by OL » Mon Oct 08, 2012 2:25 pm
I'd seen a number of the movies before, but I wasn't a huge Bond fan until Craig in Casino Royale. Like Pete said, I just can't get into the sort of "aristocratic" manner of some of the most well-loved Bond actors. Roger Moore was terrible, and I just can't buy into Brosnan as being a dangerous secret agent with a license to kill. Timothy Dalton as well.
Daniel Craig totally works for the way they describe Bond's past in CR: a lower-class orphan with a penchant for violence, recruited into government assassination work. He comes off as someone who could easily take you out with his bare hands. The brutish sort, who can also pull off a sort of smooth, manipulative personality.
Craig is easily my favorite. I'd never thought of Bond as a particularly compelling character until CR. Before then, he was just a pretty much two-dimensional caricature of the British in general.
Do have to say that Connery was great though, particularly in context with the 60s setting of his respective films. He might not seem quite as potentially intimidating as Craig, but I'd still buy into him as a 60s secret agent. The fight scene on the train in From Russia With Love was enough to convince me of how effective he can be in a physical sense, and he also obviously defined the way Bond interacts with people in conversation.
Really looking forward to Skyfall.