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

[glass]

This is my favorite part (rumored, hopefully it's true):

-undisguised spoiler snipped-

That's just mean. I hope Insight has seen the film before he comes back to this thread.

EDIT: That said, it was the first of many unmasked spoilers. Maybe the thread title should reflect that.

EDIT 2: Ah, done, thank you.


glass.

 

[glass]

I thought it would be that or else SMERSH, which was the organization from the novel Casino Royale

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.

 

[glass]

About Casino Royale

I saw it yesterday, and I thought it was brilliant.

But then, my favourites were The Living Daylights and OHMSS, so that probably isn't idicative of anything in particular.


glass.

 

[Arnwyn]

Just saw it. Wow... it's George Lazenby all over again.

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. Other problems I had was that if this was meant to be a "re-start", then the casting of Judi Dench as "M" was a poor idea (and I love Judi Dench - and she was great, with a good amount of screen time in this movie. Mixed...feelings...killing...me). But really - if you're going to have a re-start, then have a damn re-start. Finally, the idea that removing the "gadgets" to make it more "realistic" was somewhat... misguided. It was not realistic in any way, shape, or form (nor am I expecting that from any spy movie, much less a James Bond movie). Needless to say, if "realism" was their motiviation, it failed miserably.

This was no Bond movie IMO, but a reasonable facsimile thereof. It definitely was a pretty good generic spy movie. They had all the great standard spy movie tropes: Ritzy train at night? Check. Goofy slide-out car gadget? Check. Car chase? Check. One-liners? Check.

A lot of the dialogue was really great, IMO (my favorite: "That last hand nearly killed me." Heh). I also found the cinematography to be among the best out of any Bond movie, by far. That whole parkour sequence at the beginning had great wide-open camera shots with long-running takes (no herky-jerky cutaways and shaky-cam nonsense). Further, I found the music in this one to be excellent (and it's rare I notice music in a Bond movie). No surprise though - it was composed by David Arnold (Stargate, among other things).

 

[Joshua Randall]

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.

I've waited the whole thread for someone to say this, so that I can say, "me too." So there.

 

[glass]

Continuity

comic book villains bent on world domination also take a backseat, replaced by an adversary whose existence and goals are far more believable.

I dunno. (minor spoiler)

Spoiler

Weeping blood from your tearducts

is somewhat cartoon-villainish. This film is definitely more serious than some, but I don't think it is over serious.

One thing I want to know about Casino Royale: since they're using the same 'M', are we to assume that "James Bond" is just the name assigned to the current 007, and that we're essentially in the same continuity, or should we forget that which has gone before?

I always thought of Bond films as really being continuities of one. IOW, stand alone movies that borrowed names and ideas from previous incarnations but not much else. There really isn't any way to explain how all the various Bonds had a shared history (the various references to his marriage, for example) but changed his appearance every few years, and was about the same mean age for 40 years (with fluctuations in both directions). Plastic surgery is a possibility, but even that doesn't explain the changes in overall body shape/size.

Pft. He’s a Time Lord and doesn’t know it 'cause he lost his memory – he just keeps regenerating.

This would explain the differences in body shape, but even regeneration can't explain why Bond looked like Brosnan in the flashback at the beginning of Goldeneye rather than Dalton.

I think calling this a reboot, moreso than previous movies have each been, implies that going forward there will be more continuity between movies. There will certainly be more between Casino Royale and the next film, as DC is already on record saying it is a second part of the same story. I wonder if that will continue.


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[horacethegrey]

I dunno. (minor spoiler)

Spoiler

Weeping blood from your tearducts

is somewhat cartoon-villainish. This film is definitely more serios than some, but I don't think it is over serious.

glass.

Well, the weeping blood thing for me was inconsiquential. What made Le Chiffre such a believable villain was that he wasn't some cartoonish despot with some grand global scheme. No, he was merely a player in the spy games of Bond's world who was out to make a quick buck. The fact that he's pretty low on the bad guy food chain (as evidenced by the scene when he and his girl are threatened by those African thugs), makes him expendable and thus makes him much more desperate. He, like Bond, is not above the whole scheme of things, which suits me just fine.

 

[Nuclear Platypus]

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?


glass.

Yes, SMERSH is a fictional version supposedly based on the real SMERSH. I've heard / read somewhere (probably wikipedia) that so as not to risk the Cold War getting hotter, they changed Bond's nemesis to SPECTRE, since they wanted to be the third superpower.

Virtually all of Bond's villains were from SPECTRE (up to Timothy Dalton era), headed by Ernst Stavro Blofeld (aka Dr Evil's real dad).

 

[Morrus]

I always just looked at it that there were a lot of guys who took the name "James Bond" upon entering the service, and I personally doubt that the British government has "dark hair" as a job requirement.

No more so than Batman, Superman, Buffy, Robin Hood, King Arthur, Julius Caesar, Henry VIII and numerous other characters who have been played by different actors over the years.

 

[Pants]

Finally, the idea that removing the "gadgets" to make it more "realistic" was somewhat... misguided. It was not realistic in any way, shape, or form (nor am I expecting that from any spy movie, much less a James Bond movie). Needless to say, if "realism" was their motiviation, it failed miserably.

I don't think 'realism' was the goal, more like removing the 'silliness' that was often inherent in the gadgetry. I mean, the opening chase scene should establish that this is not a very realistic movie.

Virtually all of Bond's villains were from SPECTRE (up to Timothy Dalton era), headed by Ernst Stavro Blofeld (aka Dr Evil's real dad).

I thought SPECTRE was cut out right before Roger Moore took over.