Orlando BLOOM!

Sigh.

So dreamy. Gossamer hands.

Unfortunately, they don't make bows small enough to hide in a tux-jacket.

The statistical advantage would have to go to Ben Stiller.

Rob Schneider.

Ewan McGregor.
Jason Statham looks more like a Bond villian than Bond. Vinnie "Bullet Tooth Tony" Jones is in the same vein
Sean Bean (yes he was the bad guy in Goldeneye) could also do it.

Orlando Bloom looks too much like a lightweight to be Bond. The same goes for Jude Law. Bond has to have some ruggedness.

I'm tanned, toupeed, and ready.

Denzel Washington would be my pick.

Shatner is unstoppable.

Jason Isaacs, he can play a hard ass.

hey who are calling short! I'm 5'11"

Ace, a few things:

-- I'm with FFFT: if they can't get Clive Owen (and if I were Clive Owen, I'd turn them down-- he's too good), I'd get Daniel Craig. You *have* to see Layer Cake (comes out on DVD next week).

He may be a little too short/wiry for the role, but he looks good in a suit, and he sweats coiled neck-snapping fury. Definitely an "animalistic" Bond, moreso than even Owen, which wouldn't make Fleming's corpse very happy, but could help make the films more "real" (if that's what we want-- it's what I want, at least to a certain degree).

-- Dalton "too weird-looking to be Bond; plus, the movies sucked." Living Daylights was a boring downer, but c'mon, License to Kill is at least as good as your average Moore outing.

In the end, if this really is Brosnan's farewell (like you, I'm eternally skeptical, and won't believe it until I see a Broccoli Bond actually up on the screen with a different actor), I think the verdict is. . . pretty good.

Sure, perhaps he was a little too "television" for the role, but remember that from the moment Brosnan showed up on TV, everyone and their mother cried out for his casting as Bond, even before Dalton replaced Moore. We got what we asked for, and given the terrible limitations of the modern era Broccoli "Bond Product 2006 Edition" generic stamp on these films, I thought Brosnan did pretty good.

Again, bottom line: until the producers shake off their generic blah PG-13 fetish and let directors and writers turn in a genuinely interesting and unique Bond movie, we're going to continue to get pablum no matter who is cast as Bond.

You can put a star baseball player into a Cubs uniform, and in the end it won't matter because the other 8 Cubs will still find a way to lose.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

How about Gerard Butler? He's the guy in Lara Croft: Cradle of Civilization.

He's got the looks, the brawn and the Scottish burr.

Sean Bean

I don't get the need to go beyond PG-13. Brosnan was always going on about that.

I really don't get how gore, cursing, or nudity is required for Bond. Indiana Jones managed fine without it.

(Well, they had some gore there, but so does Bond.)

I think he played dracula in Wes Craven's Dracula 2000, too.

Cubby Broccoli's comment on casting Connery was, "You can take a gorilla out of a back-alley brawl, put him in a tux, and send him to a cocktail party. But you can't take a fop out of a cocktail party and put him in a back-alley brawl."

Hence the basic problem with Brosnan.

Ace answered his own question:

Andy Dick

starring as James Bond

in an Albert Brocolli Production of

'Indian Casino Royale'

David Foley could go against type and play the villian.

Wow. He's playing a skirt-chasing hitman in his next film? I'm glad to see him spread his wings and really fly away from the Bond image.

Well, he did play a gay hitman in The Long Good Friday.

"I don't get the need to go beyond PG-13."

Ace. . . ACE.

You have hopes of entering the film industry, right? And, in the long time you've entertained these hopes, you've exposed yourself to the machinations of the MPAA, and the kabuki dance that the major studios dance around the ratings, right?

First, forget about Indiana Jones. Indiana Jones isn't about sex, cars and spying. Oh, and Steven Spielberg can purchase any rating he wants (witness War of the Worlds, which in the real world deserved an R rating-- if violence was ever enough to get an R-ratings, that is).

I'm okay with PG-13 Bond, but the reason the filmmakers want PG-13 has nothing to do with making a good movie, but making a buck, i.e. to ensure it gets the widest distribution possible. I'm fine with that-- I just recognize it doesn't lend itself to a very good spy movie, especially not one based on the spirit of the Fleming novels, not to mention the early films.

Case in point: World War II movies. They used to be unrated, then they were rated G, and then some were rated PG. Some were great, but many were laughably bad. Not necessarily because the MPAA was around to tell them "Cut the gore," but the lack of gore felt unreal given the subject matter. War movies began to be liberated from this convention to dumbing things down in the mid-1980s, with Platoon onwards, and by the time we got to Saving Private Ryan, you had a war movie that was nearly NC-17 caliber in its intensity (and some still say it was-- but then again, the Spielberg rule was in effect).

Now, today, how many people can look at a war movie that didn't smell like a Saving Private Ryan or a Blackhawk Down in the realism department and expect it to be an effective drama? Not many, I'd say. Yes, it could be a good movie regardless, but the genre has been redefined-- the old John Wayne war movie is as obsolete today as the silent film.

Bond can play loose and fast with the MPAA and still get the PG-13 and be good. But that's not the production mentality in these movies anymore, and you know that, Ace. It's a product built for export that's based on a formula endlessly copied from a movie made in 1964, for Chrissakes.

Obviously, the success of any particular installment of the "franchise" is usually predicated on two elements: how close is the Bond to Connery's, and how close is the plot to Goldfinger. Well, guess what? That slavish devotion has delivered increasingly weaker outings to us. With the exception of the passable Goldeneye, there hasn't been a great Bond movie in over twenty years.

Twenty years, Ace. 2-0. That's one long streak of cutting these guys some slack.

Unlike some critics-- like Jeffrey Wells, for instance-- I don't want to kill Bond in order to save him. But I do want some recognition that it's not 1964 any more. I don't want Pulp Fiction, I want the formula, but I want to see something more creative, something that recognizes that if you're going to have Bond bedding the beauties, yeah, you can show a little nipple (not his). And that if he's going to take a garotte to the guy's neck, there might actually end up being a little blood. And that Bond might, you know, curse once in a while when he gets shot, if he ever gets shot.

Meanwhile, perhaps a little *human* realism could enter the stories. I'm cool with the giant world-melting lasers, but when Bond gets pummeled to a pulp, how about a broken bone or two? Again, I am 100% cognizant that I am advocating a deviation from the formula here, but the formula is a fucking cartoon, and Bond is just a plain ol' riff on Superman. There's never any sense of danger, never a sense that the films will take a risk bigger than making "M" a chick (a great move, I always thought BTW).

Live a little, Ace.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

I largely agree with Dave. A little more ass, a more human Bond (hard to do with the graying Moore and the coiffed Brosnan), and some real violence would be an asset and a nod to modernity.

I disagree on one point. One of the major disappointments of the Bond series has been the lack of grandiosity of the villains' aims. What did Johnathan Pryce want? Communication domination? And Walken? Cornering the chip market?

I want the villain to want the whole enchilada.

Not sure you wanna be signing any of those actors up until you see these photos:

http://www.21stCenturyPaladin.com/?p=1280

I'm just saying...

Real violence?

First of all, you can show enough violence in a PG-13 film. You can plug a guy through the forehead and have blood spurt down his face (See Raiders of the lost ark, which wasn't even PG-13, it was just PG, as PG-13 was created for the sequel).

Blood on a guy's neck from a garotte? You can show that, but I've seen the full out spurting in The Island. If you want to show some cutting and bleeding incidental to the strangling, fine.

But gore? Why is this necessary? It just doesn't strike me as Bond. You can have a lot of implied violence (OHMSS, where a guy is chopped up into blood and entrails by an ice-cutter, but, Indian-Jones-like, you only see the pink-stained ice and snow shooting out).

Do you need more than that? For some movies, I'd say yeah-- like for a realistic war film. Yes, in such a movie, I expect to be exposed by the visceral horror of mutilation and maiming.

But in an action-adventure romp? Like Indiana Jones, these are cliffhanger cartoons. What the hell do I need to see decapitaions and sucking chest wounds for? It's cartoon violence, "fun" violence. Not violence that's supposed to horrify you.

And on nudity-- well, they've got a lot of it in the musical montages, in silhouette. More than that? Do I need to see Bond fucking? I honestly don't. Love scenes are almost always embarassingly bad in Hollywood movies. The kiss and unzipping of the skirt is enough.

Thank God Brosnan's gone - he was decent some of the time, but he ran like a girl.

I'm watching Diamonds are Forever now. I don't advocate gore, or even spurting blood. The things I would advocate (and they may be unrelated to a rating) is:

* More realistic violence

* More personal violence

* Bond as human

* A little darker

* Bring back the sex (I don't need a love scene, but criminey, Dalton had NO sex, Brosnan had little sex - Bond should be nailing no less than 4 hotties a flick

--the first, nameless girl (the Tara Reid type)

--the female no. 2 nemesis (I'm thinking Paris Hilton played straight)

-- the female no. 1 villain (Demi Moore)

--the Bond girl (at the end)

Take out 2 parts cutesy and replace with 2 parts Bourne series.

You'll know you have the right mix when after the screening, the girls will want to fuck your Bond and the guys will want to be him.

As it is now, the girls find him retro and the guys think he's kind of gay.

I'm with Dave and Jeff. Part of the popularity of the two Bourne movies owed to their grittiness. Take away the Brioni suits, girly drinks, fancy cars, and double entendre-wisecracks and James Bond is a stone-cold killer (and shameless tail-hound). Making him darker would go a long way to taking some of the cartoonishness out of the franchise and making it more interesting. Make Bond less of a smart-ass playboy and more of a meateater. And please don't cast some foppish wuss like Jude Law as the new Bond.

"Grittiness" or just realism doesn't get you an R rating.

And cutesy doesn't get you a PG-13.

You can do what you're talking about and not show gore.

Was there any actual gore in the Bourne Identity? If there was, I'm having trouble remembering it. Not sure what it was rated, but if it was R, it was for language or nudity or something.

(Although I also don't remember any nudity. Language, also no memory.)

The action sequences in Bourne were outstanding because they were (fairly) plausible and visceral, not because they featured a lot of exploding heads.

You can do that in a PG-13 movie.

You could do 90% of the final gunfight in LA Confidential in a PG-13 movie, too. Other than the shot in the face to Bud White, all of that was just tension and realism. Not torrents of blood.

And what does 'darker' mean, exactly? People say that all the time, and I'm not always sure they have a firm idea of what it means.

If you mean less cutesy and silly, fine.

But attempts to give psychological depth to an action-adventure hero usually turn out pretty embarassing. They've tried bits of that in Bond since Moore retired from the role, and it's pretty unconvincing.

Is James Bond wracked by guilt? Is he a sociopath? Etc.?

Not sure I really care. He's a cartoon action hero. There's a limit to how deep or dark you can make him without making him a feathered fish, which can neither swim nor fly.

I'm not saying more gore, just fewer over the top set pieces like jumping on to a burning airplane or shit like that. Replace them with things like spy tradecraft or realistic gun battles or fight scenes that involve actual athleticism instead of wires and fancy editing. And by darker I mean a character a little more Jack Bauer and a little less smarmy rich guy. Decent writers can give action heroes depth without screwing it up.

Specifics as to I mean about "darker" for Bond.

1) The new guy should be more serious. Not Dalton driven, but less devil-may-care.

2) The clownish violence must go. No spurting blood, but downed bystanders and real pain.

3) Gotta' have one real death by hand/no Kung Fu Hustle

4) No more one-liners post-killing. He can have wit and mild double entendre in the casino and in banter with the baddies.

5) Bond needs to kill dirty. An example - a mild torture of a low-level flunky for information. It is, after all, a new day.

6) No more elaborate death set pieces for Bond. We're past it. They're groaners.

7) Have him surprise just once or twice. A minor failure of nerve; a truly tawdry but necessary act (killing an innocent). Not for predictable regret, but to show that today's Bond sees a bigger picture (again, times have changed).

8) A new Moneypenny - young and direct, a veritable thong snapper

9) A serious Bond girl - Kate Beckinsale

10) No more clownish pals, like Robby Coltrane or Rhys Davis.

Dave at Garfiel Ridge said

I'm with FFFT: if they can't get Clive Owen (and if I were Clive Owen, I'd turn them down-- he's too good), I'd get Daniel Craig.

Ha ha ha.

My wife said "Ew. Steve McQueen."

I said "Exactly."

Ace--

Pardon me, I think we may be talking past each other a bit.

I'm okay with PG-13 Bond. I also think that everything I'd like to see in a "grittier" Bond (much of which Jeff covered) can easily be done under PG-13. Hell, Hollywood stretches PG-13 all the time-- nearly all the violence you want, one f-bomb, and no *real* nudity, and there's your PG-13.

I'm using the R-rating almost as a metaphor-- the things I want in Bond are things you *normally* would see in an R-rated movie.

The comparisons with the Bourne flicks are dead-on. A Bond movie with that spirit would be sweet. Yes, we still have the babes, the gadgets, and the over-the-top villains (or, as Jeff highlighted, *bringing back* over-the-top villains-- or even Spectre, if they could get the rights effing fixed). These are the things that make Bond-- you can't have Bond without the martini.

But in the end, that's just chrome to a movie underneath, and those movies have been pretty weak. And the padding in the corners even weaker.

Give me a Bond who has to think. A Bond who makes a mistake and has to live with the consequence. A Bond who kicks serious ass because he's a bad-ass human, not because he's a super-human. Yes, I like cool stunts, and I appreciate the one-liners. But let's make his business deadly serious, as it would be if someone actually had to face down someone looking to destroy/rule/rob the world.

The Bond movies have been the epitome of "safe"-- I want risk. I want a little danger. I want Bond to feel pain, to have to do something he doesn't want to do, to maybe be a bit of a bastard for Queen and Country.

I want Bond to double-tap, just once.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

Here's another thing. Bond runs all around the world, meeting shady characters, gambling in high-roller casinos, etc--and introducing himself by his real name. It seems to be pretty much open knowledge that Bond is working for the British government, which, I dunno, seems sort of not conducive to the whole "spy" thing.

At the same time, the whole "Bond, James Bond" thing is the franchise now. No ingenious disguises for Bond anymore: the audience is too invested in Bond as an icon to buy him as a character in that regard.

But what if his ties to British Intelligence were blurred? What if Bond was well known as a rich bon vivant with strange underworld connections, but not as an official operator? The audience obviously knows that he works for M, but in the film world, he should be a shady, twilight figure who does nasty things on behalf of his country without official cover. I mean, he is supposed to be a spy, not a superhero, right?

If Bond is truly undercover--if he no longer has the British Navy to bail him out or ridiculous, government funded toys--that would ratchet up the tension on Bond more than another Magic World-Killing Laser.

The filmmakers should also get former British military/intelligence types to teach the new actor how to shoot, fight, hold a gun like a professional, etc. Michael Mann got an ex-SAS guy for Collateral who actually made Tom Cruise look like a bad-ass. Authenticity goes a long way; I hate it when guys shoot machine guns from their hips or hold knives like they're buttering toast.

I don't see how Bond can be saved, if by saved you mean making him something that isn't chidlish.

If Bond is anything, Bond is a certain plot: An opening action sequence blow out (usually unrelated to rest of movie.) Supervillain of the cartoony muh-ah-ah-hah sort has plans for 'global domination,' Bond meets at affair wearing a tuxedo, villain sends guys to kill but Bond kills them. Finally, bond infiltrates ice palace/ jungle stronghold/ space fortress (sometimes gets captured but escapes) confronts and kills supervillain in nick of time, then escapes before the whole place blows. Toss in some chicks and lather, rinse, repeat.

We've seen this in 20 some odd flicks and it's become a cultural joke, a comical plot structure only fit for adults in an Austin Powers movie.

The Connery stuff was great cause it was fresh. No prior films were that 'big.' Now every action film is. Bond is just another brand among the XXX and Miss Imp. franchises. And the problem is, you can't change the plot or you're not getting a Bond movie. Really, what's he gonna do, fight terrorists? He needs a big rich foe. So, he's stuck. Even if they do it right, the best you'll walk away thinking is 'not quite as obnoxiously cartoony as the recent ones.'

I dunno. Maybe there's some screenwriter brilliant enough to provide Bond a villain and a way of fighting it that won't make us roll our eyes a little. but I don't see it.

And as far as actors go, gotta be Clive Owen. Not a pretty boy and he looks like he might not break his wrist if he threw a punch. Watch him in 'Closer.' Watch his scenes with Jude Law. He looks like he could demolish that little man/child - and frankly, the ability to believably convey the ability to beat the shit out of Jude Law should be the first requirement of any Bond actor (and actually that might not be a bad plot - Bond must find and kill the british actor Jude Law. Title: For Crimes Against Masculinity)

Sofia Vergara.

Maybe they need to crank the stock plot up a notch: how about Bond vs. the Illuminati?

Heh. You guys want Harry Palmer.

"Never again."
"Here's more money."
"Okay, one more time."

Heh, sounds like me trying to have anal sex with the wife...

Now, we've covered this once already.

Clive Owen is not good looking enough to be Bond. His face looks like it's been worked over with a bag of pennies. Not good.

Gerard Butler is the closest in this thread (Gruffud or whatever his name is? ICK) and he's not even that close.

I say just let the franchise die until someone RIGHT comes along...like Orlando Bloom after 10 years of maturing (and a sex change to a male).

Later,
bbeck

He was in 'Taffin' also.

In which he was a little rougher and little more disheveled than normal also.

The movie still sucked.

That Nickie Goomba fellow would be ideal.

I lost my taste for Bond when Connery left, and no one has come close to him ever since. David Niven as Bond? In the books Bond had "the body of an athlete" and I don't think that meant a marathon runner. I have the same argument with all the other Bonds, Where's the Beef? Fleming was lucky to get that "lorrie driver" for if he'd have his way the Bond series would've ended in 1962 with Dr. No. Sean Connery was James Bond. And he always will be.

I nominate James Bond as James Bond, bring back Sean Connery!

How about the guy who does Niles, from Frasier? He'd make a totally badass Bond.

Perhaps Matthew McConaughey?

Mick Jagger would be a kick-ass bond, if he went to a gym and put on about twenty pounds.

"So far, Brosnan has played either Remington Steele (Thomas Crowne Affair, After the Sunset) or James Bond (Tailor of Panama) in most of his non-Bond roles."

What about Dante's Peak? Was he James Bond, geologist?

BTW, that movie would have made a great MST3K movie. Apparently, Ford SUVs are really good for escaping volcanic eruptions. And can drive with the engine underwater.