By Vince Payne
Being the most famous and well-liked (by the ladies anyway) super spy in the world has propelled the character of James Bond into super-stardom. Men everywhere wish they could live the life of danger where they sleep with the enemy’s girl and save the world all in a day’s work. Six different men have had the chance to portray the living legend in the movies; leading to debates over who is the best and who did not deserve to play the role.
Sean Connery was of course the first James Bond. For this reason alone many would argue that he is the best. Connery represented a Bond less bent on showing up at the enemy’s base with guns blazing and much more intent on playing cards with them or beating them in a round of golf. Bond in the early years was a master orator and relied much less on one-liners (although they were still around) and much more on out-witting his opponents. Connery started off the character with a bang and one of the best scenes in the entire series is the introduction of Connery’s Bond in the movie “Dr. No.”
Roger Moore led Bond into a different direction. Gone was the overwhelming machismo of Connery and one-liners and humor came in droves while some fairly questionable, but amusing, villains came into play. Moore faced the horrific Jaws and his metal teeth on numerous occasions and also encountered the likes of Shaman Baron Samedi as well. The action ramped up and Moore did play the role of Bond pretty well but in a very different way than Connery. Movies such as Octopussy and Moonraker were less serious in tone than early movies and caused some to question the direction the Bond movies had gone.
Pierce Brosnan represented the aforementioned guns blazing into the enemy’s base James Bond. With all the new film technology in the nineties 007 saw a lot more action and much less conversing with the enemies; seemingly the roles of conversation and action switched places from the Sean Connery days. Brosnan brought a very debonair look and feel to Bond and as always romanticized multiple women in each movie; whether they were with him or against him. Admittedly his movies began to get a little stale with the World is Not Enough but overall he was a good representation of James Bond; unfortunately the human element that made Bond an interesting character was generally overlooked, these movies were more run-of-the-mill action movies than the intricately woven tales of From Russia with Love and Goldfinger.
Lastly is the newest James Bond, Daniel Craig. Since he has only appeared in Casino Royale it is tough to say whether he will live up to the legacy of the aforementioned Bonds; but he is definitely off to a great start. Chase scenes mixed with Texas Hold em’ Poker made Casino Royale a much needed shot of adrenaline. Craig mixed the best of the old with the best of the new giving the audience a smart, debonair character that was able to chase a man across rooftops and over construction cranes while also making us feel for him and his love interest in the movie. We are shown how Bond reached his 007 status and also how he became the cold blooded agent with a license to kill that viewers have come to love over the past few decades.
For those perceptive readers that are wondering why I mentioned six actors for Bond in the beginning and only went into detail into four of them I made the decision to omit Timothy Dalton and George Lazenby from the list. They only made a combined three movies, none of which were really good, and in my humble opinion do not compare to the other four performances of the iconic British MI6 agent.
Hi my name is Vince Payne and I enjoy writing about video games/movies/sports/history or pretty much anything that requires me to learn anything new. I love doing the research required to find new things. My website is http://www.vpwriting.com so check it out if you like my writing style and I can write for you as well!
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