Pierce Brosnan was a chimaera of Bonds

The argument

The premise of this argument is that the best Bond would not be the most distinctive one but the most complete — the actor who assembles what each of his predecessors contributed, rather than substituting a single interpretation for the rest. On that measure the case for Pierce Brosnan is that he contains the others. He maintains the one-liners and quips that were Roger Moore's signature, the arch comic register that kept the role from taking itself entirely seriously. He has the tough-guy bravado of Dalton: the opening scene of Goldeneye racks up a franchise-leading forty-seven confirmed kills, which is not the work of a Bond played for laughs. He enjoys the company of the female variety much as Sean Connery did, with the same easy confidence the earliest films established as central to the character. And he retains all the elegance and dignity a Bond needs — the bearing that makes the tuxedo look like clothing rather than costume. The significance of holding all four at once is that each previous Bond was, in effect, a specialist. Moore's wit came at the expense of menace; Dalton's hardness came at the expense of charm; Connery set a template that later actors either imitated or reacted against. Any one of those performances is missing something the role can accommodate. Brosnan's is missing nothing: the comedy does not undercut the violence, and the violence does not make the charm implausible. That combination is what the argument means in calling him a chimaera of Bonds. If the character is the sum of the qualities the franchise has established as his, then the actor holding all of them simultaneously has played him most fully. He is the ultimate Bond chimaera and, therefore, the ultimate Bond.

Context

Brosnan was as handsome as Connery, as tough as Dalton, his films had a smorgasbord of gadgets, and he oozed character and charisma. He encapsulated everything that was good about all the other Bonds individually and rolled them into one.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Pierce Brosnan himself said that his Bond wasn’t good enough. If that isn’t a sign that something went amiss, then what is? His performance is flat and lazy at times. He is also smug in a way that the sophisticated Sean Connery and Roger Moore never were. Brosnan piggy-backs on decent storylines and strong, well-rounded villains. His demeanour is also not tough. He doesn’t look physically imposing like Daniel Craig, and as a result, loses credibility.

Rejecting the premises