Your posts often have a lot worth reading in them, if you don't mind me saying so
I don’t mind. Thank you.
but when you say he would have played a scene "like the rest of his performance in TWINE: ultra-serious, teeth-grinding, dour and huffy-puffy, and it wouldn't have worked. Because it wouldn't have been fun", then claim the scene wasn't played dour, and consequently "it still isn’t ‘fun’" it would seem the man can't do right for doing wrong!
It might seem that way, but you’ve slightly misquoted me. I never said Broz’s final line wasn’t fun
because it wasn’t dour. Obviously that would have been a total contradiction of myself. I only predicted he’d play it dour (based on his performance in 98% of the film). It turns out he doesn’t. Instead, he throws it away. So much so that he almost makes it sound like he’s responding to a different statement altogether, as if he’s too embarrassed to deal with the nod he’s been served. There are many ways for an actor to present a line, and I think neither of these two options were the best way to go. As you said, M’s line is so blatantly self-referential, I’d want a response to acknowledge that fact. I would have hoped for a twinkle in the eye. There is no point in trying to make this work as a literal, serious exchange, so have some fun (which would then be the point).
There is absolutely nothing wrong with Brosnan's delivery.
Maybe not. But then I’d say there’s nothing remarkably
right about it either. I do think it could have been much better. And that is how I feel about almost all of his Bond performances across the board. I find myself having to say this a lot, because I get the sense that folks tend to see me as a blinded, run-with-the-herd BrozHater, but it’s not as if the man is without skill. I just don’t think his skill is in Bond. There are brief moments of inspiration here and there, but he can’t consistently maintain it. On the other hand, I like him a lot in THOMAS CROWN and I absolutely
adore him in THE MATADOR. (I almost listed the film as one of my top-10 of the millennium, thanks largely to him.) I am NOT a mindless “BrozHater”, if such a thing even exists. I just call it as I see it.
And of course I've repeated everything Tybre just said, nearly verbatim.
I'm always doing that!