Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by RGA (R) on November 13, 2015 at 00:36:47

In Reply to: RE: Rate the Bond actors..... posted by user510 on November 07, 2015 at 13:38:21

I think the problem with any of these rankings is that you have to consider the time they were made and determine how each might do outside of their particular era.

The current Bond films are made in a sense to meet the demand of current films in terms of the raw more realistic violence. I really enjoyed Casino Royale (Craig version) because of that realism. But at the same time after watching the current (and flat) Spectre - I also miss the one liners, the larger then life (to outrageous and ridiculous villains) and the "oooh James" moments.

Roger Moore playing it tongue in cheek and to be fair he kept the franchise going because of his wink wink to the audience. The Spy Who Loved Me was pretty smart - had all the gadgets, the one liners, Jaws, and a pretty good Bond Song to boot. I agree with you that Moore isn't the greatest actor but honestly James Bond doesn;t exactly require the greatest actor - hence why Lazenby's "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" usually ranks as one of the best 3 Bond films in polls - proving that the actor playing the role isn't important in the least.

I don't therefore have a particular preference - I would probably Rank the actors somewhat the way I would rank the films. I would probably rank Connery first - Perhaps Craig second although Dalton's License to Kill was one of the better Bong films and again - he played the role similar to Craig but Dalton played it at a time where that sort of thing didn't go down with audiences the same way. If you took Dalton out of his time period - dropped him into the 4 Craig movies - I suspect people would be raving about his toughness and serious version. Dalton is a fine underrated actor in the UK with a commanding presence.

And that's the other thing - the guy only had two films - the Living Daylights was a complete pile of poo. So it's awfully hard to tell with such a small body of work when the writing in one of them was truly abysmal and the budget in his other film seemed a little low in the other to really get a sense. But I preferred him to Brosnan.

I think Connery captured the right blend of killer with enough of a light touch. Moore was bordering on stand up comic (but to be fair that is direction and writing more than the actor).

Dalton/Craig to me are about the same in steely eye but too little humour.

Lazenby was atrocious but perhaps in the best written story of the lot (too bad it was wasted on Lazenby!!!)

I refuse to rank the others - those films IMO don't count and don't deserve to be in the rankings