"Quickness" of Solace

[John Picard]

I agree that stretching a story is also bad, but to me, a short running time is akin to not getting my money's worth.

If a movie is short, but ridiculously entertaining (see my earlier example of WALL·E), have you not gotten your money's worth?

X-Men 3 and Spiderman 3 were both woefully inadequate in the story telling department and should have been longer.

The problems with those movies were not with their running times (at 139 minutes, Spider-Man 3 was longer than both of its predecessors) but rather with the quality of their scripts. To say that "longer movie = better movie" is an at-best spurious argument that has little to no foundation in logic -- see my earlier point about the length of books.

I mean, heck, Psycho is barely over an hour and a half long, and it's phenomenal. Same with Reservoir Dogs. There's no reason to say that in order to be good, a movie needs to have a length of X minutes. There's just as much room for The Godfather and Casino as there is for Cloverfield (84 minutes) and Good Night, and Good Luck (92 minutes).

I guess you don't like long movies. Ghostbusters, which I just re-watched this past weekend, didn't really delve into the characters much. It was just a "fun" movie.

Then again, Raiders of the Lost Ark was 115 minutes, while Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was 122 minutes, yet with KotS, I felt like it was missing *something*.

 

[Timby]

I guess you don't like long movies.

Yeah, you're right. I hate long movies.

Which is why I praised The Godfather, Casino and HEAT in this very thread.

 

[John Picard]

I guess you don't like long movies.

Yeah, you're right. I hate long movies.

Which is why I praised The Godfather, Casino and HEAT in this very thread.

Well, I've never watched those films, and with that in mind, why are you complaining about Casino Royale's long running time? Many, such as myself, thought the long running time was perfect, while others, like yourself, disagree. Such is the way of the world.

 

[Timby]

Well, I've never watched those films, and with that in mind, why are you complaining about Casino Royale's long running time?

Where did I?

Oh, yeah. I didn't.

My entire point in this thread has been that long movies (like HEAT, nearly three hours long) can be just as good as shorter movies (like Reservoir Dogs), with the length of a movie being completely separate from the quality of the story. A movie being long or short has no bearing on whether or not it's actually good.

As an analogy, Of Mice and Men, at only a little over 100 pages, is just as spectacular a book as the several-hundred-page-long Moby Dick.

 

[Hermiod]

Casino Royale was not egregiously overlong, but it had weird pacing issues towards the end as soon as Bond gets 'rescued' by Mr. White. And 106 minutes is not much shorter than two hours (120 minutes) anyway.

Exactly what I meant. The movie just stops. I thought it was finished until I looked at the remaining time display and realised how long was left.

 

[blablover5]

Casino Royale was not egregiously overlong, but it had weird pacing issues towards the end as soon as Bond gets 'rescued' by Mr. White. And 106 minutes is not much shorter than two hours (120 minutes) anyway.

Exactly what I meant. The movie just stops. I thought it was finished until I looked at the remaining time display and realised how long was left.

It's funny but I really like it up until they get to the casino then it just all grinds to a halt.

Using my special powers of iMovie I added the rifftrax track to it and had to burn it to two DVD's and I almost never watch the second half.

 

[TedShatner10]

^I'd say Casino Royale nearly went wrong between Mr. White shooting Bond's captives and the penny dropping for Bond about where Vesper's sentiments lay. But I liked the casino segment and Venice climax.

And Doctor Who's "Blink" had more to say than half the fiction out there in only 45 minutes, while the best 45 minute episode from either TNG, DS9, VOY and ENT also had more to say than than the collective 448 minutes of the TNG movies.

 

[CorporalClegg]

This actually concerns me a little. I've had this fear that, in order to avoid all of the typical "sequel" pitfalls, that this was just going to be like the "rest" of CR.

The short runtime might be more to that point.

 

[Starbreaker]

I don't think this is a bad thing. Casino Royale was just a tad bit too long.

 

[Hermiod]

It's funny but I really like it up until they get to the casino then it just all grinds to a halt.

(Heh, nice change of username )

There's quite a few parts of the film that are just too long. The Casino, sure, the hospital where it just becomes a completely different movie and also the airport chase/action sequence.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

If you're into the story of the film the run-time generally isn't an issue. I've seen three hour movies that flew by in no time at all because I was enthralled with the plot, and 90 minute movies that dragged on for an eternity because they sucked.

This doesn't give me any cause to worry about the quality of the film.

 

[Barbados Slim]

No big deal because it's the same writers and Marc Forster who's a good director. The story will be good.

Plus remember, CR set up most of the plot elements for this, since this is the first true sequel to a Bond movie. I think the 106 will be lean and fulfilling. Plus that car going off the cliff looks crazy awesome. And Olga looks crazy hot. And Bond looks crazy pissed.

 

[Starkers]

I thought OHMSS was the longest Bond movie to date?

Casino beat OHMSS by 4 minutes.

OHMSS: 140 min
Casino Royale: 144 min

Does that include the credits? Because I think the credits to CR went on a lot longer than OHMSS.

Whilst I was of the opinion that, for all its good stuff, Casino Royale was too long (and badly paced with it) a 106 minute film seems a tad short for Bond, especially if rumours about a 20 minute pretitle sequence are true!

 

[blablover5]

It's funny but I really like it up until they get to the casino then it just all grinds to a halt.

(Heh, nice change of username )

If you're not careful and bring me a sacrafice of bouquets and wedding cake I'll smash you with my huge feet and tail.

I'm still working on breathing fire though.

 

[Hermiod]

^Huge feet ?

You don't know what huge feet look like! Trust me!

 

[CaptJimboJones]

Ian Fleming's original Bond novels were generally quite short - Casino Royale was 192 pages, for example. They were tight, taut thrillers that focused primarily on plot, and it worked pretty well.

There's nothing wrong with a short movie if the story is told well, in fact, it would be in keeping with Fleming's original style.

 

[TedShatner10]

I prefered Tomorrow Never Dies to GoldenEye because there was less random filler (and GoldenEye had worse pacing issues than Casino Royale, especially in Southern France and Russia).

 

[Agent Richard07]

To be honest, there's at least twenty minutes I'd cut out of Casino Royale. Most of which involve Bond sitting around recouperating. I don't think anyone goes to see a Bond movie to watch Bond lying in a bed or sitting in a wheelchair doing nothing for twenty minutes.

I enjoyed those parts. It was nice to see that side of Bond.

 

[I am not Spock]

Casino Royale didn't feel as long as that to me. Maybe I was just into the story, and din't notice the long length.

 

[Jax]

QoS does not need to set the story as CR did so am not surprised that this is shorter though I expect the 3rd film which is the final part of this loose trilogy like story will be somewhere in between and then I wonder if Craig will extend his contract, I think not.