Bonding


Daniel Craig- The Next Bond?

It's probably a fairly well-known fact that Pierce Brosnan won't be in the next Bond film, due both to his age (early fifties) and his demands for higher and higher salaries. I consider myself a Bond fan of the Golden Age of 007. I miss Sean Connery's gruff but ever suave Bond, or Roger Moore's gentleman rake with the lethal skills. Still, we have to move on.
Unfortunately, Timothy Dalton was HORRIBLE... he growled all his lines and the 'modern' take of Bond for his two installments- the utterly boring Living Daylights and the totally un-Bondish License to Kill was a traversty (regardless of how hot Cary Lowell was). The best I've ever seen Dalton was in The Rocketeer as the villain, so perhaps that's why I didn't like him.

As for Remington Steele... I'm mixed with Brosnan. I kinda liked a couple of his movies; Goldeneye wasn't as horrible as the Dalton films, and Tomorrow Never Dies got a bit of the old Bond flavor back with the classic maniacal villain (Media Mogul Peter Carver, played by Jonathan Pryce). Still, I always found Brosnan's Bond a bit too self-assured and too confident. Every stunt and action scene seemed to play by the numbers and just happen.

And now, we're in limbo. So far, the apparent frontrunner is Daniel Craig, whom I really really really really can't see James Bond in. He just doesn't have the look. I remember him from Tomb Raider (he played Lara Croft's rival/love interest) and while he was a cool action guy, he's not a suave agent-type. Supposedly his role in the recent film Layer Cake shows a bit of his Bond-ness, but I haven't seen that. Oh well. Who knows... I don't think anything is in stone yet. Maybe Clive Owen (Sin City) will still bite, though he has already refused the role. Gosh. The intrigue and goings-on of the making of Bond 22 could be a spy thriller in itself. More on this as it happens.

The next Bond movie is supposedly a remake and modernization of the classic Casino Royale, and will revitalize the franchise by focusing on a younger Bond and see him through the events that turn him into the veteran agent that we all know and love to watch. Look for this in 2006 or so. Maybe.