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Agreed. I don't know what it is about this guy, but for such a handsome man, great physique, he just isn't memorable.
I'd say what he did in the first Kick Ass film is better than anything he's done since, especially since he's "sculpted" his image.
It seems the more handsome he's become, the less presence he has, and, on screen, he's as exciting and explosively interesting as a wall that's painted in white.
Hey, don’t underestimate the colour white, @peter! When I painted my living room white a couple of years ago, I had to sift through eight different paint samples. Since then, I’ve never looked at white walls the same way!
😂 I knew there was a danger for backlash from my statement, 😂!!
I am sorry to all white painted walls, and all walls which will soon be painted white as well.
😂 @Torgeirtrap You almost made me colour my white walls with a Jackson Pollock -style spray of coffee (I took a big sip of my morning coffee when I read your post!) 🤣
Since then though he's had so many roles which should have been much more memorable. Godzilla, Avengers, Fall Guy etc. I think the first time his limitations clicked for me was watching Nocturnal Animals. It's such an unsettling character and for all intents and purposes should have been the stand out performance of the movie. He's not bad in it, but I noticed he was outshone by Michael Shannon and Jake Gyllenhall (who are to be fair to them pretty great actors, but I feel for that role you need someone who can stand up to heavy hitters like that).
But ATJ took a troubled character and made it bland. As you said, he wasn’t “bad”, but he certainly missed an opportunity (and, as an actor, I don’t know how you could’ve dropped the ball on this role).
Just looked it up and had a quick read of some of Ray's scenes (I'll definitely give it a proper read when I get the chance). He's a very nasty character, but very vivid. I'm imagining Matthew McConaughey when reading it (maybe a bit obvious and likely too old for that character. McConaughey has something more electric about him though. I can see him being very sinister in that role).
But yeah, I feel with ATJ the performance is a bit too forced. It's just a touch too big to be realistic, and yet not quite dynamic enough to be truly sinister. It's not bad, just not very natural.
Hahaha! That is the biggest downside of white-painted walls as well – they are prone to marks and stains! 😂
I'm sorry to Aaron Taylor Johnson, but I've probably given colours (including white!) more time over the past few years than the total runtime of most of his films. And honestly, I don’t mind one bit!
I can see why he gets hired, he’s not actually bad as such. But he’s not exceptional.
I wouldn't use a TMWTGG scenario as it would seem to need a fair amount of established film backstory. Attempting to assassinate M seems better suited for a film later in the series.
Do we begin in media res? This fresh Bond is introduced to us but has had OO status for sometime, as when we meet the first Bond in DN.
Or do we get yet another origin story along the lines of CR?
Will this new series be the Craig years we didn't see? Or do we put the Craig era out of mind? It never happened.
If I have never seen a Bond film before, what do I need to know?
@007HallY didn't say anything about assassinating M, @CrabKey but using the general premise of the novel (please see the quote above).
I've also mentioned a similar concept, also without the brainwashing and assassination attempt.
This premise works, because, as 007hally pointed out, it's simple, a cat and mouse game, going undercover, investigating leads... Executing this simple type of story (elevating it with the sexiness and visual fun of a Bond picture), doesn't have to worry about appealing to any one generation. It would just be a simple story, done, presumably, entertainingly well. All ages would potentially go and see this type of Bond adventure.
It wouldn't need any kind of extensive backstory, and would in fact skew closer to the DN intro that you cited.
To be fair I think @CrabKey was talking broadly about the post I myself was talking broadly about (where adapting the opening of TMWTGG was used as an idea).
I do agree though, there’s something that just works about Bond having to assassinate an assassin along with the cat and mouse element. It goes back to basics but you can do a lot with it and make it modern. I also like the personal element with M and coming up with a reason why he’s sending Bond to kill this particular person.
I dunno, this is completely off the top of my head and very bare bones: maybe the film begins with a fellow 00 on an official mission to kill this assassin. He ultimately fails and is captured. The assassin then tortures (or perhaps brainwashes) the 00 into giving up vital information about the Service (something perhaps a bit dodgy - some sort of dark secret/act the 00 section has committed that would prove disastrous if made public) before killing him. The assassin threatens to release this information perhaps in exchange for money or protection/power etc, which in turn causes a panic for MI6. With his job at risk, M decides to send Bond on an ‘off the books’ mission (so unbeknownst to ministers/whoever M’s dealing with) to kill the assassin and cover up the potential scandal.
Needs a bit of ironing out and establishing specifics, but it’s a riff on TMWTGG. Dependent on the secret it could create some nice conflict for Bond (again, he might be annoyed about doing M’s dirty work despite his loyalty to him). There's potential for the villain to be particularly nasty and sadistic. Maybe it could be a DN type thing where by the end it’s revealed the villain has a much bigger/destructive plan. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, and it’s not a million miles away from other Bond movies (and certainly there’s a bit of the Craig era in there), but it’s the sort of foundation that can be used to create a fresh Bond movie, and with some Bondian flair/ridiculousness it could lead to something I guess.
This reimagining makes sense to me. Brainwashing is such a '50s trope that by now it seems hoary. And you can't really have a new Bond trying to kill M before their relationship is established.
I think we will get a young Bond, and he could be sent on a dangerous mission because he screwed up previously. Bond does not need to be perfect nor does his relationship with M need to be perfect--there's no story in that.
Well, in CR he uses his judgment to kill the bomber and M doesn't like his decision. He doesn't actually make a mistake--although I guess shooting up the embassy is a mistake. I was thinking a more concrete and impactful mistake.
Yes, I wasn't thinking a reboot exactly but a PTS with a mission gone wrong at Bond's hand, so he has something to prove to M and himself. "Bond made a mistake?" That could bring in Tanner, even Molony if they wanted. Then it could lead into a TMWTGG adaptation, of sorts.
The longer the hiatus, the more likely we'll get a full reboot a la CR, I think.
That and I think the brainwashing idea is better suited later in an actor's tenure. It's a shocking twist but only one which works if we know that Bond.
Which is pretty clever of the writers of CR: Bond is in M’s bad books but he doesn’t actually muck up as such: he completes the mission, just in an unsatisfactory way. So it doesn’t undermine Bond’s status to the audience as a super agent who always wins, and yet we see he’s a little more fallible than before. It’s quite deft.
I do think it's clever but I worry about Bond turning into too much of a "Mary Sue" trope, always doing the right thing, never disagreeing with M, etc. It's Moneypenny who screws up everything in SF, arguably M, not Bond, and in a weird way, Bond always making the perfect decision takes away his agency. Sometimes an agent, even one with a licence to kill, is going to make the wrong move.
I don't think that a brainwashing plot is a good way for the cinematic Bond to go, maybe ever. IMHO, it's melodramatic and dated and a bit lazy for a spy film. Just because Fleming wrote it doesn't mean that it's the best choice now.
Fleming had Oddjob eating cats and we didn't need to see that!
I see why they did that with Lazenby at the time, even if it seems miscalculated now, at least "the other fellow" line...they had to reassure the 1969 audience that this was still Bond.
I do wish that they had stayed a little more with the gritty(ish) realism and lean cast of CR and QoS. They swung too far in the other direction with the ever-expanding supporting cast in SF and beyond. I didn't need Blofeld to be quite-so-'60s derivative in SP; they missed an opportunity to reinvent him a bit more realistically, and maybe still keep the cat. (Not sure why I keep bringing up cats.)
I blame Mendes.
Killing Bond was more than fulfilling Craig's wish to ensure his tenure would be over. It signaled that Bond strand was over. Clean slate. New direction.
Perhaps they'll anchor the next series with some of the Craig regulars, which won't make a bit of sense, but it wouldn't be the first time that has happened. That way they can create the illusion of some form of continuity between films rather than the story itself.
I tend to agree, I think it's a bit naff and old hat really, plus it's a bit hard to swallow.
Haha. Completely referencing the Daniel Craig era as some want to do hear oddly...with the his tenure as a video game series. Called Bond Resurrections.
Bond is slogging out the daily grind of 9 to 5 as an analyst. He discovers something his supervisors don't see as worrisome. What Bond discovers is what we saw in the PTS. He takes his annual leave and heads directly to the point of his concern. He makes a serious blunder and gets in so deep he cannot turn back. Since he is doing this unofficially, he can't get help from home. Will his ally be the woman he meets and trusts? Or will she be working the other side. Of course Bond will prevail. Will the music he faces when he gets home earn him 00 status? Perhaps that's left unresolved and saved for Bond 27.
What if we are introduced to a Bond, just entering his first years in the service, where he is – if not the cause of a serious incident – is unable to prevent one, which puts him at a difficult position within the service. Then, for whatever reason, he is called into action, and he must prevent an incident or villainous plot from happening, while at the same time earning the trust again from the service and M.