this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2024
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I don't think they were bad movies, and I don't think Dalton was bad in them.
They just weren't Bond. More a before their time Bourne clone. They were a massive tonal shift from the cheesy Moore era and people weren't ready for it.
They weren’t cheesy Cinematic Bond. They were realist Book Bond.
That said, they said the same thing about Daniel Craig in Casino Royale.
Connery had a bit of Dad-Joke cheese, especially in the later movies. Lazenby had slightly less cheese, but he only got the acting role because he was such a good con-artist/actor. Moore had all the Cheese and all the Camp. A few wheels short of Niven/Austin Powers. Dalton bought it back to the hard gritty roots, with a few jokes to dull the violence. Brosnan was a good balance between Moore and Dalton, primarily action/espionage with a bit of Cheese to appeal to the Moore fans. Craig removed all the cheese and went back to gritty. Almost like Dalton but with honest reality-based action.
If you like Craig but don’t like Dalton, ask yourself what is more realistic, an Aston Martin rolling without the help of a hydraulic ram or a Mack Truck pulling a “mono” on eight wheels?
Craig was after The Bourne Identity and it's many sequels. I think that's the key difference. Maybe Craig sells the brutality a little better than Dalton. Got more physicality to him. And if you don't count Quantum of Solace, he also had much better movies.
Dalton just felt like the Andrew Garfield of Bonds. Let down by the movies not really knowing what they wanted to be, rather than his performance. He's superb in Hot Fuzz, to the point I now think of him as a local supermarché owner than as James Bond.
Perfect description why I do not care for Bond movies involving Dalton or Craig.
To me, they do not incorporate the cheesieness and suave/arrogant amused attitude that made James Bond interesting.
I had never watched them until now., the first was more standard bond template but with a serious bond.
No, I beg to differ. Much as I detested the Moore reign, which got sillier and sillier movie after movie, I felt the Dalton Bond films were just plain dull and generic. You say Bourne clone, I say yawn. I will say that it wasn't Dalton's fault (I thought he made for a competent Bond) but the scriptwriters' and cinematographers' fault.