Who’s your vote for the next James Bond?


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Yep. When Chris Pratt and Paul Rudd got ripped for what amounts to a 3 second shot in their respective MCU movies that existed for no other reason than to show them with the shirt off, a new norm was set. Show up buff or don’t show up.
Seems to me for 3 seconds, just CGI it. Why put yourself through months of training and diet and misery?
 

I agree that both Craig and Connery feel physically tougher. And Connery pulls of being more solid while remaining suave for me. Craig has just always felt too much like a UFC fighter or football player for my taste (I love UFC, but that isn’t what I am looking for in Bond).
I don't really know what a UFC fighter looks like, but Craig just looks to me like a guy who works out. He's not bodybuilder built or anything. As for football players, I assume you mean American football, but don't they come in different shapes and sizes?
 

Even Roger Moore was aware he wasn't as tough as Connery (or, had he a time machine, Craig).

That’s a neat clip. Funny thing is one of my first Bond movies was The Spy Who Loved Me and I always thought Moore did a good job at being a stone cold killer when he wanted to be in that movie. He could be straight up vengeful in his movies.

“You’ve shot your bolt, Stromburg.” And then plugs him like 5 times.
 

I don't really know what a UFC fighter looks like, but Craig just looks to me like a guy who works out. He's not bodybuilder built or anything. As for football players, I assume you mean American football, but don't they come in different shapes and sizes?

I agree he doesn't look like a bodybuilder. And I agree too he works out. What I mean by UFC fighter is one, he looks like someone who has taken punches or kicks to the face and he has a physique I might expect to see in the UFC. But more than that, it is just the association I built in my mind with him because he came in at a time when the UFC was exploding and many action films reflected a more UFC approach to action (in my opinion including bond). Prior to that I feel action movies were still kind of in the "karate is magic" phase of things. Same thing with movies like 300. The influence of things like UFC were pretty clear there (right down to the Muay Thai push kick into the hole). But Craig's fight sequences seemed more rooted in the kinds of things you see in UFC and street defense martial arts that were popular at the time. That stuff is all well and good, but for me, it kind of lacks a certain style the way it was handled in Bond. I don't know he just felt too rugged and plain for me. I just have a very flat reaction to the Craig Bond. In his defense, he is definitely the most believable in terms of, were I recruiting a man to do this actual job, he's the one I would pick (and I agree with your previous statement that Connery also seemed more plausible in terms of defending himself). But Dalton's Bond had an intensity in his eyes hat gave the character spark. Connery had a charisma that carried the character. I'd rather see those kinds of actors in the role than someone like Craig, who just seems like he was chosen mostly because of his physique and because he may have once broken his nose (not sure if he actually has a broken nose, but he looks like a guy who has been hit). I feel like if I were assigning stats to bonds, Craigs would get a CHR of 10.

American footballers do come in all sizes but that is still relative (for example I tried to play football when I was young, but they wouldn't let me because I was too small: with the tackling they want people who are pretty thickly built). I invoked football because I am just trying to find a sport where people are durable and tough looking was an example. There may be better choices for what I am trying to say with Craig.
 


That stuff is all well and good, but for me, it kind of lacks a certain style the way it was handled in Bond. I don't know he just felt too rugged and plain for me. I just have a very flat reaction to the Craig Bond.
We have diametrically opposite tastes in fight choreography. I think the Craig fights are fantastic--dynamic, exciting, tense, and brutal. Someone like Moore on the other hand would do a roly-poly and then tap somebody on the shoulder and they'd fall unconscious.
 

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