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Why is Pierce Brosnan's Bond era so heavily disliked?

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shintoki

sparkle this bitch
For all the hate The World is Not Enough gets, I feel like it's a prototype for the Craig era with half an excellent bond film. Specifically, I thought Eleckra King was a fantastic addition. Still the only female Bond Villain who isn't a henchman or secondary(I would argue she is the Main Villain), where she was the driving force of film. Not the guy with the bullet in the head. It's a shame they introduced the worst bond girl at the same time, dragging it down massively. But a few changes for the 2nd half would have made the film immensely better.
 
Because his movies (besides Goldeneye) weren't that good.

Tomorrow Never Dies was kind of dull and was really just a "meh" movie. The World Is Not Enough isn't as bad as people say it is, but isn't exactly great due to the wasted potential (I'd say I'm one of the film's few defenders, but only due to the first half of the film, which started out strong with the opening chase, the bits with M, and Elektra being a great character. The film literally goes to shit the moment Denise Richards as Dr. Christmas Jones shows up and ruins it. It would have been great and a worthy successor to Goldeneye if it just continued like the first half, had Elektra be the Bond girl, and not introduce that stupid fucking character. I really like the bits between M and Elektra in that movie, and if it had more of that, and less "Christmas comes once a year", it would have been so much better. The wasted potential infuriates me.)

Die Another Day, on the other hand, is probably the worst Bond film ever. It sucks, and not even in a cheesy enjoyable way like Roger Moore's early movies. It's just dull, bad, and boring. It's honestly terrible.

Since we're posting our top films, here's mine (I would give a top 10, but aside from my top 3, they change around a lot, and I'm not sure what the order would actually be):

3. For Your Eyes Only
2. From Russia With Love
1. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
 

weekev

Banned
I enjoy the Brosnan bond films as cheesy light hearted romps. The issue with Brisbane Bond is simply that it's Ben proceeded by the Daniel Craig era which is superior (granted SPECTRE and Quantum of Solace are both awful)
 
I actually think Brosnan is a pretty good Bond, it's just that after Golden Eye he was getting shittier and shittier scripts. He was actually supposed to get Dalton's movies, but he couldn't get out of his Remington Steele contract if I remember right.
Thomas Crown Affair was also fantastic.
He had great chemistry with Rene Russo in that movie...God Russo was hot in that movie.
 

TDLink

Member
Goldeneye was good, but every movie he did after was bad.

This. He played the role well and with Charisma but all three scripts written specifically for him weren't great. His debut movie, the one really good one, was written for Timothy Dalton originally. It's a shame they decided to change how they wrote the character (and the plots were bad to boot).
 

swarley64

Member
He's the Bond I grew up with too, and I love Goldeneye but Tomorrow Never Dies and that Denise Richards one are both pretty bad movies. Die Another Day is kinda underrated though. It doesn't take itself seriously at all, and is a great movie because of it.
 

PaulloDEC

Member
I feel like Brosnan's movies start out strong and get dramatically worse as they go. Goldeneye is great, Tomorrow Never Dies is good, The World is Not Enough is poor and Die Another Day is dreadful.
 

Solo

Member
Probably the most common defense I see of Brosnan's Bond is "good Bond but he had the misfortune of bad a scripts!", and I don't think it holds water. Every single Bond aside from Lazenby (for obvious reasons) had bad scripts to work with and guess what? They all still managed to make it work and put their own unique stamp on the character. I call Brosnan the worst (or at least blandest or least interesting) because for me, his Bond was clearly just him cribbing from Connery and Moore. Whereas every other actor to take on the role (again, arguably except Lazenby, and again for obvious reasons) made it their own. Not much needs to be said about Connery. He was the original. Moore's take played to his comedic strengths and charm. Dalton played literary Bond, even if his films weren't literary Bond. And Craig has brought a rough around the edges rawness to the character.
 

shintoki

sparkle this bitch
The Thomas Crown Affair was Brosnan's best Bond movie. What a great movie.

Si. His most interesting Bond products, were never Bond films. Even the crap stuff like November Man, I thought he was more interesting in than the later Bond films and he was just playing Bond.

I would actually like to see him play some more comedic roles. He does a pretty damn good drunkard. Which is funny, because the few Dalton has been in too. Have been solid. Compared to Connery that just can't do anything else but Bond. Always did find that humorous, Connery being the worst actor of the bunch, but largely such a great Bond.
 

Phased

Member
I don't think they've aged very well. Most Bond movies don't, but his films especially were in an era where they were just starting to do CGI and stuff and it looks really really bad today.

Goldeneye is still pretty good on a rewatch though.
 

Grizzlyjin

Supersonic, idiotic, disconnecting, not respecting, who would really ever wanna go and top that
Well, I rewatched every Bond movie post 1980 a few months ago. All of his movies are pretty bad, except for Goldeneye. If you had asked me the same question a few years ago, I would have said just Die Another Day. But seeing them all as adult...Yep, just the one good one.

Oh, and Dalton was before his time. Living Daylights is like the perfect Bond film. I'm not as high on License to Kill...but the world just wasn't ready
 

Justin Bailey

------ ------
Goldeneye is always the trump card whenever someone tries to disparage Brosnan's Bond.

And it should be, it's easily in the top 5 Bond films. The rest of the films were forgettable, but you only need to make one classic to be a legend :)
 

Solo

Member
Its too bad Dalton got tired of waiting around (and to be fair, based on box office receipts of TLD and LTK, EON were likely happy to make a change too)....what could have been. The best actor to have played Bond and he was wasted largely due to studio turmoil and a writers strike.
 

MattKeil

BIGTIME TV MOGUL #2
Goldeneye was a genuinely good film.

Tomorrow Never Dies was okay.

The rest of the Brosnan era after that was increasingly awful.

Ehhhh, Goldeneye was of its time. I wouldn't say it's genuinely good today. Goldeneye also gets a lot of leeway from our generation because we loved the N64 game so much, IMO.
 
At the end of the day people realize that those flicks should have been much better than they were, given Brosnan was a perfect fit.

Instead they are really cheesy, and sometimes fun, but never really great.
 

Justin Bailey

------ ------
Probably the most common defense I see of Brosnan's Bond is "good Bond but he had the misfortune of bad a scripts!", and I don't think it holds water. Every single Bond aside from Lazenby (for obvious reasons) had bad scripts to work with and guess what? They all still managed to make it work and put their own unique stamp on the character. I call Brosnan the worst (or at least blandest or least interesting) because for me, his Bond was clearly just him cribbing from Connery and Moore. Whereas every other actor to take on the role (again, arguably except Lazenby, and again for obvious reasons) made it their own. Not much needs to be said about Connery. He was the original. Moore's take played to his comedic strengths and charm. Dalton played literary Bond, even if his films weren't literary Bond. And Craig has brought a rough around the edges rawness to the character.

Brosnan was the smooth Bond.
 

Lomax

Member
It isn't? He was widely considered the best Bond since Connery. Yeah the Craig movies have made some of his stuff seem more hokey in comparison, but I still think he was actually a better Bond, Craig just got better movies and directors.
 

Gabbelgak

Member
I'll always have a special spot for Goldeneye. Was just the right age to where the game pulled me into the movie so much.

I honestly don't remember much about the rest of his time as Bond, they were all one time watches for me though so I guess I didn't think much of them.
 
Echoing what many have said, it isn't Brosnan's fault but shitty writing from our favorite team of Purvis and Wade. Goldeneye is a top 5 bond movie easily.

(My top 5 would be Casino Royale, OHMSS, The Spy Who Loved Me, Goldeneye, and Thunderball).
 

Grizzlyjin

Supersonic, idiotic, disconnecting, not respecting, who would really ever wanna go and top that
Nope, Tomorrow Never Dies and The World Is Not Enough were also good films.

Eh. He doesn't even do anything in Tomorrow Never Dies. He just clubs people in the head and Michelle Yeoh got all the cool fight scenes. And him being tied to the villain via a shared love interest is thrown away so early in the film that you forget it was even a thing by the end.

If we're saying Tomorrow Never Dies is good, Imma need GAF to collectively walk back its Quantum of Solace slander.
 
Better than any Brosnan, Moore, and Craig Bond flick to me.

I can't agree with you on Moore. For Your Eyes Only was probably one of the best Bond films and certainly the best from Moore's era. It features Cold War political intrigue, Bond actually being a spy, more subdued and realistic action, and one of the greatest Bond moments ever. The plot was great, and went back to the tone and style of Fleming's old novels, before the films became Moonraker levels of over the top. There's some great twists and turns, and one of the greatest Bond finales of all time.

Interestingly enough, like Goldeneye, it was written for Dalton, but Moore wanted to stay, and I'm glad, since he killed it in the role.

I think License to Kill is better than Goldeneye, so better than any of Brosnan's for sure, but I'm not sure about Craig either. I might have to rewatch Casino Royale and Skyfall to check (Yes, I like Skyfall; all of it. The finale wasn't Home Alone, it was Straw Dogs).
 

MrMephistoX

Member
I think he was the best bond. The World is Not Enough is also my favourite bond film. Elektra King is the shit. The plot was so good a Batman movie copied it.


The plot was so good it copied another Bond film as well...two of you think about it Goldfinger and View to a Kill.
 
Moonraker isn't even the worst Moore, though.

(I mean, Moonraker is bad, but it's no View to a Kill)

I'd say Moonraker is worse. I mean, it ruins Jaws' character by giving him a love interest and making him a good guy. It also had the stupid space battles, the stupid wipe-out-humanity villain plot, from a villain who wasn't even interesting.

A View to a Kill has Christopher Walken hamming it up as Zorin, the final battle on the Golden Gate bridge (ridiculous, but not too crazy. It didn't cross the lines Moonraker did). You also had Patrick McNeely in it, and Grace Jones was pretty awesome.

I think Moonraker is worse because it actively ruins good things about the series, unlike AVtaK, which is just a harmless bad Bond adventure. Moonraker was coming off the highs of The Spy Who Loved Me, with an absolutely terrifying villain from that film, and ruins him. It replaces the seriousness good Bond films contain with dumb slapstick (Jaws surviving a fall from a plane by landing in a circus tent). A View to A Kill came off another bad movie (Octopussy), and it wasn't as disappointing. I just didn't hate the time I spent watching it, unlike Die Another Day and Moonraker. It wasn't good, but it was entertaining for what it was, and didn't make things too ridiculous.
 

daTRUballin

Member
Is this one of those threads where someone assumes something is hated and it turns out its not?

Good, cause GoldenEye is my favorite Bond film.

Casino Royale is the best one ever made

Well, the replies in this thread so far are only proving what I originally said.
 

Nairume

Banned
Only one good movie, and he was sandwiched between two vastly better Bonds. Even if Craig's films have basically the same record as Brosnans, he's still a much better Bond overall. Meanwhile, Dalton is the GOAT
(He was even better than Connery. Yeah I said it.)
so Brosnan was always doomed to look worse in comparison.

Broson's biggest saving grace is the massive good will from GE64.
 

Nairume

Banned
In a better world, the Mcclory lawsuit would have resolved early enough to where Dalton could have done Goldeneye, and it would have been an even better film.
 
I do wish they would have let him play the character like he wanted, which was in a lot of ways a prototype for Craig's bond instead of a callback to Roger Moore, but I dislike Moore in general which I know is an unpopular opinion.

I mean I think Moore is the overall worst Bond but eh.
 
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