Continuing my alleviation of my movie review backlog (but not in any reasonable order), I'll now discuss Casino Royale, which Lemming recently reviewed. The original version of the film is supposed to have been a debacle, but check out the star power---among its stars were Peter Sellers, Woody Allen, and Orson Welles! (There are also some other recognizable names.) This version of the film, on the other hand, was extremely good.
The film serves as a sort of 'reset' to the Bond universe. Besides having a new actor playing Bond (more on that later), we travel back to a point (set in 2006, so not traveling back along only one dimension) in which Bond hasn't yet been promoted to 007 status. (The film starts at the final events resulting in his promotion to 007 status.) Thus, James Bond spends a good chunk of the film (and for some of these things, most or all of the film) grittier, less refined, driving a rented Ford rather than an Aston Martin, not so great at keeping his cool under pressure, and not giving a damn whether his martinis are shaken or stirred. Yes, even the last one---in fact, especially the last one. If you want to sum up what this film means to the Bond franchise, the fact that he doesn't give a damn about his martinis does the best job of quickly convey that we've gone back to his roots.
One of the things I mentioned is that Bond is grittier. In fact, the entire film is grittier, and I expect the next couple Bond films will remain this way. The new Bond, Daniel Craig, fits this image. I do think he makes a good Bond, but he's a major step down from Pierce Brosnan in my book, and I'm sorry but he just doesn't look like Bond to me. He did very well with the repartee, but I still can't picture him as James Bond. He does fit the image shift, but while I enjoyed the film immensely, I have a general preference in my film tastes for less grittiness.
Anyway, the repartee between Bond and the main lust interest (Vesper Lynd) was excellent---especially in their early conversations when she couldn't stand him. (I could use the term "love interest," but that term just doesn't feel right for a James Bond film.) It was great to see such a persistent foil to Bond in one of the Bond girls! M was there, but Moneypenny was nowhere to be found (that doesn't bother me). Q wasn't there either, which is unfortunate, because I always enjoyed the scenes with Q.
There was a chase scene just after Bond becomes a 007 that was fantastic, and the pace of the film was excellent---events transpired at just the right pace.
Anyway, the film was really good, but my own preference (which I expect is in the minority) would be for the franchise to go back to being less gritty. In short, the film was extremely good but not fantastic. (Granted, very few films are.)
2 days ago
6 comments:
Hrm, I wonder about you mentioning the bit about the Martinis -- I liked the surprise on that.
Also -- Vesper is Moneypenny. He uses the expression once on the train, when they first meet. She is, after all, the accountant.
(Like M and Q, Moneypenny is more of a role than a specific person.)
I don't recall Vesper being referred to as Moneypenny in the book... And this is one of two Bond girls who could be referred to as a love interest.
It's not clear to me how they can pretend the setting is 2006, rather than 1952 (? - not quite sure about the exact year). Though they couldn't keep Judy Densch as M. in the latter setting, and the actor who played the old, correct M. is dead now AFAIK. I always thought that title was just an abbreviation - we learn somewhere that old-M.'s name was Admiral Miles M-something, 5th Sea Lord prior to taking over the secret service. Just checked - he's always written as "M.", not "M".
Sounds interesting, I really should see this one if I have the time (I've skipped the last several Bonds). Regarding the original film, the convention is to pretent that it doesn't exist... :-)
Oh, I really liked the martini bit. I'm just indicating that this is a nice, quick way to summarize the role of this film in the Bond universe.
Also, I don't agree that Vesper is Moneypenny. In several Bond films, there are references to (including at least one or two very overt ones) Moneypenny having a futile sexual interest in Bond, which to me makes the character Vesper extremely different from Moneypenny. There's just a different dynamic.
The new movie does make a reference to M standing for something, but M won't allow Bond to mention it.
IMO, Judy Densch is awesome. A Bond film wouldn't be the same without her.
The new film does take place during 2006. You can see the year displayed a couple times.
Justin: Definitely see the film. Some of the other recent Bond films were good too, though the whole thing about Denise Richards as a nuclear physicist was just absurd.
I need to see why Justin's message didn't show up in my mailbox. I wonder if there are other messages I've missed?
Justin: Interesting. I haven't read the books, but in the first Brosnan movie, when M. (Judy Dench) is introduced, his line is something like, "So you're the new M?" When you consider that the old Q's replacement also went by "Q" (or Q.?) in the movies, even though he was decidedly a different character, I just assumed they were just titles. I expect that the whole bit about what M. stands for in the current Bond movie is trying to move back towards the canonical interpretation.
Mason: I also thought the martini bit was awesome -- I just thought of it as a bit of a spoiler is all. Oh, and re: missing comments on email -- you might also try RSS, if you're into that. It's hard to find, but blogger does have a comments-only RSS feed, which is what I use to keep an eye on my blog.
I think Christmas Jones was the last straw for me, though I did enjoy the final line in that one - why do the really bad movies have the best closing lines? I'm thinking of Moonraker and to a lesser extent The Spy Who Loved Me here...
I thought the new Q (John Cleese) was R. In the books, all I could find was a remark about "Q Branch", there's surely plenty of material on the actual character Q, but stupid ink-on-paper documents don't have a search function. :-P
The replacement for Q was jokingly called "R" in the movie in which he debuted. He was subsequently called "Q" in the next movie, so to me "Q" was essentially a title rather than a person's name.
Lemming: Oh, I didn't catch that that was what you were saying with your comment. (I thought you were intepreting my comment as a criticism of their doing that.) The review of the movie I read before seeing the movie also purposely mentioned that. Yeah, I guess you could consider it a bit of a spoiler, although because I found out before the movie, I wasn't thinking in those terms.
The e-mail with Justin's comment ended up arriving but a few hours later than he posted it. Of course, I also found out last night that the e-mail from Patty (from 11/14) about Sunday never arrived in my mailbox even though my e-mail address was very clearly on the recipient list, so now I'm wondering what other messages I might be missing (and I have been checking my spam folder to see if anything inadvertently shows up there). Very frustrating... I could be missing something important, and I hope that if/when I find out, it won't be too late.
Agreed that the last line in the movie with Christmas Jones was a great line, but they should have used a different actress or (probably better) changed the character a bit just to make her a little less ridiculous.
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