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By TYLER MCLEOD -- Calgary Sun
October 15, 2005
Daniel Craig.
Everyone can agree: He's certainly not the next Sean Connery.
He's not the next Pierce Brosnan or the next Roger Moore.
We'll hope he's not the next George Lazenby and pray he's not
the next Timothy Dalton.
Nevertheless, Daniel Craig is the next James Bond.
Huh. Good luck with that.
It goes without saying it is incredibly presumptuous and
awfully unfair of me to dismiss his potential before a single
scene has been shot.
I had my own favourites to take over the tux -- Jude Law, Clive
Owen or Jason Statham -- and you probably had your own.
Almost a year ago to the day, British papers had declared
Scottish actor Dougray Scott was being issued a licence to kill.
One of those papers claimed to have a leaked memo from
inside the Bond production company that stated frontrunners
Colin Farrell was "too sleazy," Hugh Jackman was "too fey"
and Ewan McGregor was "too short" to be 007. Yet it failed to
convincingly explain why Daniel Craig was "too perfect for the
part."
Years of searching for a lead led them to an actor whose two
claims to fame are playing a cocaine dealer in the British thriller
Layer Cake and dating Kate Moss -- until she realized he only
plays cocaine dealers in the movies and didn't actually have
any to give her.
It's a bit like having the first pick overall in your fantasy hockey
pool and proudly announcing you'll take Craig Conroy. Which
isn't to say there's any team that wouldn't love to have Conroy
in their uniform. Decent player, decent guy...but he's just not
the one you want, given the choice of anybody, to build a
championship team around.
Daniel Craig isn't the guy, either. He's not what I'd call a
"franchise player."
What's not in question here is whether Craig is a good enough
actor to pull off the role of James Bond.
All he needs to do is to keep straight face while delivering
cheesy dialogue -- and even Moore could barely manage that
himself-- and not ruin a take by wincing when the special
effects guys blow up an airplane hanger behind him.
So it's not really as though the role of Bond requires much in
the way of "acting ability" per se. It's all about having charisma,
through and through.
Producers can claim all they want Bond is headed in a new
direction. Unless they completely reinvent the character,
though, Craig simply doesn't look or act like a James Bond.
I'll guess we'll just have to wait and see if today's audiences
mind a new James Almost-Bond.
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