Well, Casino Royale is a pretty good movie. Some quick notes:
- The stunts and physicality of the movie is astonishing. This is a much more muscular Bond movie, both figuratively and literally.
- It’s also a darker and significantly more violent movie than previous Bonds. I’m kinda surprised that it’s still PG-13.
- Speaking of physicality, when was the last time that a Bond had biceps?
- The movie sags a bit in the middle over a very high-stakes poker game. And while I’m not really a very good poker player (these two are far better than I, to name two), the poker playing in the high-stakes hands that we see isn’t really very good.
- Eva Green will have a great career ahead of her, if she can avoid the curse of the Bond Girl.
- No freaking sharks with freaking laserbeams; when the bad guy captures Bond, all he needs is a rattan chair with the seat cut out and a heavy rope.
- The body count is pretty darn high.
- At least one reader of this blog will be tickled to know that at one point, Bond orders a drink made of Gin, Vodka, Lillet, and a lemon twist, and then spends some time pondering what to name it.
Overall, though, it’s a very refreshing change-up in the series. I look forward to the next one.
I will check this out at some point. It sounds like the Bond of the novels rather than the silliness of most of the movies.
Eva Green was excellent in The Dreamers.
Word. I loved it. I do think that Timothy Dalton has been unjustly forgotten for trying to move Bond in this direction - he's a literate sort, and actually read the books before doing the character, I reckon; and I liked his violent 007, who ran easily from charming to ruthless and was often enraged. But what's past is past.
This new one is terrific, and the opening animation is a delight all its own - I wanted to applaud it, frankly.