Why Aaron Taylor-Johnson would spell a rapid decline in James Bond’s quality
The cycle had already started anew long before Daniel Craig officially bowed out as James Bond in No Time to Die, with Aaron Taylor-Johnson emerging as the current favourite to step into the iconic tux for the next instalment in the long-running spy franchise.
As one of the most coveted roles in cinema, it’s one that every British actor worth their salt is interested in. Not only will it lead to a steady and well-paying gig over a number of years, but the comfort zone provided by the espionage series also presents the opportunity to tackle smaller, more daring, and eclectic projects in the downtime between suiting up and saving the world.
Having been killed off for the first time ever in Craig’s swansong, the slate has been wiped cleaner than it’s ever been. Dating right back to Dr. No, the presence of several recurring characters and familiar faces offered the opportunity to invest in the belief that the entire catalogue of Bond adventures are connected and take place in the same timeline.
That was technically true of Craig’s tenure if they were viewed as prequels that unfolded before Dr. No, but getting blown up fittingly torpedoed that interpretation anyway. Still, with a clean break having been made and Amazon now steering the ship after its acquisition of MGM, the next James Bond blockbuster could be the most important to date to set the tone for what’s to come.
On paper, Taylor-Johnson ticks all of the boxes. He’s a known and proven commodity without being too famous that he overshadows the character, he’s got experience working with practical and digital effects, and at 33 years old, he’s realistically in a position where he could anchor the globetrotting epics for at least a decade, if not longer.
However, despite delivering a number of memorable and versatile performances in a wide array of genres dating back over a decade, that’s one of the major reasons why he’s all wrong for the part. Taylor-Johnson has a huge range, and his best work in films like Nocturnal Animals, Outlaw King, and Bullet Train, to name but three, allowed him to sink his teeth into intense, immersive, and dynamic characters.
He’s at his best when he’s allowed to cut loose, inject a performance with eccentricities, subtleties, nuance, and lashings of jet-black humour, all traits that don’t really apply to Bond. The MI6 agent has regularly been the least interesting part of his own filmography that becomes secondary to the girls, gadgets, stunts, and set pieces, and while the next chapter presents a blank canvas, there are only so many shades of grey Eon Productions will allow.
Craig just did the ‘dark, gritty, and troubled‘ thing for 15 years, so that would realistically eliminate the possibility of returning to that well. The high camp of Roger Moore is probably out of the question, and the borderline self-awareness of Pierce Brosnan is too fresh in the memory, which, by extension, severely limits what the next incumbent of the part can do without re-treading familiar ground.
As his top-billed outing in 2014’s Godzilla showed, Taylor-Johnson is at his weakest when he’s playing a straight-faced, serious protagonist in an effects-heavy movie. Conversely, he was excellent in Bullet Train because he was allowed to put his own stamp on an offbeat and eccentric character. He was a bewildered action hero in Kick-Ass and blown off the screen by both Chloë Grace Moretz and Nicolas Cage by being forced to play the straight man, while the upcoming Marvel movie Kraven the Hunter is hardly going to cement his action star credentials when it hails from the studio most recently responsible for Morbius and Madame Web.
It sounds counterintuitive, but the very things that have gained Taylor-Johnson a reputation for being such a talented actor are the same things that make him ill-suited for Bond. Ironically, an approach along a similar line to Craig’s intense, brooding take would suit his sensibilities best, but as the most recent iteration of Ian Fleming’s creation, it’s going to be the last thing on the creative team’s minds. Blandness doesn’t suit him, but 007 requires a certain amount of flatness to fit the mythology.
For the most part, Bond is calm, collected, emotionally introspective, and even subdued in the way he always maintains an air of mystery impenetrable to those around him. That’s almost the complete opposite of what Taylor-Johnson has brought to the table in his best work, which is why casting him would be the wrong call.
