Rewatching "Casino Royale (2006)"
- Thread starter The Borgified Corpse
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CR was the best Bond movie in years, IMO
Like 'For Your Eyes Only' and 'Living Daylights' before it; CR took us back down to Earth after a ridiculous and fanciful Bond film. (Shut up! I liked Dalton. He gets trashed for taking pretty much the same approach that Craig did twenty years later!)
Craig is a great Bond, and I hope he is in at least as many as Brosnan was (Brosnan was a good Bond, too, but I feel that his movies didn't always live up to him).
Like 'For Your Eyes Only' and 'Living Daylights' before it; CR took us back down to Earth after a ridiculous and fanciful Bond film. (Shut up! I liked Dalton. He gets trashed for taking pretty much the same approach that Craig did twenty years later!)
Craig is a great Bond, and I hope he is in at least as many as Brosnan was (Brosnan was a good Bond, too, but I feel that his movies didn't always live up to him).
trevanian
Rear Admiral
Clearly you haven't ever seen FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE. One-liners that are funny AND well-delivered. Maibaum writing and Connery talking usually can't be beat.
True, but at least he didn't have a wristwatch with an electromagnet that could attract objects from 200' away.
I just saw CR for the first time a couple weeks back, and I enjoyed it. I thought the ending drug on a little long, but overall it was as very good experience and the only Bond film I really a fan thus far. I'm hoping to enjoy QoS as much.
I watched it about three weeks ago and it's still my favorite Bond film. I don't mind the length because it was a character driven Bond film. The killing affected him. We saw him grow into the cold-hearted Bond we know best. He was brutal and had to learn how to be suave. That, plus some great action scenes, plus the sheer elegence and globetrotting grandeur. That's what I love best about Bond films. This guy gets to travel the world and stay at the fanciest places and meet the most beautiful women. Also, I loved Vesper Lynd. I think Eva Green is a fantastic actress and it was great seeing a character with the prickly shell melt before our eyes. Her betrayal was expected and still heartbreaking. CR set up a believable romance between Bond and Vesper and set him off on his journey to become the Bond we all know and love, so although the early reviews of Quantum haven't been as good as CR, I'm still excited to see him hell-bent on continuing the emotional journey. Plus QoS hasn't gotten bad reviews, but mostly critics are saying that it's not as great as CR, which is hard to match.
I don't miss the gadgets mostly because we live in a gadget-filled world already. We have phones that can give us traffic updates, take photos, hold hours and hours of music and give us internet access. We can hang giant TVs on our walls like paintings. We drive cars that can talk us to the nearest four-star restaurant and can parallel park themselves. What's the next step? The only thing left to do is make the car invisible and we saw how ridiculous that looks. The 60s - 80s we were on the cusp of a technological renaissance so the gadgets looked cool. Now that we're here, the only way to make a gadget look futuristic is to make it break the bounds of credulity into science fiction. I for one don't want to see Bond get a watch that can literally turn back time.
I've always been a fan of more realisitic Bond films that have a touch of humor. My favorites are Goldfinger, Thunderball, The Spy Who Loved Me, The Living Daylights and Goldeneye. Casino Royale fits right in with them. But my biggest worry is that QoS goes too Bourne because that was cool because it was gritty. Bond needs to be grounded yet elegant. The fantasy comes from the elegent lifestyle he leads.
I don't miss the gadgets mostly because we live in a gadget-filled world already. We have phones that can give us traffic updates, take photos, hold hours and hours of music and give us internet access. We can hang giant TVs on our walls like paintings. We drive cars that can talk us to the nearest four-star restaurant and can parallel park themselves. What's the next step? The only thing left to do is make the car invisible and we saw how ridiculous that looks. The 60s - 80s we were on the cusp of a technological renaissance so the gadgets looked cool. Now that we're here, the only way to make a gadget look futuristic is to make it break the bounds of credulity into science fiction. I for one don't want to see Bond get a watch that can literally turn back time.
I've always been a fan of more realisitic Bond films that have a touch of humor. My favorites are Goldfinger, Thunderball, The Spy Who Loved Me, The Living Daylights and Goldeneye. Casino Royale fits right in with them. But my biggest worry is that QoS goes too Bourne because that was cool because it was gritty. Bond needs to be grounded yet elegant. The fantasy comes from the elegent lifestyle he leads.
Yep!
It's a shockingly well made film. Everything clicks. It's a tight script. The action scenes are superb. The actors are all great. The music fits. The effects are seamless. The suspense is real. It is truly a modern masterpiece. It's playing the night before QoS opens at the Cinerama Dome here in LA and I'll be seeing it theatrically for the 10th time. It's that good.
Neil
Huh. Interesting. I have almost the exact opposite reaction. I thought the 1st hour was very fun & exciting. But once Vesper shows up, it slows to a crawl until the big finish in Venice. Vesper & the poker were both very dull.
I like some of the more down-to-earth James Bond pictures, like The Living Daylights, Goldeneye, and (to a lesser extent) For Your Eyes Only. But even those have a fun glib-ness to them that tells you not to take them too seriously. Casino Royale takes itself far more seriously than any action film ever should. I'm hoping that, now that we're past the origin story, we can get to more conventional, fun Bond stories with Quantum of Solace.
trevanian
Rear Admiral
I think you're going to have to wait for at least one more before that happens. They were going to 'mainstream' Dalton's third if he had one, just like they did with Moore, who didn't take off till #3, SPY WHO. QOS sounds like it takes itself pretty damned seriously.
Three, AFAIK.
Just like Brosnan. I swear everytime Brosnan was interviewed he kept repeating
"I'm contracted for three with an option for a four"
I agree, the first hour or so is great, and I think Daniel Craig is very Bond like in the Bahamas, and whilst the free running goes on a tad too long the set piece in Miami is great. Then it all calms down and isn't quite as good.
Part of this is the fact that I dislike Eva Green. Is she French, is she English, is she mad? Who can tell. I certainly don't buy the love between them, and much like in the book her transition from hating to loving Bond happens really quickly and quite inexplicably.
Also because I'd read the book there were less surprises from here on in. Still some nice touches but I almost groan out loud when Mathis keeps stating the obvious during the card game. The game itself wasn't that exciting. Also Le Chiffre is a pretty dull badguy. I like the second half better with repeat viewings, but in effect it's almost two separate films that are bolted together. Both are good in different ways but the join isn't that seamless.
Brosnan is your idea of camp?
I'm not sure how else to describe it when James Bond swims to shore after leaving MI-6, walks up to a hotel, gets a swanky room, gets himself all dressed up, and instantly determines that the mirror is two-way and there's an agent behind it.
trevanian
Rear Admiral
Brosnan is your idea of camp?
I'm not sure how else to describe it when James Bond swims to shore after leaving MI-6, walks up to a hotel, gets a swanky room, gets himself all dressed up, and instantly determines that the mirror is two-way and there's an agent behind it.
You MIGHT have a point ... assuming Brosnan wrote the scene. But that's not the case.
Who said anything about any of the Bond actors writing their material? I don't fault Brosnan for doing camp, but it it is what it is.
Brosnan is your idea of camp?
I'm not sure how else to describe it when James Bond swims to shore after leaving MI-6, walks up to a hotel, gets a swanky room, gets himself all dressed up, and instantly determines that the mirror is two-way and there's an agent behind it.
You MIGHT have a point ... assuming Brosnan wrote the scene. But that's not the case.
I wasn't accusing him of writing it. But, yes, I think that the films he was in were a bit camp.
One good thing I will say about Casino Royale, although it applies to all of the Brosnan films too, is that of all the Ms that I've seen, Judi Dench is the only one that leaves any impression on me. The rest are all kinda just generic old guys in suits.
trevanian
Rear Admiral
Bernard Lee IS m. He and Connery had real tension on screen, i wish he'd been around for Dalton's films, cuz THAT m. really sucked.
Dame Judi is ... uncomfortable. She doesn't look like she belongs in the clothes, and she probably still hasn't figured out how to square away the fact she is playing a completely different character now that the bond universe revamped. Carrying her over was a mistake, but up until hiring Forster, I think this Bond retooling overall has been a near-total mistake (except for giving up on the fantasy toys, which were seriously played out, esp in DAD.)
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