Moore - Non Threatening Bond

Moore's Bond could be friendly, charming, and sometimes downright silly, but he could also be pretty brutal at times as well.

Spoilers

In For Your Eyes Only, Bond kills Locque in cold blood by knocking his car off of a ledge. Locque has been wounded, he has no real means of defending himself, and he's trapped in a car which is teetering over a ledge. Bond tosses him a pin with a dove on it, Locque's symbol, and kicks the car which sends it over the edge. It's not played for laughs either.

In The Spy Who Loved Me, Bond killed henchman Sandor in a similar manner. Sandor was leaning off of the ledge of a building and holding onto Bond's tie for support. Bond asked him where the man he was looking for was, then backhanded his tie and sent Sandor to his death in spite of Sandor giving him the desired information.

From the same film, he shot Stromberg in the testicals and in the stomach, then left him to die. He's last seen bleeding and clinging to the table, but still alive for the moment. Bond was also going to drop Jaws to his death in a furnace, but the producers realized that Jaws was probably going to be popular and decided to keep him alive for the next film.

Roger Moore's Bond was undoubtedly the nicest and most smortsmanlike, but he had some downright cold moments in his own right.

Moore's performances are so all over the place when you look through his movies. There's the ones where he's ice cold and fierce like Golden Gun and Eyes Only. Ones where he's slapstick comedy like Live and Let Die and Moonraker. Ones where he blends both like Octopussy and The Spy who Loved me.

Connery and Craig are so far the only ones to maintain some level of consistency.

Moore always said he knew he couldn't emulate Connery's superhuman persona, and figured that since such a character couldn't possibly exist for real, that he'd play the part tongue-in-cheek.

In terms of Man With The Golden Gun, sure, he has the jokes, but his initial treatment of Maud Adams is very cruel and Connery-like. Moore also did ok with action scenes in his early Bond films such as this one; the punch up that ends with the line "I've lost my charm!" is a good one. My overall view of him is, and has been for a long time, that his biggest mistake was staying for two films too long and I'm sure he feels the same way in retrospect.

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'Days of London' - An Olympic Games-themed tribute to Tony Scott: http://tinyurl.com/bbbkfxf

Writer Tom Mankiewicz talked about this in interviews. He wrote for Connery and Moore. He said something like, "With Connery you could have him sit down at a table with a beautiful woman and he could kiss her or kill her and both would work. With Moore, it would seem cruel for him to kill her." He wasn't saying this as a critique on Moore, whom he liked. He was merely pointing out a key difference.

This is why some of Moore's more brutal moments feel truly shocking. Take for instance that moment in Octopussy: Few people talk about the moment when he's on the train and the Russian soldier enters. Bond turns and shoots the soldier in the head. The soldier's face is one of pure surprise and he falls over, dead. The moment always disturbed me (especially as a kid) in part because it feels so brutal and almost cruel. You don't laugh. You just go, "Wow. Holy ****."

Is this a bad thing? I don't think so. I think such moments SHOULD feel brutal and cruel. It SHOULD be shocking. So one could argue that Moore's portrayal allows for such moments more-so than someone like Craig who feels right at home doing the more brutal things. It doesn't shock because you expect it. Do you see what I mean? Hopefully I'm explaining my opinion nicely.

Anyway, I love Connery and Craig too. I'm just saying Moore's 007 was also great... Just in a different way. It's nice to get so many different styles... All playing the same character.

Having said that, Moore got better over time. If you've only seen him in Live And Let Die and this one... KEEP GOING. He gets better and better.

Roger Moore was my favorite Bond and it's not even close! He was suave sophisticated and classy! I don't even watch the Bond movies that Moore was not in!

Moore was the weakest Bond IMO. Never did care for him, or his Bond films for that matter. My bottom 3 Bond films are all Moore's. Maybe bottom 4.

Roger Moore had the coldest kills of all the Bonds because he wouldn't hesitate to kill a unarmed man with a smile on his lips and crack a joke afterwards.