Summary
Unlike [Sean Connery], [George Lazenby] and Roger Moore, [Timothy Dalton] had serious thespian credentials when he assumed the role of 007. After making his film debut in The Lion in Winter opposite Katharine Hepburn and Peter O'Toole, he honed his acting chops in movies like Wuthering Heights and Mary, Queen of Scots, and onstage with the Royal Shakespeare Company in King Lear, Henry V and other meaty roles. At the same time, Dalton showed off a gift for that swashbuckling wit so endemic to the [James Bond] persona in The Master of Ballantrae and Flash Gordon, where he played a daredevil bandit leader opposite the gorgeous Ornella Muti. By the time The Living Daylights came along, Dalton was ready to take on 007: not just the secret agent's Flynn-like derring-do but the wellspring of gritty melancholia that drives and defines his character.
In Diamonds Are Forever, the movie right after On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Connery is barely fazed by his beloved wife's cold-blooded murder, bouncing back with barely a raised eyebrow in the arms of Jill St. John. Fleming's Bond isn't quite so sanguine; he staggers through the next two books with his senses dulled, his steely will all but obliterated. Although a decade or so has passed since the murder, Dalton's Bond travels this same posttraumatic landscape, sorrow and anger burning eternally behind the pupils. "It's very important to make the man believable to stretch the fantasy," the actor said as he was filming The Living Daylights, but his thoughtful interpretation of [Ian Fleming]'s flawed creation wasn't universally embraced by audiences accustomed to the superhuman exploits of Connery and Moore. Timothy Dalton's take on the man behind the martini glass is due for reappraisal.-[Matthew Stafford]First and foremost is Roger Moore, who gets points for being the only true Brit ever to serve on her majesty's secret service. While Connery struggled in vain to restrain that indelible Scottish brogue, Moore's cadence was smoothly spot-on. And it wasn't just his voice that gave Moore an edge; he struck the perfect balance between suavity and silliness with his dashing charm and winking asides. He never took the whole enterprise too seriously, but he absolutely oozed the unflappable self-assurance every good Bond must possess. Yet Moore will always be unfairly relegated to second banana status.See the full content of this document
Extract
Defend Your Position, Mr. Bond
Double-O-Seven makes accomplishing seemingly impossible tasks look easy. Keeping humankind from being poisoned by Amazonian orchid extract; saving the economy when a madman wants to nuke Fort Knox; rescuing Silicon Valley from a flood-induced San Andreas earthquake. Let's face it, the guy's clutch.
Now, we at the Sun find few opportunities to save the earth from evil geniuses (though we're doing our part to stave off Dean ...See the full content of this document
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