TOO STIRRED AND SHAKEN

I am a big James Bond movies fan, and have seen almost all of them at least ten times each, with the exception of 'On her Majesty's Secret Service'. In fact, when I was in school, me and my cousin who had all the classics taped at home were so obsessed with Bond movies, that we used to spend a lot of time actually enacting the end scenes of the movies played out between Bond and the villain (eg. "Your time is running out Stromberg". "Yours too, Mr. Bond. Yours too...and faster than you think...- yes, I know we had no life.)

In any case, I always think that after Sean Connery, Pierce Brosnan is the best James Bond (an opinion reiterated by Roger Ebert). Many of my friends diasgree with me and place him third, after Connery and Roger Moore. Now I realise why I hold that opinion. James Bond, along with his suave charm and the usual personality paraphernelia, needs to have a special kind of detached look on his face when he either kills someone or escapes the usual unbelievably intractable situation with his life by a hair's breadth. This look is a combination of puzzlement, self-assurance, and detachment. But it is not cruel; instead, it needs to be a look of utterly innocent detachment, as if Bond himself is trying to pretend as if nothing happened. But all of these subtle nuances have to be combined in the right doses.

Moore is a fine actor and was a great James Bond, but the problem in my opinion was that his face was too fluid and used to display a look of surprise more than it should have at times. He did do a fairly good job, but the distillation of the right doses was not complete many times. He could not appear indifferent enough without appearing cruel.
Connery, I realise, was the unbeatable master of this innocent detached look (and he retains his ability for it in his 70s). And after him, Brosnan can do it the most competently. Given Brosnan's lifelong fascination for James Bond starting from his childhood, it's not surprising that he has studied every small aspect of the role and the character. So for me, after Connery, Brosnan will always be the best James Bond.
Shaken, but not stirred.