Casino Royale
My rating: 4.5 out of 5.
Bah. I was planning on writing this up as a proper review but now I’m feeling tired so you’re going to get the bullet point version.
- The latest installment in the James Bond film empire is Casino Royale. This also happens to be the first installment of the books. The film doesn’t quite cover Bond’s origins, but we do get a few minutes of Bond “working up the corporate ladder”. Kind of interesting but given how little time was spent in those scenes; I wonder if there weren’t other areas that the time could have been better spent on.
- Daniel Craig brings an interesting interpretation to the role of Bond. He has back the panache of Connery’s Bond but with a brutal violence that we’ve not seen before. I’m still not convinced this is the best path to go with but it’s certainly better than Brosnan’s somewhat stilted performances.
- Some people seem to really like the villain of this film, Le Chiffre. However I found him to be weak and ineffectual; though to be fair had a better plan than some we’ve seen1.
- The chase scene at the beginning was incredible. Though I know there are other movies out there which also do this sort of thing. Fortunately, I’ve not actually seen many of those movies so this still looked new/fresh/interesting rather than old and derivative.
- It’s a pity they killed off Caterina Murino’s character so early in the movie. She was much more in the style of classic Bond women than Eva Green.2
- Product placement sucks. In this case, I’m referring to the fact Bond was driving a Ford towards the start of the film. On the other hand, winning the classic 1964 Aston Marton in a card game was pretty cool.
1 Banker to world terrorists vs. Russian EMP satellites, no contest here.
2 Smoking hot vs. vaguely attractive.