Worst single Bond acting moment?

Napoleon Plural

Okay, it's only fair. Worst bit of acting, mainly from a Bond actor, but branching off into supporting cast if you want.

We're not just nominating characters or actors you happen to dislike...

thesecretagent

Jeroen Krabbé aka Georgi Koskov The Living Daylights. Dreadful accent and terrible acting. This film also has a poor actress in Marium D'Arbo, and Necros, the henchman is pretty wooden throughout. Joe Don Baker delivers his lines poorly as well.

Still like the film though. 8-)

Higgins

Same film, different actor.

Contrary to the usual praise for this particular scene to be "defining" I find the balloon-popping scene with Dalton simply pathetic -{

Napoleon Plural

Not as unfortunate as the cherry popping scene in CR with Vesper, which Craig got saddled with in his first Bond movie. (NB how Craig bottled out of banging the other girl by making his excuses and leaving, on a flight to Miami Airport. The equivalent of Joel in Risky Business. 'You got on your bike, you cycled home and you wacked off...' )

Napoleon Plural

But more seriously, yes, Dalton had his work cut out delivering that awful line "I certainly hope I scared the living daylights out of her' and indeed, it is squirm inducing, seconded by his 'He came to a dead end' in LTK.

Higgins

... as much as I like Daniel Craig in the role, but the entire "you took my armor off" dialogue also is performed pretty badly. It does nopt touch or convince me in any way. Additionally one of the cheesiest line in the entire series imho.

If I would have talked like this with my wife, I am sure, that she would have run...... fast and far

pyrat

I keep coming back to the guy who played Felix Leiter in Thunderball, Rik Van Nutter.



We haven't much time. - You're right, James, we haven't.

Andy007

Dalton's line was actually 'whoever she was, must have scared the living daylights out of her". it didn't sound that bad. -but an obvious line to get the title in.
How anyone could find the balloon popping scene pathetic is beyond me! -The shock, anger & then determination all shown in Dalton's acting is brilliant. His reaction to Saunders' death was spot on. My only wish is that the scene had been longer & Bond had got the chance to confront Necros with all that energy & adrenalin. I love the way the music bursts into life here as well. But we know it was too early in the film for Necros to be killed.

Napoleon Plural

Yeah, that Leiter delivery is certainly bad.

Going back to TLD, to be honest I don't think Saunders is much of an actor. Oh, I can see him acting alright. But again, it's a tad hammy. And I'm not sure what he'd done to get that role, a tiny thing in the TV series The Singing Detective, for what is a pivotal role for the new Bond.

Otherwise, the acting generally isn't that bad in the sense of breaking the suspension of disbelief, but there are quite a few insipid, forgettable performances, often from Bond gals (Kim Basinger) or allies (the guy in FYEO, no real presence).

bondrox

"saved by the bell" --- Brosnan/Bond's nauseatingly stupid response after near death in Die Another Day (arguably the worst Bond film ever). Hopefully they'll never go back to this sort of silliness. I actually remember one person sneering in the audience when it happened. Dumb. Really dumb.

zaphod

Bondtoys wrote:

... as much as I like Daniel Craig in the role, but the entire "you took my armor off" dialogue also is performed pretty badly. It does nopt touch or convince me in any way. Additionally one of the cheesiest line in the entire series imho.

If I would have talked like this with my wife, I am sure, that she would have run...... fast and far

Makes me cringe to, and I like CR.

zaphod

thesecretagent wrote:

Jeroen Krabbé aka Georgi Koskov The Living Daylights. Dreadful accent and terrible acting. This film also has a poor actress in Marium D'Arbo, and Necros, the henchman is pretty wooden throughout. Joe Don Baker delivers his lines poorly as well.

Still like the film though. 8-)

Marion D'Arbo is certainly up there, she was terrible, and about as sexy as root canal work

Blackleiter

"I love James SO much!" - Talisa Soto in "License to Kill" Just dreadful!

DangerMouse

bondrox wrote:

"saved by the bell" --- Brosnan/Bond's nauseatingly stupid response after near death in Die Another Day (arguably the worst Bond film ever). Hopefully they'll never go back to this sort of silliness. I actually remember one person sneering in the audience when it happened. Dumb. Really dumb.

Same here. The rest of the audience in the pictures I went to see it in just laughed in a cringing way.

Hardyboy

Let's see. . .worst single acting moment for an actor AS Bond would be a tie: first, there's Sean Connery's delivery after the Little Nelly air battle in YOLT: he comes across as if he's reading off a cue card and is about to fall asleep. Second, there's George Lazenby's delivery of the line "Please stay alive!" after Tracy reveals suicidal intentions. He says it downright wolfishly, as if he's really saying, "Please stay alive--long enough for me to have my dirty, dirty way with you, that is!"

As for a non-Bond actor, well, Britt Ekland stinks up the joint as Goodnight in TMWTGG; and I've always hated Patrick Bauchau's nasal, hesitant delivery as Scarpine in AVTAK. Would it have been so hard to hire a guy with a deep, booming voice to dub him?

Percy Sugden

With a few exceptions (Lois Maxwell, Judi Dench, Diana Rigg, Ilse Steppat, Lotte Lenya,Sophie Marceau, Honor Blackman,Jill Bennett), the majority of the actresses in the Bond films are BAD, to say the least. However the following were atrocious :-Tanya Roberts, Grace Jones, Fiona Fullerton, Tania Mallett, Mollie Peters and Madonna.

Sir Miles

Bondtoys wrote:

... as much as I like Daniel Craig in the role, but the entire "you took my armor off" dialogue also is performed pretty badly. It does nopt touch or convince me in any way. Additionally one of the cheesiest line in the entire series imho.

If I would have talked like this with my wife, I am sure, that she would have run...... fast and far

She would Bondtoys, don't think it would have too much to do with what you said though {:)

Napoleon Plural

Hardyboy wrote:

Let's see. . .worst single acting moment for an actor AS Bond would be a tie: first, there's Sean Connery's delivery after the Little Nelly air battle in YOLT: he comes across as if he's reading off a cue card and is about to fall asleep. Second, there's George Lazenby's delivery of the line "Please stay alive!" after Tracy reveals suicidal intentions. He says it downright wolfishly, as if he's really saying, "Please stay alive--long enough for me to have my dirty, dirty way with you, that is!"

As for a non-Bond actor, well, Britt Ekland stinks up the joint as Goodnight in TMWTGG; and I've always hated Patrick Bauchau's nasal, hesitant delivery as Scarpine in AVTAK. Would it have been so hard to hire a guy with a deep, booming voice to dub him?

Bar Lazenby, I'm not sure I follow. Do you mean Connery reporting back to base? I thought that was all military efficiency. Ekland is an annoying character, not sure we ever really catch her 'acting' though. She's not great mind. I actually like that Scarpine guy, he seems like a real jobsworth type I tend to meet quite a lot, Moore doing all the work with his personality and this guy is suspicious of someone so open, like he doesn't know how to read it.

Higgins

Sir Miles wrote:

She would Bondtoys, don't think it would have too much to do with what you said though {:)

no, she's not with me because of my good looking or my greek body, she adores me because I always find the appropriate words

mooney

One cringe piece that sticks with me was the first meeting of M and Bond in GE.
Dench gets into a who's boss arguement with Brosnan and calls him a 'masoginist dinosaur' among other things. I mean 'what the hell', has she been reading bond books in the 6 years off!!!
it's a pandering scene where the screenplay gets confused with the charachter of bond. It's probably not bad acting but it's awkward.
Mind you there are plenty of these scenes over the years where the producers feel it necessary to show strong women giving bond a dig or two just to say 'hey it's not the 60's anymore'.
Bring back lines like " run along, man talk"!

Mr Beech

The Moore Era.




Just kidding-ish.

Napoleon Plural

mooney wrote:

One cringe piece that sticks with me was the first meeting of M and Bond in GE.
Dench gets into a who's boss arguement with Brosnan and calls him a 'masoginist dinosaur' among other things. I mean 'what the hell', has she been reading bond books in the 6 years off!!!
it's a pandering scene where the screenplay gets confused with the charachter of bond. It's probably not bad acting but it's awkward.

Well, in a way that's an example of understated acting, in that Brosnan seems particularly inert during the scene and is not trying to make any mistakes. Because of this, I don't feel the scene generates the dramatic tension it should have. M isn't responding to Brosnan's Bond, but the character as he's already perceived. When Brosnan jibes about 'those same experts who said...' he is being insubordinate, but you don't get a sense of that from the actor. So M's diatribe seems unwarranted.

mooney

M isn't responding to Brosnan's Bond, but the character as he's already perceived. When Brosnan jibes about 'those same experts who said...' he is being insubordinate, but you don't get a sense of that from the actor. So M's diatribe seems unwarranted.

Well put!

Sir Miles

Bondtoys wrote:

Sir Miles wrote:

She would Bondtoys, don't think it would have too much to do with what you said though {:)

no, she's not with me because of my good looking or my greek body, she adores me because I always find the appropriate words

Words like..."yes dear, take my wallet and spend as much as you want" )

zaphod

Blackleiter wrote:

"I love James SO much!" - Talisa Soto in "License to Kill" Just dreadful!

How could I forget such a clunker, thanks for reminding me

thesecretagent

zaphod wrote:

Blackleiter wrote:

"I love James SO much!" - Talisa Soto in "License to Kill" Just dreadful!

How could I forget such a clunker, thanks for reminding me

Oh Lord! I forgot that one. I think they had had about 45 seconds of screen time together up to that point as well...

CmdrAtticus

Oh God! There are too many to mention! However, I feel some are as much a fault (perhaps even more) of the director's and writers than the actors. Poor Dalton was given a script that still had Moore's bad puns in it and even certain scenes, when he should have had a script like CR or FRWL. I personally thought he did a professional job given the material - his scene with D'Arbo in the camp in TLD where they have a brief tiff and she hit's him with the pillow and he smiles and says "Did you just call me a horses ass?" I found to actually be touching and showed the tender side of Bond. Dalton pulled that off as well as he could show his vicious side. D'Arbo's foundering acting ability seemed to suit her character - an innocent young girl out of her element and with her head in the clouds. Her hesitation to trust Bond in scenes along with her innocent exhuberance seemed genuine to me. All the actors had to do their best to overcome other bad actors (Talisa Soto) or bad dialogue. I'm sure they all cringed at times at the stuff they had to say! As for that GE scene with Brosnan and Dench, I'm still blaming the writers for the dialogue. I don't think the real female M would bring Bonds personal lifestyle into her diatribe, especially since Bond did not hate women - he just did not like having to deal with them inside his deadly profession.

GaddGeneGadd

Worst scene averted. The Japanese actress who played kissy suzuki in YOLT spoke NO english at all. She was having SO much trouble with her lines that she became so distraught that she was going to leave the set and commit suicide by jumping off a building. TRUE STORY. The producers ended up dubbing her lines. In fact the producers dubbed the lines of Honey Rider, Tatianna Rommaniva and Domino Durvall with the same voice actress. If you listen close you can hear it's the same voice actress, so having a beautiful women who couldn't act is just something that is woven into the DNA of the Bond films. With beauty like that who cares if they could act or not

77007

A couple that I watched recently that stood out to me.

I know the Bond girls are more for eye candy, but the short haired chicken girl from OHMSS. Omg I wanted her to stfu. Who the hell talks like that?

And from DAF- Mr. Kidd, what a dullard. He was like Dauber from Coach after a labotomy.

SpectreBlofeld

Joe Don Baker's Whitaker takes the cake for me:

Whitaker : "War. War has always been man's main occupation. You know, fools tell us its greatest accomplishments were the wheel and the alphabet, ah, I say it's the battering ram and gunpowder. How do you like my personal pantings of great commanders?"

You can tell from the way that was written that the screenwriter intended it to be spoken with some gravitas, as a Bond villain would. However, Baker just spits out the lines cheerfully like he's trying to sell his wife on a new outdoor grill purchase.

Higgins

not being in the camp of the MR-haters, but R. Kiel's performance with the Rio gondolas was crap.
Particularly his 2 "pretending scenes" - stopping the huge wheel and jumping to the other cabin 8-)