Keeping the British end up
With the exception of "Road to Perdition", I'm largely unfamilar with Daniel Craig's work, but I'm pleased that he is emerging as a favorite to be the next James Bond. He seems to have a dark, brooding quality that I think will give the shopworn character an added dimension. (I feel the same about another candidate, Jason Statham.)
Though I think Pierce Brosnan was a fantastic Bond, I've always been disappointed that Timothy Dalton didn't stick with the character longer. (Despite the fact that he was in one of the worst Bond films.) Dalton's Bond seemed to have a barely concealed rage, simmering below the surface, that threatened to bubble over at any moment. Plus, he was in Flash Gordon.
posted by Jonathan Potts at
6:12 PM
7 Comments:
Feeling like a bit of a curmudgeon, and counting my growth rings, I make the obligitory Sean Connory as the quintessential, and archetype James Bond pronouncement. Roger Moore is always "the other" Bond. The other 3, now 4, fall into "the rest" category.
Never much of a fan of Brosnan, didn't watch Remmington Steele. My mind's eye forever has him as the schlemiel who loses the girl to a cross dressing hirsuted Robin Williams wearing Granny panties.
40th anniversary of Thunderball in December.
A blonde James Bond. Well at least it was not Orlando Bloom.
5:01 PM
Ironically, the very role that helped rejuvenate Brosnan's career.
Overall, I prefer Brosnan to Moore, but I will admit that "Die Another Day" and "The World is Not Enough" were mediocre Bond films.
7:47 PM
I'm just disappointed that I'll no longer get to enjoy the fact that the English super hero is no longer an Irishman.
10:55 PM
According to the early books, Bond was born in Edinburgh in 1924. He also smoked 70 Turkish ciggarettes a day. Hoping for a non-PC Scottish ex-smoker next time.
I would have picked "GoldenEye" as a tipping point, if any. Six year gap between Bonds. First post Cold War Bond after the wall falling. They wanted him to play Bond back in '86, but that conflicted with Steele commitments.
12:05 PM
I heard tonight that Bond will no longer smoke in the films.
10:42 PM
I do not think the Bond character has smoked on screen in years. (Last cigar before "Die" was GG('74), last cigarette was LtK('89).) Connery had already quit smoking before he started playing Bond.
I seem to remember in "Die Another Day", Bond ordered but did not actually drink his martini, but I am likely wrong about that.
I was being a "Bond Originalist", like be a "Constitutional Originalist", that I would like the actor to be similar to the written character, although Bond movies have almost nothing to do with the books. Basically, I would rather hear another real Scottish accent with an ex-smokers timbre. (Ya, ya, ya, insert all the usual caveats about smoking being bad, and I have had relatives that have died, and have their health compromised from smoking. Still, most of the more distinctive older actors and radio personalities were smokers at one time.)
11:36 AM
Given that fewer and fewer people smoke nowadays, it is perhaps more realistic for fewer movie characters to smoke. But I'm not overly concerned about any public health message sent by Hollywood. You rarely hear people complain that characters in film and television never seem to put on a seatbelt. And driving without a seatbelt is a much more dangerous activity, it seems to me, than smoking. (A statement I make without any data to back it up.)
12:13 PM
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