Is Pierce Brosnan really all that bad ??

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  • MurdockMurdock The minus world
    Posts: 16,328
    At least he had Everything or Nothing. Even though it's a game and probably more over the top than DAD was. It was a better Swansong.
  • Posts: 14,800
    chrisisall wrote:
    Ludovico wrote:
    Brosnan did not have another Bond movie in him, let alone two or three as he claimed he had

    I'm assuming you are aware that this is merely your opinion; one might mistake this as an attempt at stating a fact or something. ;)

    It is obviously my opinion and as such it is debatable, however I do think it is backed up by facts, among them Brosnan's age at the time. In DAD, he was a middle aged man pushing buttons of his fancy car.
    I think he could've done another. Not CR as there's no way he could've done the stunts in that convincingly but he definitely had another in him I thought. He aged pretty well imo

    He already looked his age in DAD. Yes, he looked good for a man his age, but that's the point: a man of his age. Maybe, maybe, maybe and that is a big maybe he could have played a FYEO type Bond right after DAD, say in 2004. But not CR in 2006, not only because of the stunts but because of the whole approach of the movie.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,687
    Ludovico wrote:
    He already looked his age in DAD. Yes, he looked good for a man his age, but that's the point: a man of his age. Maybe, maybe, maybe and that is a big maybe he could have played a FYEO type Bond right after DAD, say in 2004. But not CR in 2006, not only because of the stunts but because of the whole approach of the movie.
    Okay, what's jarring here is that most people don't know how height affects movement. Could Bruce Lee have moved like that at 6' or more? No. People over 6' do not move like people under. Craig moves very well, but then he's much closer to Bruce Lee's height than to Pierce Brosnan's.
    In MY reading & film watching, Bond never struck me as a potential Olympic athlete. If they want to reboot him as such for CR, fine, but don't dis previous actors that were cast as merely athletically inclined as being feeble when compared to the new version. Okay? Maybe? :))
  • Posts: 1,092
    Brosnan was fine, not great like a Bond actor should be, but he was what audiences wanted at the time and he did reintroduce the series in a modern context, updating us for this new age, IMO. Bond became an action hero and while too many of their choices were safe and by the numbers, it is what it is.

    We got him for four and the films have their moments. I enjoy them for what they were but I don't look forward to watching much when I do my Bond-a-thon.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,687
    The_Reaper wrote:
    Brosnan was fine, not great like a Bond actor should be,
    "Great like a Bond actor should be"?
    Curious, are you pretty young? Or possibly English is not your first language- in that case I understand completely.
    All of them were great in their own ways- to sell any one of them off as a qualified loss is nonsense IMO. Brosnan was awesome; even Lazenby was great. Please reconsider...
  • Posts: 66
    In my opinion, when Brosnan came into the world as James Bond the series had been dormant since 89 and had been feared dead. The last Bond film that had been made had tried something new and had a mixed reaction; critics and hard core fans loved it, however the average moviegoer felt it was a little to real for the time. The only screen adaptation of the Bond character the 90's had seen was a short lived cartoon show "James Bond Jr." So I have always had the sense that the producers wanted to play it safe, go by the numbers of a proven formula that had, in the past, churned out hit after hit. And in 1995 this by the numbers approach once again produced a hit, and simultaneously brought the worlds most beloved spy back from retirement. However, even though Bond had once again showed he was capable of bringing in the cash, audiences and critics alike were still unsure whether this still very 60's character belonged in the 90's. So during Brosnan's tenure as Bond, the character was played safe as well was the films. Pierce has in interviews during and after his time as Bond stated he wanted to bring more emotion and venerability to the character, and this is apparent in his films, but it is always watered down in order to fit the style of movie that MGM and EON wanted. Whether or not Pierce could have pulled off a more vulnerable and believable Bond is the source of a whole other debate , but it would have been nice to see how it would have turned out. While Bond was played safe, and the series was being put into a position to compete with the other action powerhouses of the time (such as the Matrix) the audiences quickly moved on to a new style of action movies that had a more down to earth feel, for example The Bourne Identity. That freed the producers to try a new approach to James Bond, and the series was given Casino Royale. I think that Pierce did the best he could do with what he was given. However I also can see why the producers handled Brosnan's tenure the way they did. The series was in a fragile state and they managed to save it. However I will always regret that Brosnan had his Moonraker in Die Another Day, but was never afforded a For Your Eyes Only. Having said that, I have been blown away by Daniel Craig's portrayal of 007, but will always be left with an unsatisfied conclusion to Brosnan's time as Bond.
  • 00Hero00Hero Banned
    Posts: 121
    chrisisall wrote:
    BAIN123 wrote:
    Brosnan in DAD looked better than Connery did in DAF in my opinion - and Brosnan was about 8 years older than Connery when he did his last Bond film.

    48/49 during DAD? Check out his shirtless scenes- he looked amazing.
    Agree chaps.
  • 0BradyM0Bondfanatic70BradyM0Bondfanatic7 Quantum Floral Arrangements: "We Have Petals Everywhere"
    Posts: 28,694
    BAIN123 wrote:
    To wit, I didn't like the fight with the yacht-hand in GE. It looked staged. I thought the fight with Carver's goons at the CMG party also looked a little staged, and even the TWINE pts fight with the banker and company didn't quite resonate.

    Personally I felt the yacht fight didn't look that staged at all although I sort of see what you mean about the others (though I do like the CMG party fight).

    In fairness Broz wasn't the only Bond actor who had fight scenes that looked staged.

    A few others:

    -Connery and Hans in YOLT
    -Moore and the goons in TMWTGG (you can see the actors throwing themselves around)
    -Moore on the roof in TSWLM (very clunky fight although the end few moments redeem it)
    -Moore on top of the cable car in MR
    -Moore in AVTAK (TERRIBLE!)
    -Dalton in the Afghanistan airbase in TLD (this is the one weaker fight in the film).

    May I add the fight atop the shipyard building in YOLT? Cool long panning shot, but horribly angled because you can see that Connery (or a double of his) isn't making any contact with the stunt men. It really ruins the moment for me.
  • pachazopachazo Make Your Choice
    Posts: 7,314
    DarthDimi wrote:
    DAD is at times so over the top, so openly spreading its legs for the anything-goes idea, if you're in the right mindset you can go with it. TWINE, by contrast, continuously tries to impress me on an intellectual level with supposedly brilliant script choices and stylish shots.

    I can understand where you're coming from because that's they exact same way that I feel about Moonraker.
    However, I think it's just as easy to view TWINE in the same light. I understand your misgivings about the whole pseudo-intellectual aspect of the film but it's possible to enjoy it for what it is.
    No one was more disappointed by TWINE than me back when it came out. Now that I no longer have such high expectations of it I have discovered a new found appreciation for it over the years. Conversely, I enjoyed TND back in 1997 but I find it to be quite underwhelming now. I'll take TWINE over TND any day of the week.
    I guess it's just a matter of perspective eh?

  • edited July 2013 Posts: 1,492
    To be fair if I was sacked from my dream job because the producers made some idiotic choices and now wanted to completely start from scratch, then I'd be pretty pissed off too.


    Idiotic? Skyfall has gone stratospheric. The first billion dollar Bond. I'd say the best decision Babs ever made was ditching Remington Bond.

    Even his most fervent love boys must admit he was too old for rookie Bond in CR. He didn't even have that louche quality that Connery/Moore had at the end. Craig was inspired casting and paid off handsomely.

  • Posts: 1,492
    chrisisall wrote:

    48/49 during DAD? Check out his shirtless scenes- he looked amazing.

    Is that discounting the chocolate flavoured scorpions he had been eating for 8 months to give him that potbelly?

  • Samuel001Samuel001 Moderator
    Posts: 13,350
    actonsteve wrote:
    To be fair if I was sacked from my dream job because the producers made some idiotic choices and now wanted to completely start from scratch, then I'd be pretty pissed off too.


    Idiotic? Skyfall has gone stratospheric. The first billion dollar Bond. I'd say the best decision Babs ever made was ditching Remington Bond.

    Even his most fervent love boys must admit he was too old for rookie Bond in CR. He didn't even have that louche quality that Connery/Moore had at the end. Craig was inspired casting and paid off handsomely.

    I think @thelivingroyale meant idiotic choices with the Brosnan films.
  • Posts: 14,800
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    chrisisall wrote:
    Ludovico wrote:
    He already looked his age in DAD. Yes, he looked good for a man his age, but that's the point: a man of his age. Maybe, maybe, maybe and that is a big maybe he could have played a FYEO type Bond right after DAD, say in 2004. But not CR in 2006, not only because of the stunts but because of the whole approach of the movie.
    Okay, what's jarring here is that most people don't know how height affects movement. Could Bruce Lee have moved like that at 6' or more? No. People over 6' do not move like people under. Craig moves very well, but then he's much closer to Bruce Lee's height than to Pierce Brosnan's.
    In MY reading & film watching, Bond never struck me as a potential Olympic athlete. If they want to reboot him as such for CR, fine, but don't dis previous actors that were cast as merely athletically inclined as being feeble when compared to the new version. Okay? Maybe? :))

    So... Brosnan was not as good in the stunt department because he's taller? I think he wouldn't have got CE because of his age. Yes, he would not have been able to do convincing stunts, but the plot of CR obviously would not have fit Brosnan, unless you ditch completely the origin story and the point of the movie
  • Posts: 14,800
    actonsteve wrote:
    chrisisall wrote:

    48/49 during DAD? Check out his shirtless scenes- he looked amazing.

    Is that discounting the chocolate flavoured scorpions he had been eating for 8 months to give him that potbelly?

    I was wondering the same thing. Brosnan indeed looked very healthy, after more than a year of torture. The hotel scene was embarassing for many reasons, this was one of them.
  • edited July 2013 Posts: 12,837
    Samuel001 wrote:
    I think @thelivingroyale meant idiotic choices with the Brosnan films.

    I did, yes. Thought I'd made that fairly clear.
    Murdock wrote:
    At least he had Everything or Nothing. Even though it's a game and probably more over the top than DAD was. It was a better Swansong.

    To this day, I'm still impressed with the amount of effort that went into that. They even managed to get Willam Dafoe!
  • edited July 2013 Posts: 388
    actonsteve wrote:
    Even his most fervent love boys must admit he was too old for rookie Bond in CR. He didn't even have that louche quality that Connery/Moore had at the end. Craig was inspired casting and paid off handsomely.

    It wasn't just his age. The only way CR could really be adapted was as a reboot. The whole point of the story is that Bond is a man who has never experienced loss or pain or heartache or betrayal.

    The whole of Brosnan's tenure, in a way, was about pain, loss, heartache and betrayal. He was betrayed by Alec in GE, lost a woman he had loved in TND, was betrayed by a woman he had loved in TWINE and DAD was built around the fact that he's betrayed, tortured, disavowed, suspected of treason and thrown on the scrapheap. Impossible for CR to follow all of that and retain its impact. A reboot was the only way of doing it justice.

    Incidentally, and apropos of this, I disagree with those who say that Brosnan didn't add anything new to the character. He's the only Bond who brought a sense of vulnerability to the role and the only actor to play Bond as a veteran - a man who had been damaged by the things he had seen and done. It wasn't perfectly realised, in my opinion, but it was definitely there. A portrayal which, again, made a Brosnan-starring CR impossible.
  • doubleoegodoubleoego #LightWork
    edited July 2013 Posts: 11,139
    Edit
  • edited July 2013 Posts: 11,189
    actonsteve wrote:
    chrisisall wrote:

    48/49 during DAD? Check out his shirtless scenes- he looked amazing.

    Is that discounting the chocolate flavoured scorpions he had been eating for 8 months to give him that potbelly?

    He did have a bit of a belly but I don't think he looked as bad as Connery or Moore did by their last film. Connery looked like he should have been drinking with his golf buddies and Moore looked like he'd had a facelift (which he had).

    Connery even had his shirt off in one scene in DAF and looked worse than Broz did (in my view anyway).

    I will admit he looked very healthy for someone who had just spent 14 months being tortured though
  • Posts: 14,800
    BAIN123 wrote:
    actonsteve wrote:
    chrisisall wrote:

    48/49 during DAD? Check out his shirtless scenes- he looked amazing.

    Is that discounting the chocolate flavoured scorpions he had been eating for 8 months to give him that potbelly?

    He did have a bit of a belly but I don't think he looked as bad as Connery or Moore did by their last film. Connery looked like he should have been drinking with his golf buddies and Moore looked like he'd had a facelift (which he had).

    Connery even had his shirt off in one scene in DAF and looked worse than Broz did (in my view anyway).

    I will admit he looked very healthy for someone who had just spent 14 months being tortured though

    And that is the problem. Moore and Connery, for all the flaws of their respective last movie, did not play a Bond that had been tortured for 14 months. As I said, Brosnan looked like a man of his age, i.e. a middle aged man who was taking life easy. He certainly did not have what it took to be a rookie Bond in CR.
  • edited July 2013 Posts: 11,189
    Ludovico wrote:
    BAIN123 wrote:
    actonsteve wrote:
    chrisisall wrote:

    48/49 during DAD? Check out his shirtless scenes- he looked amazing.

    Is that discounting the chocolate flavoured scorpions he had been eating for 8 months to give him that potbelly?

    He did have a bit of a belly but I don't think he looked as bad as Connery or Moore did by their last film. Connery looked like he should have been drinking with his golf buddies and Moore looked like he'd had a facelift (which he had).

    Connery even had his shirt off in one scene in DAF and looked worse than Broz did (in my view anyway).

    I will admit he looked very healthy for someone who had just spent 14 months being tortured though

    And that is the problem. Moore and Connery, for all the flaws of their respective last movie, did not play a Bond that had been tortured for 14 months. As I said, Brosnan looked like a man of his age, i.e. a middle aged man who was taking life easy. He certainly did not have what it took to be a rookie Bond in CR.

    Agreed. However on the flip-side of the argument Connery/Moore were still technically playing Commander James Bond, a man who was meant to be "an all round athlete" and in reasonably good physical shape despite his vices. Broz was over-the-hill in DAD but he did at least still have that Bond look to him. Connery and Moore just looked like old geezers - Moore particularly with that black leather jacket.

    I suppose the mindset of the filmakers of DAD was "we can't have Bond looking terrible and beaten throughout the whole film - so we'll just have him looking like that for a little while". Fairly half-assed to be honest but at least they did the "trodden down Bond" a lot more convincingly in SF however.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,687
    actonsteve wrote:
    chrisisall wrote:

    48/49 during DAD? Check out his shirtless scenes- he looked amazing.

    Is that discounting the chocolate flavoured scorpions he had been eating for 8 months to give him that potbelly?
    Potbelly? Tell ya what, post a picture of your rock hard abs, and I won't make fuss over this comment. ;)
    :))
  • edited July 2013 Posts: 14,800
    chrisisall wrote:
    actonsteve wrote:
    chrisisall wrote:

    48/49 during DAD? Check out his shirtless scenes- he looked amazing.

    Is that discounting the chocolate flavoured scorpions he had been eating for 8 months to give him that potbelly?
    Potbelly? Tell ya what, post a picture of your rock hard abs, and I won't make fuss over this comment. ;)
    :))

    Except neither actonsteve, nor anyone who has been noticing it, actually played Bond, or Bond after being 14 months in a North Korean jail. The more Brosnan was enjoying life, the least he was physically believable to be Bond. In the end, in DAD he was a middle aged man pushing buttons. When it happens, it is time to think about casting a new actor.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    edited July 2013 Posts: 17,687
    Ludovico wrote:
    Except neither actonsteve, nor anyone who has been noticing it, actually played Bond, or Bond after being 14 months in a North Korean jail.
    Two things are happening here- one is the issue that he looked too well fed to have been tortured for that long (unless North Korean torture facilities have excellent and ample cuisine available to prisoners in between torture bouts- unlikely), the other is that Pierce didn't look to be in Bond shape apart from that.
    Ludovico wrote:
    The more Brosnan was enjoying life, the least he was physically believable to be Bond. In the end, in DAD he was a middle aged man pushing buttons. When it happens, it is time to think about casting a new actor.
    See? Either he's too skinny to be Bond, or he's too heavy to be Bond.
    I thought from GE to DAD he looked fine physically, better than most in fact. But then, I don't hate him as Bond.
    :-?
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    edited July 2013 Posts: 17,687
    Out of shape double post!!!
  • edited July 2013 Posts: 11,189
    I think in GE (and parts of TND) Broz looked a little skinny, in DAD he looked a bit too heavy.

    He looked about right in TWINE IMO.
  • CraigMooreOHMSSCraigMooreOHMSS Dublin, Ireland
    Posts: 8,009
    BAIN123 wrote:
    I think in GE (and parts of TND) Broz looked a little skinny, in DAD he looked a bit too heavy.

    He looked about right in TWINE IMO.

    He looked pretty slick in TWINE. Every inch the experienced operative.
  • RC7RC7
    Posts: 10,512
    chrisisall wrote:
    I thought from GE to DAD he looked fine physically, better than most in fact. But then, I don't hate him as Bond.
    :-?

    I think you hit the nail on the head. You don't see many people whinging about Roger's physique. Don't get me wrong I love the bloke, but he wasn't exactly the most athletic. As for Brozzer, for me he's the closest physically to what I see as Bond, apart from Connery. But then again, I'm not one of those that fawns over the 'fitness first' Craig version. Brosnan is a great looking bloke. Still is.
  • edited July 2013 Posts: 11,189
    RC7 wrote:
    chrisisall wrote:
    I thought from GE to DAD he looked fine physically, better than most in fact. But then, I don't hate him as Bond.
    :-?

    I think you hit the nail on the head. You don't see many people whinging about Roger's physique. Don't get me wrong I love the bloke, but he wasn't exactly the most athletic. As for Brozzer, for me he's the closest physically to what I see as Bond, apart from Connery. But then again, I'm not one of those that fawns over the 'fitness first' Craig version. Brosnan is a great looking bloke. Still is.

    I think the problem with Moore was that, while he was quite commanding, he never seemed all that nimble or quick on his feet - particularly from TSWLM onwards when he often looked embarrassing in the action/fight scenes.

    For all of Brosnan's faults I do think he was more nimble than Rog.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,687
    BAIN123 wrote:
    I think in GE (and parts of TND) Broz looked a little skinny, in DAD he looked a bit too heavy.

    He looked about right in TWINE IMO.
    So, by that rather exacting hight/weight ratio yardstick, Connery only looked good in Thunderball, Laz was fine, Moore was good in TMWTGG, Dalton okay mostly, and Craig not so much....
    ;)
  • edited July 2013 Posts: 11,189
    chrisisall wrote:
    BAIN123 wrote:
    I think in GE (and parts of TND) Broz looked a little skinny, in DAD he looked a bit too heavy.

    He looked about right in TWINE IMO.
    So, by that rather exacting hight/weight ratio yardstick, Connery only looked good in Thunderball, Laz was fine, Moore was good in TMWTGG, Dalton okay mostly, and Craig not so much....
    ;)

    Ok Connery fine from DN up until TB. Laz fine. Moore fine up until TSWLM but then started to age. Got away with it until AVTAK when he looked pretty terrible. Dalton fine. Craig fine. Thats how I see it anyway :)
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