan movies go, this feels the most consistent from start to finish after GE.
As for Richards, she just lacks a little bit of enthusiasm imho. I can't describe it any other way, never seen her in anything else except for Starship Troopers. She plays her character a bit monotone and flat.. not as bad as some bond girls from the past though, so it's a minor gripe. And there is nothing else flat about Denise, if you know what i mean lol.
I wasn’t saying that she was bad. Richards talked about how cold the production people were towards her as if they didn’t want her there, which confirms to me that she was a casting decision pushed onto EON by MGM. And when she got heavily criticized EON didn’t lift a finger to defend her casting.
As for my opinion, I don’t think Richards was bad, but I do think the part she was given was an empty character as all Christmas did throughout the film was provide exposition dumps on nuclear bombs and be there as a conquest for Bond at the end after Elektra dies. So whatever criticisms I have has less to do with her acting because ultimately there’s no meat to the character. Even if you got the most acclaimed actress in the role she’d be hard pressed to make something compelling over talking about how to dismantle a nuclear bomb.
Savvy move by Eon. I've always been fascinated by this story as its truly stranger than fiction. It makes total sense to weave such a notion into a Bond film as the Getty's signify wealth and class. Then that added element of danger makes the story more dramatic.
I also think the Elektra character was inspired by Patty Hearst. She was a society girl who was kidnapped - only to be influenced by the group who kidnapped her and succumb to Stockholm syndrome. There was a very funny Drunk History on her....
They ended up on the cutting room floor, Bond is seen driving to the funeral in the DB5.
A few scenes were cut that I wished would have been included. Bond pulling up to the funeral in the DB5, the oil field drive with Elektra and especially the additional dialogue between Bond and M in her office early in the film. Always wished they kept that exchange...
M: "Contrary to what you may believe , Double 0 Seven, the world is not populated by madmen who can hollow out volcanoes, fill them with big-breasted women, and threaten the world with nuclear annihilation"
Bond: "It only takes one"
When you're 19 films in I think it's okay to be a little self referential from time to time.
It's the same reason I am not bothered by the Brosnan years feeling a bit tonally inconsistent, it was time to stop pretending this wasn't the same character swinging from a tree performing a Tarzan yell. If they can swing from one extreme to another movie to movie than why not do so in a single film.
I know... I'm a little odd <:-P
If I remember correctly that line was a direct quote from a journalist who criticized Goldfinger. Might be wrong though.
I love that scene btw. Thunderball is easily my favourite Connery Bond.
+1.
Blasphemy!
Rewatching the film, even Brosnan fans must surely accept that he was never the new Connery, but rather a sort-of strangely flat Roger Moore – without even the charm, screen presence and natural gift for comedy that old raised eyebrow delivered in spades.
He was never Connery, nor was Dalton, Craig or Lazenby. Like it or not... Connery is the best. Period.
However, Brosnan was a more believable version of Moore, he was a bit more balanced, threatening and physically capable. Moore seemed out of place doing anything more than a slow stride. He was also a bit too nonchalant. Not to say he was bad, he was an incredibly consistent actor, which was Brosnan's issue, consistency, great only 90% of the time.
I agree, Connery is the best. But Brosnan was a sort-of strangely flat Roger Moore – without even the charm, screen presence and natural gift for comedy that old raised eyebrow delivered in spades.
Throughout his career, Sir Roger stated that Sean Connery played Bond as a killer, whilst he played him as a lover. Though Bond cannot, of course, give his heart to any one woman, Moore’s irresistible charm meant he could never be cast off as a cad. As the author Jackie Collins puts it in the 1995 documentary Roger Moore: A Matter Of Class: “When Sean Connery played James Bond, he played him as the bad boy womaniser. When Roger Moore played Bond, he played him as the man who maybe would marry the heroine, if the circumstances were right.”
Roger Moore is a national treasure and the epitome of an English Gentleman, he has charm and screen presence that Brosnan can only dream about....or rather try to emulate.
I cannot disagree with your appreciation of Moore as person, he truly was an incredible man. However we have to agree to disagree when it comes to his Bond over Brosnan's Bond.
Even earlier than that, Kronsteen mentions SPECTRE can gain revenge for the killing of their operative Dr. No in FRWL, and Bond mentions he had an attache case like the one Tilly has her gun/ice skates in in GF, and later asks if his attache case survived the Aston Martin crash, to which he finds it was damaged upon opening. Nice referential bit there.
I always felt like the stark contrast between Moore's portrayal of Bond generally and in the more serious moments are what makes him believable, IMO.