Saturday, June 9, 2007

Casino Royale

Ben and I watched the newest James Bond movie yesterday. We both enjoyed it, but found it to be rather mediocre. Not the worst bond, but not the best.

The story involved James Bond at the beginning of his career as 007. In order to stop a mysterous banker who funds terrorists, James must win a high stakes poker game. He is at the game with an attractive accountant named Vesper Lynd, who he falls in love with. You see James pick up some of his traits (wins a 1964 Aston Martin in a poker game), and learn to trust no one.

I liked how the high amount of cheese that had been added to the latest films has been scraped away to show the true essence of Bond. I also liked when James Bond walked out of the ocean in his tiny fitted swim suit . . . Daniel Craig was in fine shape through most of this movie and I liked watching him!

What I didn't like . . . the chase scene in the beginning of the movie was highly stylistic and looked like a video game. Especially the evil guy getting chased who bounced around unbelievably like a ping-pong ball. I complain about this for most movies these days - the special effects are getting away from them I think. I managed to forget this until the end of the movie when water "exploded" in the basement of an old building in Venice causing it to fall straight down. I won't go into the details of why this was all impossible according to engineering principles and the laws of physics, but it was almost more than two engineers could bear when watching a movie. Some movies I allow them to get away with it (like science fiction movies or other Bonds where it is all over the top), but the advertisements for this movie talked extensively about it's "grittiness" and bringing things back to the believable. If that be the case - make it all believable!

Overall though, it was an entertaining movie with eye candy for both the ladies and the men.

2 comments:

  1. I loved Casino Royale. In my opinion, the best Bond movie since On Her Majesty's Secret Service. In one movie, he's bested anything Moore, Dalton or Brosnan did. To be fair, Brosnan was really good, but the movies he was involved in were mostly horrible.

    And since I haven't seen you review it yet...what did the two of you think of the Lost finale? It completely blew away Jocee, me and Mr. Rozner. We went back and rewatched the second part that same night.

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  2. I concur with Mr. Barker, with one addition:

    I believe that Daniel Craig and the filmmakers not only bested Moore, Dalton & Brosnan, but also matched all of Connery's best Bond work. I also think that they have the potential to surpass the classic Connery Bond.

    I also concur with Mr. Barker regarding the Lost season finale. Two of the finest hours of television produced in the past ten years or so.

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