Casino Royale - Best 007 movie in years [some spoilers]

[Cthulhudrew]

It's worth noting that Desmond Llewellyn (the actor who played Q for so many years) passed away last year. Adding a new Q might have seemed odd.

Desmond Llewellyn passed away a lot longer ago than that. He died in a car crash in December of 1999.

(Wow- can't believe it's been that long.)

Also, I don't believe Q showed up in the novels until the second or third one, when he and M give 007 his Walther PPK. (Pretty sure it's the third, because it takes place, IIRC in From Russia With Love). So the absence of Q in Casino Royale is pretty well in keeping with the novel, which was more or less straightforwardly adapted here (as opposed to other novel/movie adaptations, like Live and Let Die and Moonraker.)

 

[Piratecat]

Man, I can't believe it's been that long -- and I totally forgot about Cleese. Which, I suppose, is as good a reason as any for me not to miss him in the role.

 

[horacethegrey]

Well, despite being a big fan of Cleese and anything Monty Python in general, I'm very glad they didn't bring him back as Q. Because, as I see it, when you make a serious spy film, casting a guy known for doing silly walks as a tech expert is a surefire sign that the audience will not take you seriously.

 

[Michael Dean]

Seriously, though, I have mixed feelings about Casino Royale. It was a barely mediocre Bond movie, but a pretty good generic spy movie.

Lots of problems for my particular taste, though. The plot was overly convoluted (starting about halfway through) and there were too many parts that just dragged. I found the whole casino sequence to be twice as long as it should have been, and then again with the hospital/beach scene to be horrendously dreary as well.

Well, you'd probably want to take that up with Ian Fleming, since the casino sequence and the torture/hospital recovery are two scenes that are more faithful to the book.

Different strokes, I guess, because I thought that the Brosnan movies were pretty tedious and convoluted in the plot department. I thought it was refreshing that they scaled down the bad guys in the new movie. Ever since the Austin Powers movies, I've had a hard time not giggling at subsequent Bond movies. Mike Meyers did the silly Bond stuff better than Bond did.

I'm a late comer to the Bond books by Fleming, and the earlier movies suffer more for the comparison, because I think the book Bond is a far more interesting and complicated character than the cartoons from the earlier movies. I definitely think the Bourne comparison is unfair because Fleming wrote Bond as a more gritty character. So I was thrilled to see that the new Bond was designed to be more like he is in the books.

 

[Morrus]

I enjoyed the movie immensely.

I like Bourne. I like Bond. I don't want Bond to be Bourne. Bourne is Bourne. I want Bond to be Bond.

Which, to me, keeps all the Bond things (girls, gadgets, exotic locations, cars) but tones down the campyness.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Well, despite being a big fan of Cleese and anything Monty Python in general, I'm very glad they didn't bring him back as Q. Because, as I see it, when you make a serious spy film, casting a guy known for doing silly walks as a tech expert is a surefire sign that the audience will not take you seriously.

You do know that Cleese personally hates that sketch? On the other hand his favorite MP sketch (if I recall correctly) is Dead Parrot, perhaps not much of an improvement.

The Auld Grump, who would have liked seeing John Cleese as Dr. Who....

 

[horacethegrey]

You do know that Cleese personally hates that sketch? On the other hand his favorite MP sketch (if I recall correctly) is Dead Parrot, perhaps not much of an improvement.

Yeah, I do remember him saying that in some article. However, it doesn't change the fact that that sketch, the dead parrot and many other bits of Python silliness are what he's primarily known for. Which is precisely why he shouldn't return as Q in this new series of Bond films, as his presence alone is enough to invite snickers from a movie audience.

The Auld Grump, who would have liked seeing John Cleese as Dr. Who....

Okay... now that's taking it too far.

 

[glass]

Well, you'd probably want to take that up with Ian Fleming, since the casino sequence and the torture/hospital recovery are two scenes that are more faithful to the book.

Did they play Texas Hold'em in the book? I would have guessed it'd be something like Baccarat.


glass.

 

[Michael Dean]

Did they play Texas Hold'em in the book? I would have guessed it'd be something like Baccarat.


glass.

Yeah, it was baccarat. I was a little disappointed that it was a poker game. Baccarat is a pretty simple game but I'm sure with the poker craze in recent years it was to be expected they would change that. By my original comment, I meant that the casino play with Le Chiffre was a huge chunk of the book, not that they were playing the same game. Sorry if I was unclear.

 

[buzzard]

As I understand it (and I must admit I haven't actually read any of the novels), SMERSH was the organisation from all the novels, and was just soviet intelligence. SPECTRE was created for the films to replace SMERSH, for whatever reason.

Can anyone confirm or deny this?

EDIT: According to Wikipedia, SPECTRE did appear in the nevels but not until later.


glass.

Part of the confusion probably comes from the fact that the novel order and the movie order aren't at all close. For example Dr. No, while the first movie, was well along in the book series. The Jamaican assistant in it, Quarrel, gets whacked. However he's also present in Live and Let Die, a novel which comes before Dr. No, in which he helps out Bond and that's where they get to know each other.

I just saw Casino Royale yesterday, and found it to be a very good film. It's a fine Bond film in the tradition of From Russia With Love (which I consider to be the best Connery Bond flick).

I've read more than half the Ian Fleming Bond novels, and will have to say this movie did a good job of capturing the Fleming Bond. The comic book Bond is not something I'll miss. I enjoyed the superhero gizmo laden Bond back when I was a kid, but it got tedious. All the efforts to one up all the previous films had driven the franchise into heights of lunacy.

About the only thing I am sorry about in the franchise is that Brosnan never had a chance to do a really good Bond movie like this one.

As for continuing the franchise, I concur with the suggestion that the Moore movies get re-done. For that matter even some of the Connery ones could be re-done. At a fairly early point in the series there came to be a massive divergence in plots between the books and the movies. They could easily many of the books into movies, and it would be fresh and new.

buzzard