Not Quite A Flush, But Not A 52 Pick Up Either.
Written: Nov 18 '06
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Occasionally, fitfully fresh and invigorating. Director Martin Campbell really wakes up during action scenes.
Cons: Director Martin Campbell doesn't wake up quite so much during the romantic interest scenes.
The Bottom Line: Perhaps with the spirit of reinvigoration going on, next time the producers will give us a leaner, trimmer less predictable Bond film to go with it.
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| pach1908's Full Review: Casino Royale |
The James Bond of "Casino Royale", a fresh reimagining and updating of our favorite British MI-5 superspook, strains a bit in the being in love and heartbroken department. The second act doesn't drag per se, but compared to the knock-out post-credit footchase through a construction zone, and the flat out brilliant opening which shows how Bond attained double-oh status, it lags too long and allows the viewer to play "catch up and guess" when it comes to key plot twists.
Casino Royale stars Daniel Craig (Layer Cake, Munich) in his Bond freshman effort, and he looks to be a long-haul stunner. Call me old or old fashioned, but I can remember when people on these shores wanted Steve McQueen to play Bond or a James Bond-type character. Craig, in both look and demeanor, has McQueen down pat (check out Layer Cake if you want to seal the deal, where he nails the seething sexual hair trigger danger McQueen had all around him).
Royale's plot centers around the mysterious stock market fortunes and losses of the airline industry immediately post 9/11. Why did many suffer huge losses while one major character and his company do quite well? Our wealthy villainous businessman plans to compensate for a recent severe loss at the card table where he sits opposite Bond and CIA agent Felix Leiter who both aim to separate him from his money. There's enough bluff, chicanery, and action to compensate for watching people play cards. Normally such scenes and shows are about as exciting as watching people parallel park. Here it's still parallel parking, but with the occasional shooting and attempted murder
The plot takes us from the Czech republic to North Africa to the titular Caribbean resort as we also follow along to watch our man Bond James Bond (I call him "B.J") acquire the habits so closely associated with him and the franchise.
As much as Casino Royale's been touted as a reimagining of the Bond character and the film series, the producers want their cake and have it too in some aspects, notably the women where it still seems the series can't quite shake the "either pure virgin or devious sexual siren" stigma it's been saddled with since Ursula Andress first came ashore. "Besides, I'm not that cruel," one says, to which Bond replies "Maybe you're just out of practice." Eva Green, who was stunning in Bernardo Bertolucci's "The Dreamers", strikes up an effortless chemistry with Craig, so much so that it seemed for a while the producers truly were going to live up to their word in all aspects.
But the sheer bloat of the third act helped give away the game. Instead of twists and action coming at us at a steady pace, never allowing long enough for the senses to settle down to start processing the story (as in the best Bond fare), slightly tedious scenes of romance allow one to begin to think of, oh, the nature of female characters in Bond films coupled with "why are the filmmakers giving us five or six endings instead of really finishing?"
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
pach1908
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Member: michael pacholski
Location: Decatur Illinois
Reviews written: 588
Trusted by: 62 members
About Me:
My reviewing philosophy: Name names. Then wear them on your sleeve.
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