And here we are at the third and last installment of this 3 parts article dedicated to James Bond.
Here some quick links if you didn’t read yet the previous parts:
In this part we will analyze in depth the last three actors who played the iconic role on the silver screen
James Bond Franchise: the actors (1987 – 2019)
Timothy Dalton (1987 – 1989)
Timothy Dalton is probably by far the most forgotten actor to play James Bond after George Lazenby.
At his first appearance as James Bond in the 1987 movie “The living Daylights” he was critically destroyed because he wasn’t as charming as Sean Connery and he wasn’t as funny as Roger Moore.
The truth is that the James Bond movies in his era took radically another direction: the films were way more serious and darker and so was the main character … probably was the right decision but at the wrong time since the character played much later by Daniel Craig was as serious and dark as the one of Timothy Dalton but with much more success indeed.
If we look back to them now we can see that his interpretation wasn’t too bad, just probably the franchise was transitioning and the movies weren’t really up to the audience expectations back in time.
Timothy Dalton played only two films, being the 1989 movie “License to Kill” his last appearance as James Bond also due to the fact that the franchise would have taken a long break after that.
Pierce Brosnam (1995 – 2002)
Pierce Brosnam has been probably the best choice ever to be cast in a James Bond movie.
The Irish actor has in fact presence, good look, charm, a bit of irony and he is overall a very good talented actor.
Brosnam was signed for three Bond movies with an option for a fourth one. Was the return of James Bond after 6 years of legal issues for the production.
After the first movie (GoldenEye, 1995) was immediately clear that Brosnam was born to play the role of James Bond and his performance definitely shadowed the one of the predecessor.
The only problem of his four movies, if you watch them nowadays, … is the release time. Let explain myself: we are talking about the 90s (second half), where all the movies plot were quite flat and the CGI was always more present yet not really good, with a final result that most of the special effects look cheese and the movies didn’t age well at all!
Rather than that, and some unnecessary nude in some scene (again: 90s), Brosnam is remembered as one of the best Bond ever, breaking also many box office records back in time.
Daniel Craig (2006 – today)
The moment that Daniel Craig came into the franchise was a very important moment for the franchise itself because with his first Bond Movie (Casino Royale, 2006) the entire franchise has been rebooted starting from before even the first appearance of James Bond in the franchise.
The same movie stated also a big step forward in terms of action and production quality and the version of the character that Craig gave to the audience was a very serious yet human James Bond … which at the very beginning created a bit of disorientation but after all consolidated Craig as one of the most solid and particular James Bond of all. The follow up to Casino Royale wasn’t up to the task but the masterpiece came in when Sam Mendez was signed as a director: Skyfall (2012) broke every kind of box office record, every single performance was priced, was a global critical success and the movie won for the first time an academy award.
The rest is history with Daniel Craig that, despite a 4 movies contract, just signed for a fifth last movie (yet to be released) becoming the most paid actor who played James Bond.
And here we are at the end
Hope you enjoyed this little recap of the James Bond World that I wrote because you did ask me to.
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Ivano Cheers
