My take: Casino Royale
My wife and I ended our movie watching year with what I consider to be the best movie I've seen all year, not to mention possibly the best Bond movie ever - Casino Royale. As far as franchise reboots, this is up there with Batman Begins. Out are the stupid jokes, odd-gadgets, and mind-numbingly twisted plotlines; in is Daniel Craig.
The movie starts out in glorious black and white with Bond gaining his "00" license by offing a couple of bad guys, one of which receives a beat down that would get a standing ovation from Jack Bauer. That leads me to one of the first things I like about the new Bond - Craig's version is a buff, tough, rugged chunk of a man with muscles practically ripping through his tux. This is a guy that can start and/or finish any fight he's involved in - think of a roided out Jason Bourne, and your pretty close.
The other thing I really enjoyed in this movie was the plot, mostly because it was kept simple. Sure, the good ol' spy days of the Cold War may be over, but there's still plenty of snooping to be done - this time Bond delves in to the world of funding terrorism. This ultimately pays off in a poker tournament that pits Bond against our terrorist financer Le Chiffre, played wonderfully by Mads Mikkelsen.
That said, I did still have a few problems (minor as they are). The last half hour of the movie was about 25 minutes too long, and really brought the pace of the movie to a crawl before squeezing in one last action sequence that was a bit too reminiscent of the other Bond movies. I also didn't understand Vesper's actions at the end; I won't go in to details so as to avoid spoilers, but for a rather smart lady with someone as equally smart and lethal as Bond as her friend, I just don't understand many of her decisions.
Also, what's the deal with wrecking that beautiful new Aston Martin DB9 without ever really getting a chase out of it? I knew, thanks to the trailer, that the car would meet a fateful demise, but a little more of a chase scene would have been nice.
Those minor glitches aside, I like the idea of what the writers were trying to setup in the final scenes, the return of an ultra evil-like organization similar to SPECTRE. Among other nice hat-tips to the former movies were the use of a vintage 63/64 Aston Martin (the "original" Bond car), the invention of Bond's notorious "shaken, not stirred" martini, and the nod to "Money-penny" when meeting Vesper. Probably the best movie I've seen in the theater in a long time - a solid 9 out of 10.
The movie starts out in glorious black and white with Bond gaining his "00" license by offing a couple of bad guys, one of which receives a beat down that would get a standing ovation from Jack Bauer. That leads me to one of the first things I like about the new Bond - Craig's version is a buff, tough, rugged chunk of a man with muscles practically ripping through his tux. This is a guy that can start and/or finish any fight he's involved in - think of a roided out Jason Bourne, and your pretty close.
The other thing I really enjoyed in this movie was the plot, mostly because it was kept simple. Sure, the good ol' spy days of the Cold War may be over, but there's still plenty of snooping to be done - this time Bond delves in to the world of funding terrorism. This ultimately pays off in a poker tournament that pits Bond against our terrorist financer Le Chiffre, played wonderfully by Mads Mikkelsen.
That said, I did still have a few problems (minor as they are). The last half hour of the movie was about 25 minutes too long, and really brought the pace of the movie to a crawl before squeezing in one last action sequence that was a bit too reminiscent of the other Bond movies. I also didn't understand Vesper's actions at the end; I won't go in to details so as to avoid spoilers, but for a rather smart lady with someone as equally smart and lethal as Bond as her friend, I just don't understand many of her decisions.
Also, what's the deal with wrecking that beautiful new Aston Martin DB9 without ever really getting a chase out of it? I knew, thanks to the trailer, that the car would meet a fateful demise, but a little more of a chase scene would have been nice.
Those minor glitches aside, I like the idea of what the writers were trying to setup in the final scenes, the return of an ultra evil-like organization similar to SPECTRE. Among other nice hat-tips to the former movies were the use of a vintage 63/64 Aston Martin (the "original" Bond car), the invention of Bond's notorious "shaken, not stirred" martini, and the nod to "Money-penny" when meeting Vesper. Probably the best movie I've seen in the theater in a long time - a solid 9 out of 10.
posted by misawa at 8:17 AM
1 Comments:
So...
You weren't 'moved' by the torture scene, eh?
Post a Comment
<< Home