Casino Royale was touted as the relaunch to bring Bond back to his former glory. It has a grittier approach with a new face for Bond and a redefinition of the series. My short review of the film, it was crap, and it truly was a return to form. The same form that has been established with the preceding installments of the franchises films that lead to short box offices and hack attempts at continuing a legend. Before you buy the dvd on tuesday, consider this review when the inevitable double dip is right around the corner.
Bamf here rematerializing from the void..
The problem I have with Casino Royale is it has the new face, the Aston Martin and the Vodka Martini. But it never fully commits to being what it claims. A reboot to the character, an origin story without an origin. In an interview with Martin Campbell (director) he talked up the idea of watching Bond become the man we all knew. The lethal alcoholic whose misogynisim is only outdone by his sense of style. This is an exciting idea. In execution it fails. The film feels like it’s trying too hard to not be a Bond film. They tried to force emotion into him while maintaining his cold image and the two just do not work contemporaneously in this film. It fell flat like week old coke. Casion Royale lacks gadgets yet was full of Sony product placement which is a fine analogy for the movie discussed. A film built on a brand but really has no substance.
The score was a letdown as it was more a painted montage of past Bond music greatness. A couple movements screamed From Russia With Love, but to be fair, that’s my favorite Bond film. It feels like a third of this film is entirely credits. The opening montage has no women using the gun as a phallic device, but instead men being killed with Hoyle card symbols. The song by Cornell is horrible. Really. I could even look past this all until they actually show Bonds face as part of the montage not as a static figure but a moving image. His silhouette would have been just fine thank you, and ya, I know his name.
The poker scenes were so damn boring due to the fact that Bond isn’t a Poker player, he’s a Baccarat player. But put that aside its such a dumbed down paint by the numbers sh** fest it nearly had me asleep, literally. And I had napped earlier. The “river” scenes were so damn unimaginative, hurrmm, what can beat 3 kings when there’s an Ace on the board? Oh ya, three aces. Yawn. What wicked banality. I wish they had stuck with Baccarat because at least then I wouldn’t have known what was going on. And that game would have been far more interesting then trying to invoke the WPT. The pacing of Casino Royale was going fine until they actually arrived at Casino Royale. These scenes were like a rodeo clown stepping in front of the bull right before it hits the unaware cowboy. The clown stepped in front, pointed a loaded gun at it, and buried a hollow point from head to tail. From there you aren’t really sure where you’re going in the story because it just plays so slow, and the bull is dead on the ground. There are faster cuts in the beginning of the film then the end, a lot like Run Lola Run, but lets not bring up a good film or anything here.
Casino Royale tried to be different but in the end it came right back to the form that the past few Bond films have taken, mediocrity.
Perhaps I have grown out of the character. Maybe I’m a little jaded towards the franchise. I haven’t seen a Bond movie since Tomorrow Never Dies. I felt cheated that it wasn’t about time travel. When I first heard about The World Is Not Enough I thought, damn now there’s a title. Finally a villain who would rather destroy the world then have it. I sort of saw a pirated version on my friends’ computer when it was in theaters but I wouldn’t actually count it as a full viewing. I really lost interest when I heard the Bond girls name was Christmas. I just could not bare to hear a "Will Christmas come twice this year?" line. Ugg.
This leads me to what I did like about the film, besides Craig and the Astin Martin (although it was only a glorified med station, but Ill admit it does make sense). Casting a Bond girl you always have to go with an unknown. The biggest person in a Bond film should be Bond and never the piece he is pumping for information so to speak. So they did that right. And I genuinely want too see another Craig, Bond movie. This one has hints of the character I love but offers nothing of the emotions that On His Majesties Secret Service discovered.
What the Bond franchise needs is not just a fresh look at old material, but a fresh look at new material. Get this property in the right hands and make it explode off screen because the Bond name will only take this reviewer so far and continuing to make tripe like this only pushes the franchise back into its recent disingenuous form.
Bamf will return with his report from Wizard World LA