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Comments
'Don't mind if I borrow this do you darling? '
I always thought Dalton had the gravitas as you say. And he was right when he bowed out knowing the direction the series wanted to head in. It ended up a train wreck because Bond cannot be made into all things for all men. Dalton was always honest with EON.
The Brosnan era was an era of diminishing returns. Despite adhering religiously to the so called formula and going beyond the call of duty for ticking all the superficial boxes.
Had Dalton been given a script like DAD, he would have instantly pointed out it is sh*te and would have refused to start filming until they see the light. Brosnan had no such issues and even did an interview saying the film was grounded in reality.
Connery's NSNA though sh*te at least never pretended to add depth or anything new. And Connery took it on the chin and admitted the film was a toilet.
Let's not forget that DAD was the most financially successful of Brosnan's 4. But in terms of adding to the series, DAD subtracted in a major way and to me if it was going in this direction, then I would prefer they stopped making the films altogether.
On the other hand the less popular LTK was an underestimated stepping stone for the Bond franchise and damn fine for it's bravery and originality. It's a dirty film rather than the gloss DAD was.
My thoughts entirely. And as I've alway said TND is his best film by far.
The thing is though, DAD was a respone to Pierce's weaknesses in the role. They made the film utterly OTT to obscure the flaws in the leading man. With Dalts on baord, they'd never have had to go down that route.
DAD came about because the producers THOUGHT they had to put in "something for everyone" and go all out to mark the 40th anniversary - simple as.
There are actually plenty of moments in DAD where Brozza has to act and (I think) does it well.
Examples:
The PTS (getting captured by Moon)
Walking across the bridge
Meeting Raoul
The tunnel with M
Confronting Graves at the Ice Palace
Rendevouing with M and Jinx in the command bunker.
Actually the producers knowing Dalton's healthy sense of ego would never had dared to attempt it. And Dalton had leverage with Cubby being close to him and would have made changes.
Cubby would never do something against any actors wishes. Just like he would not give Roger Moore a script against his liking.
With Cubby, you knew where you stood.
Yes that is all well and dandy. But there was no payoff for what Bond endures in the torture. It was all thrown away and we get super Bond. A haircut and James is as good as new.
Jinx as Bond's equal? I could not believe the audacity that in 2002 they thought we are stupid.
If they wanted to do camp, then cut out the po faced serious parts and do another DAF. DAF is camp and does not take itself seriously. Apart form one scene where Bond slaps the woman by the swimming pool.
And the humour of DAF is mind blowingly exceptional. It is witty and Connery gets the balance right for the tone of his Bond in the context of the film.
TND is his best. The scene where Bond is walking to the car park to get his car is brilliant. Brosnan got the balance right in that scene as well as others. He is a perfect Bond in those.
I never saw it coming with his era. I thought after TND the next film will make him undeniably outstanding in the role and impossible to replace. Totally honest here.
Shame though that DAD ended as a completely different film to how it began.
I've never been a big fan of DAF either really. Despite some good dialogue and the presence of Jill St. John ive found it boring, clunky and strangely lacking in any real tension and/or suspence.
I think with right promotion, you can make a film succeed. Roger was on shaky ground with the at the time seen as financially disappointing TMWTGG. But Cubby just shrugged it off and went for a revamp. It took courage and belief.
And the series gained an even bigger audience.
I have noticed that with the last seven Bond films the promotion has been top notch and all have performed superbly at the box office.
LTK had the worst promotion in the entire series. And a sloppy studio management who made Cubby's work harder. I mean the film changed title from Licence Revoked and the morons at the studio discarded Bob Peak's outstanding poster campaign.
Bob Peak did TSWLM as well as Apocalypse Now. The revoked posters by Peak were killer and a sad reminder of how stupidity and Bond promotion are never a recipe for success.
I watched DAD yesterday and consider DAF The Godfather in comparisson.:)
Brosnan gets a few acting moments but his Bond character is all over the place in the film. The CGI is appalling and kills the movie. Bond looked like an almost Nintendo character surfing over a tsunami. Did the producers have eye trouble in the editing room?
In the end the film even made Roger Moore say they took it too far. It was a Bond made for those who like XXX. And Tamahori went on to direct a XXX movie. That speaks volumes why he was hired for the other franchise.
Part of me thinks Brozz is better and delivers more consistant performances in TND and DAD than in GE and TWINE.
Brosnan was arguably in terms of Bond character given the least development in the entire series. It was fluff development quickly thrown away by the next scene.
He could not do much in that film and even Roger Moore would have struggled in that scenario.
Connery's Bond was consistent in any given movie. In Dr No, he stays in character very well throughout. When he meets the villain towards the end, he does a splendid job of conveying Bond's sophistication and intelligence.
I always felt the second unit were the main focus in Brosnan's era. The action was the star and the story was an excuse to justify the action.
Oh marketing and what an actual film is like are two different things. But excellent marketing gets people to the cinema. Lazy marketing makes people stay home.
LTK in the USA got a straight to video style marketing. John Glen said he saw hardly any posters apart from a few bus stops which surprised him as it is where Hollywood is.
Like when he makes his heart stop?:) The problem is that the material was insulting. There was nothing in the film that you could really bite into with the Bond character.
Bond looked very nice but was bland and lifeless. He became an image and those involved should be ashamed of almost destroying 40 years of legacy.
TND starts off great and holds up right until the BMW flies back into the Avis Car Rental place. The film is amazing up to that point and so satisfying as a Bond film of the nineties.
But almost as soon as they get Brosnan out of the Bond clothes as in suits, they reduce him to an action star and it goes nowhere.
Yes, but for me at least, despite having plenty of action, TND is one of the few Brozza films where you actually get the sense that Pierce might be able to act, and that the material is not utterly mediocre.
Caricature is the tribute that mediocrity pays to genius.”–this Oscar Wilde quote just about sums up the current state of affairs for me. Anyone reading my article in OO7 Magazine (#41) will know exactly what I thought about Die Another Day, which I don’t want to labour here—but for me it’s still the worst movie in the series!
I like Pierce Brosnan as James Bond. He’s got all the right qualities a good Bond should have: he’s tall dark and handsome, he handles the humour well, he’s believable in the action scenes—and the cinema-going public love him! Unfortunately I don’t think the films measure up to his ability as an actor to do something more with the role than he’s been allowed to show to date. In GoldenEye, a colourless drab looking film, he was given little to do except react to the other characters and situations around him. Tomorrow Never Dies was his finest hour as Bond, and I do mean hour. The first half of the movie is the best Brosnan/Bond to date, with some nice Bondian touches, up until the model of his BMW crashes off the hotel roof through a flurry of polystyrene bricks, then the film just simply rambles until it falls apart. I thoroughly enjoyed The World Is Not Enough, which had the best narrative structure of all the Brosnan/Bond films, and the story unfolded much more in the style of a Sixties’ Bond. Although the film is uneven, it’s about 200% better than the dire Die Another Day—quasi science fiction badly executed and acted by everyone but Brosnan.
With LTK it is documented that it was handled poorly by the studio.
I just gave an example of what John Glen mentions in his book. And him being a 5 time Bond director knew something was not right in terms of promotional effort.
And of course there are no guarantees with a film's box office. But Bond needs a huge campaign rather than complacency that the fans will see it anyway which was the case with LTK.
http://blip.tv/film-brain/bad-movie-beatdown-die-another-day-6431180