Libertarian Librarian

Watched part of For Your Eyes Only and was struck quite solidly by how much Roger Moore sucked as Bond. Sean Connery, as many having noted, simply was the quintessential Bond. Pierce Brosnan brings enough panache and understated coolness to be a pretty darn good Bond. Even Timothy Dalton brought a lot of intensity to the role, and made the License to Kill aspect of Bond intriguing. Moore just sucks.

He is stiff, he is unbelievable, and the whole time he is on the screen, his character just tries WAY too hard to try to be cool. Thus failing utterly to be so. Moore is also curiously effiminate, which has to be the ultimate no-no for anybody playing James Bond. In one scene, Bond is reclining at the beachside house of Countess Lisl, in Greece. She's wearing a translucent wrap, he's wearing a robe. First problem, she's getting the champagne for them both while he watches-- Bond was nothing if not a gentleman, or, if you prefer, a chauvanist. No way he lets the girl get the drinks.

Even more egregious, though, is the way Moore is lying there waiting for the girl to bring him his drink. He's on his side, head on his hand, and he looks like he's at a photo shoot. Then he starts rubbing one foot up his other leg. ICKY! His pose, his actions-- they are all feminine. Of course, Moore was handicapped by the late-70s, early 80s sensibilities of disco, Ziggy Stardust, and the like, but still-- this is James Bond!

Moore is also handicapped by the horrible late 70s/early 80s film-making style that drags out nearly every scene long beyond necessary, thus often rendering even good films from this era, for example, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, difficult to watch or prime candidates for the fast forward button. Above and beyond all that, however, Moore just sucked.