<*dv_0*>"You forgot the
chuffing carrots again" | | Moore, Roger Moore | The first time I watched the new Tescos advert with Roger Moore I was filled with a kind of cringing horror. What was the old fool doing? Did he really need the money that badly? Admittedly his film career is now becoming a dim and distant memory for him let alone anyone else. Spice World The Movie anyone? Surely he could have found something else, anything else. But after repeated viewings I began to enter in on the joke of it. I started to enjoy the creaky flirting between Roger and Prunella Scales. And then thats when it hit me.
Bring him back as Bond.
<*dv_3*> The very idea seems ridiculous but Im telling you the man has still got it. He can still time a line. Is there anyone else who could make so much out of as flimsy a double entendre as I like a bird that needs a good stuffing? Or getaway with eyeing up a young girl bending over without appearing as an impotent old lech?
OK, so he still has that debonair charm and his comedic chops are still in full working order, but I hear you ask, at the age of 76 isnt he just a tiny bit too old?
Not a bit of it. How old and out of shape was Sean Connery when he lumbered his way through Never Say Never Again? And its not like Pierce Brosnans any spring chicken. His next birthday is 52.
Admittedly A View to a Kill was not a good film. But was that Rogers fault? Christopher Walken was phoning his role in and teaming him and Grace Jones together in a love scene was never going to set the screen on fire unless some horror stricken viewer doused it in white spirit and threw a match at it.
<*dv_1*> I have to admit that Roger, 56 at the time, did look a little out of place in the action scenes. In fact he was so out of place as to be back in his trailer whilst a badly bewigged stunt double dangled from the end of a fire engine. However this was in the days when films still needed stunt doubles. Now they have CGI. With the computer graphics they have now there is not a move Jackie Chan can do that Roger couldnt be made to look like he was.
<*dv_2*> All this is to deny Roger his years. But would there be any harm in admitting them? Isnt the best thing about Clint Eastwood the way he refuses to pretend he isnt in his 60s? In the Line of Fire and Unforgiven were only as good as they were because they played on the fact that Clint was old and arguably washed up. Couldnt you do the same thing with Roger in a new Bond film? Wouldnt it add some pathos to a character that looks increasingly one dimensional? He could be haunted by the death of his wife in On Her Majestys Secret Service. His only solace the diminishing rewards he gets from his job as he saves the country for the umpteenth time.
Either way its a winner. Its just a matter of time. Brosnan says he is only going to do one more Bond which leaves the way clear for Roger. A few of you may still be unconvinced. I can only think you missed Roger hauling his eyebrow up in the new advert. If youd seen that youd have no doubt that the man is still Bond.
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