Casino Royale
While the Bond character here is appropriately hard-boiled and roguish, he is totally lacking in charm. Daniel Craig does not seem like a upper-class bred spy, but a morally upright thug- or as one critic put it, “more Spetznatz thug than Oxbridge toff”.
The opening sequence is supposed to be about Bond’s second kill, which gets him 007 status. It’s a wasted opportunity, because (a) the first kill is shown intercut with the second, dissapating any tension that would rise by watching a fight, (b) because we have no background as to why he made his first kill or who the victim was, so there is no dramatic significance to the death, and (c) Craig already looks the kind of guy who’s killed someone before.
And Bond killing someone in a restroom that immaculate looking? Was the restroom in Scandanavia? Try having him kill someone in a Texas restroom, and that would be really disgusting. Of course, if someone is gettng killed in a disgusting Texas bathroom, then most likely you’re watching a Tarantino film. But a Scandanavian restroom- how “gritty” is that?
If the producers had wished to do an “origins” film, like Batman Begins, they should have invested more in the screenplay and characters.
There’s not even any opening James Bond fanfare!
The opening credits song is utterly forgettable (as most of them have been recently)- where are the naked silhouetted women? I miss Maurice Binder.
The first two films, Dr. No, and Thunderball, were a bit boring. The film that set the “Bond formula” was Goldfinger, which combined the gadgets, the exaggerated plots and villains, the dry humor, and a hero who was ruthless and could be taken seriously in such a way that was entertaining, but not too serious.
Too many times too many of these elements have been overblown so that the Bond films become parodies of themselves. Since the last film, Die Another Day, was an example of this, the producers have decided to “reboot” Bond, and make their mistakes in quite the opposite direction.
The villains are all colorless craggy faced Eurotrash, and we are treated to the world’s longest poker match, with too much exposition on what is happening for those who play poker and too little for those who don’t.
Q is nowhere to be seen, nor Miss Moneypenny.
And Daniel Craig has no chemistry with his love interest, Eva Green (although this would not be the first time a Bond chemistry has been forced. Besides, why does Bond need a agent to monitor his spending? If a real spy needed money to play in a high-stakes casino game, the optimal way to provide for it is to take it from money which was stolen on a covert operation, which would not be a concern of the treasury department.)
And yet, there is too much of an adherence to the formula for it to be an interesting character study.
All of these things could be overlooked if this were a good action film.
There are two ways one can go with action scenes: to make them visually innovative, or dramatically interesting. Rare is the talent that can do both equally well.
But the action scenes here are prosaically staged, edited, and directed. Especially in the first chase sequence, in which we are not even made privy to what is going on, who Bond is chasing and why- and if we don’t know why, why should we care?
How will it perform?
Well, boxofficemojo.com says:
Down 25 percent, Casino Royale was as impressive as Happy Feet, holding better than James Bond's previous Thanksgiving titles, GoldenEye, The World Is Not Enough and Die Another Day, which each fell over 31 percent on this weekend. Casino Royale captured $30.8 million and, with $94.1 million in 10 days, has sold nine percent more tickets than GoldenEye, the last Bond reboot, through the same point.
But when I went to see it, there were only about seven other people, not so impressive even though it was a matinee showing, and none of them seemed that impressed…
The opening sequence is supposed to be about Bond’s second kill, which gets him 007 status. It’s a wasted opportunity, because (a) the first kill is shown intercut with the second, dissapating any tension that would rise by watching a fight, (b) because we have no background as to why he made his first kill or who the victim was, so there is no dramatic significance to the death, and (c) Craig already looks the kind of guy who’s killed someone before.
And Bond killing someone in a restroom that immaculate looking? Was the restroom in Scandanavia? Try having him kill someone in a Texas restroom, and that would be really disgusting. Of course, if someone is gettng killed in a disgusting Texas bathroom, then most likely you’re watching a Tarantino film. But a Scandanavian restroom- how “gritty” is that?
If the producers had wished to do an “origins” film, like Batman Begins, they should have invested more in the screenplay and characters.
There’s not even any opening James Bond fanfare!
The opening credits song is utterly forgettable (as most of them have been recently)- where are the naked silhouetted women? I miss Maurice Binder.
The first two films, Dr. No, and Thunderball, were a bit boring. The film that set the “Bond formula” was Goldfinger, which combined the gadgets, the exaggerated plots and villains, the dry humor, and a hero who was ruthless and could be taken seriously in such a way that was entertaining, but not too serious.
Too many times too many of these elements have been overblown so that the Bond films become parodies of themselves. Since the last film, Die Another Day, was an example of this, the producers have decided to “reboot” Bond, and make their mistakes in quite the opposite direction.
The villains are all colorless craggy faced Eurotrash, and we are treated to the world’s longest poker match, with too much exposition on what is happening for those who play poker and too little for those who don’t.
Q is nowhere to be seen, nor Miss Moneypenny.
And Daniel Craig has no chemistry with his love interest, Eva Green (although this would not be the first time a Bond chemistry has been forced. Besides, why does Bond need a agent to monitor his spending? If a real spy needed money to play in a high-stakes casino game, the optimal way to provide for it is to take it from money which was stolen on a covert operation, which would not be a concern of the treasury department.)
And yet, there is too much of an adherence to the formula for it to be an interesting character study.
All of these things could be overlooked if this were a good action film.
There are two ways one can go with action scenes: to make them visually innovative, or dramatically interesting. Rare is the talent that can do both equally well.
But the action scenes here are prosaically staged, edited, and directed. Especially in the first chase sequence, in which we are not even made privy to what is going on, who Bond is chasing and why- and if we don’t know why, why should we care?
How will it perform?
Well, boxofficemojo.com says:
Down 25 percent, Casino Royale was as impressive as Happy Feet, holding better than James Bond's previous Thanksgiving titles, GoldenEye, The World Is Not Enough and Die Another Day, which each fell over 31 percent on this weekend. Casino Royale captured $30.8 million and, with $94.1 million in 10 days, has sold nine percent more tickets than GoldenEye, the last Bond reboot, through the same point.
But when I went to see it, there were only about seven other people, not so impressive even though it was a matinee showing, and none of them seemed that impressed…
posted by Amateur Film Critic at 10:32 PM
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