48 replies to this topic

[HildebrandRarity]

After all this discussion of reviews, the time is very near to some REAL and PROPPER reviews by PROFESSIONAL reviewers who actually have SEEN the final cut.

This is a spoilers section so it would be good to have a thread where all the legitimate reviews are collected.

I'll link them up when I see them.

Thanks to all in advance.

[Dr. Noah]

Through 11/12/06

PRO:

http://www.cbsnews.c...in2174639.shtml

http://www.sundaymir...-name_page.html

http://entertainment...2437429,00.html

http://arts.guardian...1943188,00.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk...06_review.shtml

http://www.hollywood...r...p?&rid=8223

http://www.variety.c...7...yid=31&cs=1

http://www.timesonli...2437998,00.html

http://www.dailymail...in_page_id=1924

http://www.viewlondo...eview_3064.html

http://www.screendai...y...8513&r=true

http://www.007.info/News79.asp

http://www.mirror.co...-name_page.html

http://www.shropshir...ook-at-new-007/

http://www.molodezhn...asinoroyale.htm

http://www.empireonl...e.asp?FID=10199

http://www.expressan...your-eyes-only/

http://www.mirror.co...-name_page.html

http://www.dailystar...il.html?sku=663

http://www.emanuelle...?articleID=3668

http://scotlandonsun...m?id=1672132006

http://www.edmontons...326847-sun.html

http://www.totalfilm...s/casino_royale

http://express.lineo...il.html?sku=661

http://www.007magazi...yale-review.htm

http://www.hippimple..._james_blo.html (Blog)

http://www.mansized.....phtml/377/504/

http://outnow.ch/Mov...d-CasinoRoyale/

http://www.cinemonia...sinoroyale.html

http://www.filmstart.....o Royale.html

http://www.sundayherald.com/58995

http://www.thestates...e...5&section=6

CON:

http://www.timesonli...01-2443353.html

http://observer.guar...1939830,00.html (Not the paper's actual critic -- see above)

http://www.kingyswor...d-mediocre.html (Blog) Likes Craig, but movie is mediocre

[HildebrandRarity]

A bit one sided, non?

LOL

Thanks for the links, Dr. Noah.

[dinovelvet]

I don't think we should really count blogs as critics, because there will be hundreds, if not thousands of them, and most of them will be lacking in basic grammar skills.

On another note, have ANY of these reviews stated that Daniel Craig is anything less than 'good' as Bond? Even the couple of negative reviews are in love with him, it seems.

[HildebrandRarity]

It looks like the 1st "con" review by "The Sunday Times/The Times" is balanced off by another of their reviewers (the 3rd under "pro") who gives it 4 out of 5 in her review a week earlier

Hedging their bets? Interesting. Why would The Times/The Sunday Times do that, I wonder.

Edited by HildebrandRarity, 12 November 2006 - 11:20 PM.

[Dr. Noah]

Time Magazine doesn't like it:

http://www.time.com/...1558307,00.html

The new model of the British secret agent is neither suave nor funny. But he has his charms

By RICHARD CORLISS

Posted Sunday, Nov. 12, 2006

The perfect figure rises from the sea--lubricated and lubricious, like Ursula Andress in the first James Bond movie, Dr. No--and the audience lets out a little gasp of sexual admiration, the voyeur's version of applause. But this body belongs to Daniel Craig, the new 007, and with his Sisyphus shoulders and pecs so well defined they could be in Webster's, it's no surprise that the camera lingers lovingly to investigate the topography of his splendidly buff torso. If Craig spends more time with his shirt off than all previous Bonds combined, it's to make the point that this secret agent is his own sex object. In any romance he has with a shady lady, he seems to be cheating on himself.

Body talk is relevant here, because it's the most obvious hint that Casino Royale means to be a very different Bond movie. The 21st in the official series produced by the Broccoli family (two others--a spoof called Casino Royale and a freelance Sean Connery opus, Never Say Never Again--were made outside the fold), this one tries to rejuvenate a 44-year-old franchise that was showing signs of tired blood and losing its appeal to the young-male action-film demographic. The writers--Bond veterans Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, along with the ubiquitous Paul Haggis--and director Martin Campbell wanted to go harder, faster, not to stir the formula but to give it a vigorous shake.

So, in the tradition of Batman Begins and the Star Wars pre-trilogy, they went back to square one and created a baby Bond. Casino Royale was Ian Fleming's first 007 novel, and Bond here is an agent on his first big case, a rough diamond who has not yet acquired his savoir faire or taste for the double entendre. The Craig Bond might know no French at all; he's not the suave, Oxbridgian 007 of legend but the strong, silent type, almost a thug for hire, and no smoother with a sardonic quip than John Kerry. Still, he fits one description Fleming gave of his hero: "[His face was] a taciturn mask, ironical, brutal and cold."

The brutality is on display in the first scene, which hews to the previous films' text by providing a daring exploit and a minor league kill before the stylized opening credits. This time, though, the fatal confrontation is shown in monochrome and takes place in a Saw-style bathroom. The killing is grimly realistic, as if to suggest that this Bond operates in the real world of real pain and has wounds that may never heal. A later scene, with a naked Bond getting his testicles whipped, inevitably calls up Abu Ghraib atrocities (and should have earned the film an R rating instead of the indulgent PG-13 it received). Bond can take punishment and dish it out, impersonally. When asked whether it bothers him to kill people, he replies, "I wouldn't be good at my job if it did." He's a killing machine--one of Q's most sophisticated gadgets.

Along with Brutal Bond, Casino Royale offers Hyper Bond, a character more muscular and kinetic than before. So is the movie. It's not easy to freshen up the elaborate action sequences that the franchise more or less invented and that have been imitated in hundreds of movies. But Casino Royale succeeds by taking a modern form of physical activity--parkour, the urban steeplechase in which participants run up stairwells, jump across roofs and slip through transoms that was showcased to exhilarating effect in the French film District B13--and applying it to Bond's pursuit of a bad guy (parkour star S

[JCRendle]

The Guardian was the same, both pro and con

[HildebrandRarity]

So of all the professional outlets even the two which had negative reviews decided to even it up with a positive review each. Very Interesting.

[JCRendle]

(Thanks for LotusEsprit at the MI6 forums for translating)

An Austrian review@

A review from an Austrian newspaper with the creative name: "

[dinovelvet]

Time Magazine doesn't like it:

http://www.time.com/...1558307,00.html

Some fair points in this review, although I think they're going a bit overboard with the Abu Gharib comparisons. And how is the bathroom "Saw" style? I think that's a bit desperate.

[Dr. Noah]

Time Magazine doesn't like it:

http://www.time.com/...1558307,00.html

Some fair points in this review, although I think they're going a bit overboard with the Abu Gharib comparisons. And how is the bathroom "Saw" style? I think that's a bit desperate.

Corliss isn't a big Bond fan. He didn't even review the Brosnan films when they came out, and he gives the Ultimate DVD collections -- The Man with the Golden Gun / Goldfinger / The World Is Not Enough / Diamonds Are Forever / The Living Daylights / A View to a Kill / Thunderball / Die Another Day / The Spy Who Loved Me / and License to Kill -- a combined rating of 65 out of 100.

http://nsfc.zap2it.c...?...00&ts=11633

The fact he wrote about CR at all after 20 other Bond films is amazing. Small consolation that it is...

[Dr. Noah]

Here are two previous Corliss reviews about rebooted Bonds:

10 Feb 1970
On Her Majesty's Secret Service is an almost weightless adventure movie that lodges in the memory, and the stomach, because of its spectacularly exciting action sequences which should promptly be stored in the Museum of Modern Art's Film Archives as textbook examples of creating thrills and tension through editing. The five or six punchups, chases, and escapes in Secret Service are more than adequate recompense for the puny small talk and lethargic exposition of the new James Bond movie.

The extra fun in Secret Service comes from acquiring a taste for George Lazenby, Sean Connery's successor as 007. Lazenby lacks Connery's sexual authority, sophistication, and sense of danger - he seems too young, or perhaps too immature for the part - but it is just this vulnerability, this look of being exhausted after a bone-breaking fight, that makes Lazenby work as the vulnerable, love-prone Bond that Ian Fleming created for this installment of the series, and makes the pathetic d

[JCRendle]

So, are they saying the films good but it was hurt because it stuck to the book?

[Harmsway]

Time Magazine doesn't like it:

http://www.time.com/...1558307,00.html

I find this somewhat unfortunate. I love Richard Corliss as a critic, so his opinion carries more weight with me than most. But I can't really back up a lot of the principles behind his assertions.

The new model of the British secret agent is neither suave nor funny.

Really? He was funny and suave in the clips I've seen.

Still, he fits one description Fleming gave of his hero: "[His face was] a taciturn mask, ironical, brutal and cold."

At least Corliss knows some Fleming.

Unfortunately, Casino Royale has to stick to the Fleming plot; it must also be Basic Bond.

So it's a bad thing to be... well, a Bond movie? And faithful to Fleming? Okay... it certainly isn't an issue for me.

[JCRendle]

Couple of minor spoilers

http://news.bbc.co.u...ent/6136276.stm

Bond is back - and this time he's more gritty than pretty. Even from the first few seconds of Casino Royale it's clear how things have changed.

For a start it begins in black and white. There's Bond in the shadows, ready for the kill. It's moody film noir stuff, and it instantly establishes Daniel Craig as a tough cookie.

Director Martin Campbell, who so successfully re-invented Bond with the introduction of Pierce Brosnan in 1995's GoldenEye, pulls off the same trick here. With the new Bond comes a new feel to the franchise.

Gone are the gratuitous gadgets and one-liners, along with Moneypenny and pantomime megalomaniacs. Casino Royale feels like something of a homecoming - a return to the spirit of the Fleming novels.

Of course, there are action scenes aplenty in far-flung locations - Madagascar, Miami and Montenegro to name just three. The Bond girls are as stunning as ever, and there's a bad guy with a dodgy eye.


There is obvious chemistry between Daniel Craig and Eva Green

The revelation here is Bond himself. Daniel Craig is an immensely physical 007. At times he's like MI6's answer to The Terminator - crashing through walls and leaping from buildings with superhuman strength.

During one scrape he pulls out a large nail that's embedded in his shoulder and tosses it nonchalantly aside.

But he bleeds too. Craig spends much of this film a bloodied and bruised mess. It really is hard to imagine any of the previous Bonds being quite this muscular and, well, hard.

M (Judi Dench) says to Bond after the murder of a recent sexual conquest: "I would ask you to remain emotionally detached, but that's not your problem, is it Bond?"

The first hour of the film is full-on action, including an exhilarating chase sequence across a building site and an explosive episode at Miami airport.


Mads Mikkelsen's baddie is ice cool

The pace changes when Bond meets the Treasury's Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) ahead of a high stakes poker game against international money launderer Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen).

The chemistry between Craig and Green is evident, and director Campbell makes a good attempt at giving their relationship some depth.

In one notable scene, Vesper attempts to purge herself under a hotel shower after she witnesses Bond kill a henchman. Like Lady Macbeth, she imagines blood on her hands.

Bond joins her under the spray - both of them still clothed - and sucks her fingers. It's a curious scene for a Bond film, but it works.

The casino scenes are genuinely tense, with plenty of incident both on and away from the poker table. Le Chiffre has more to lose than Bond. He's blown someone else's millions and he has to win them back.


Daniel Craig has worked hard on his physique

Mikkelsen's villain is refreshingly low-key. The infamous torture scene with Bond and the cut-out chair is all the more chilling thanks to Le Chiffre's ice-cold demeanour.

The Venice finale is not the film's strongest act. Amid the predictable mayhem it's Bond's love for Vesper that is the real focus. Loose ends are not neatly tied up - mysteries remain - we are left wanting more.

So there we have it. Daniel Craig has squeezed his pecs into 007's tuxedo and it matters not one jot that he's blond.

The anti-Craig lobbyists - if they still exist - should be reaching for their recipe books. It's time to eat humble pie.

[stone cold]

http://www.belfastte...sp?story=714268

cool.. well written, slightly messy, but fascinating article .. completely in awe of DC.. this is great stuff.

Edited by stone cold, 13 November 2006 - 04:54 PM.

[Dr. Noah]

Rolling Stone ***1/2

http://www.rollingst.../12450444/cas...
There's one whopper of a reason why Casino Royale is the hippest,
highest-octane Bond film in ages, and his name is Daniel Craig. This
rugged, jug-eared Brit, whose irregular features improbably radiate a
megawatt star charisma, gets the last laugh on the Internet buzz
killers who've been ragging on him at craignotbond.com for being blond
and blue-eyed and too short (five-eleven) for Bond duty. Not only is
Craig, 38, the best Bond since Sean Connery, he's the first of the
Bonds (great Scot Connery, one-shot George Lazenby, charmer Roger
Moore, stuff-shirt Timothy Dalton and smoothie Pierce Brosnan) to lose
the condescension and take the role seriously.

Craig reinvigorates a fagged-out franchise that's been laying on bigger
stunts and sillier gadgets to disguise the fact that it's run out of
ideas. And he does it with an actor's skill, an athlete's grace and a
dangerous glint that puts you on notice that Bond, James Bond, is back
in business.

Sad to say, Casino Royale is also weighed down by
action-business-as-usual. Craig's a live wire, closer to the blunt
instrument Ian Fleming imagined when he created the character in 1953,
but he can't mess too much with the winning formula begun with 1962's
Dr. No. Bond producer Albert "Cubby" Broccoli, who died in 1996, left
the golden goose in the care of his daughter Barbara Broccoli and his
stepson Michael Wilson, who fully grasp that the four stunt-loaded Bond
flicks with Brosnan are the most lucrative in the twenty-film series
and that they can't spend $150 million to produce a 007 art film.

Still, the producers deserve credit for busting Bond at least partly
out of the box. The film opens promisingly with a scene - strikingly
shot in black-and-white - that sets up Bond as an MI6 agent who may be
too much of a hothead to earn double-0 status and a license to kill.
Then come the familiar credits, and the typical song ("You Know My
Name," by Chris Cornell), followed by a full-bore, full-color foot
chase across rooftops in Africa. Though efficiently directed by
GoldenEye's Martin Campbell, the chase stalls the movie and, worse,
delays getting us up close and personal with Craig. Seeing him run and
sweat isn't half as much fun as seeing him act.

After that, everything gets better. Casino Royale, heavier on character
than action, was the first book in Fleming's Bond series, making it the
ideal place to start the wheel spinning anew. That's right, Casino
Royale acts like the other Bond movies never existed. We're back at
square one, only the time is now, the fantasy is limited and the story
is anchored in reality. Q, with his gadgets and invisible cars, is
nowhere to be seen. The tone is set when Bond orders a martini. "Shaken
or stirred?" asks the bartender. Craig delivers the answer straight-up
and bone-dry: "Do I look like I give a damn?"

And we're off, with even the stock elements getting a fresh twist. Take
the villain: He's Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), a banker who launders
money for terrorists. It's a bit of a Dr. Evil parody that Le Chiffre
cries tears of blood, but Mikkelsen, a star in his native Denmark,
gives off a genuine eww vibe, especially when he tortures Bond with a
testicle squeeze and pauses to leer at his naked body. Hero and villain
go at it most excitingly over a poker table at Montenegro's Casino
Royale, where a test of character, not strength, will determine the
eventual winner.

What about the Bond girls? The gorgeous Caterina Murino sizzles as
Solange, a babe he takes back to his hotel room for a roll on the floor
that causes serious rug burns. But it's Eva Green as Vesper Lynd, a
British treasury operative sent to stake Bond at the poker tables, who
lifts her role to class-act status. Oscar winner Paul Haggis (Crash)
contributes sly dialogue to a script that goes far beyond
kiss-kiss/bang-bang. A scene in which Bond and Vesper attempt to guess
each other's past histories trumps its comic zing with romantic
gravity.

It also helps that Craig is mixing it up with a first-rate cast,
including Jeffrey Wright as CIA agent Felix Leiter, Giancarlo Giannini
as MI6 contact Mathis, and most especially Judi Dench, back in the game
as M, Bond's boss. Dame Judi put her power on hold in the lightweight
Brosnan films, but with Craig she comes out blazing, knowing she's
found an actor who can give as good as he gets.

As the plot globe-trots from Prague, London, Miami and the Bahamas to
an overblown climax in the canals of Venice, Casino Royale uncovers
something unique in the 007 dossier: an unformed secret-agent man,
lacking polish, vulnerable to violence and helplessly lost in love.
Craig gives us James Bond in the fascinating act of inventing himself.
This you do not want to miss.

PETER TRAVERS
(Posted: Nov 13, 2006)

[MarcAngeDraco]

http://www.belfastte...sp?story=714268

cool.. well written, slightly messy, but fascinating article .. completely in awe of DC.. this is great stuff.

Thanks for that one, it's an interesting read...

[stamper]

Richard Corliss is the same guy that said Titanic was "dead in the water" and would not recoup it's expensive budget. I am amazed he is still allowed to write. There shall be a jail for hacks like him LOL

[EyesOnly]

Real nice review from Aint it cool news!


Hola all. Massawyrm here.

Bond is back, baby. Boy howdy is he back. And he

[JCRendle]

Richard Corliss is the same guy that said Titanic was "dead in the water" and would not recoup it's expensive budget. I am amazed he is still allowed to write. There shall be a jail for hacks like him LOL

Just because it made money, doesn't mean it was a good film

[kneelbeforezod]

Ok, I've heard enougb of this. It's not hype. I don't need to lower my expectations. This film is going to ing rock.

[K1Bond007]

http://www.aintitcoo...__casino_royale

Another AICN one. Full of praise. Hopefully not a repost.

[kneelbeforezod]

Hopefully not a repost.

Afraid so... just 3 posts above yours

[JCRendle]

Review: Craig shines in 'Casino Royale'
DAVID GERMAIN
Associated Press
It would have been enough just inserting a fresh face, Daniel Craig, as 007 in "Casino Royale" to give a whole new look and feel to the James Bond franchise. Yet taking the world's greatest spy back to his roots as a raw, impressionable brute whose cockiness at times fails him and who can lose his heart to a woman was a keen stroke of intelligence.

"Casino Royale" may weigh in a bit lighter than many of the 20 preceding Bond flicks on explosions, gunplay, fisticuffs and other action. What it does have in those regards is riveting, clever and well-choreographed, yet the appeal this time lays much heavier on Bond as a person, on his development as one of cinema's deadliest killers and most heartless womanizers.

Craig plays Bond at a crossroads, which could lead him deeper down the loner's path of international intrigue or into a more conventional, happier, companionable life.

He stacks up well against his five Bond predecessors. Craig's no Sean Connery (who is?) but he delivers one of the finest performances ever in a 007 flick, rich with a range of feeling we generally don't see in the emotionally stunted Bond.

Directed by Martin Campbell - who also made "GoldenEye," Pierce Brosnan's first time out as Bond - "Casino Royale" is based on the first of Ian Fleming's novels about the British agent.

The 1950s story is updated from the Cold War era to modern times by veteran Bond screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade ("Die Another Day," "The World Is Not Enough") and Paul Haggis, who no doubt contributed much of the foreboding drama to the action (Haggis co-wrote and directed the 2005 best-picture Academy Award winner "Crash" and wrote the screenplay for 2004 Oscar champ "Million Dollar Baby").

Freshly bumped up to "Double-Oh," license-to-kill status, young Bond already is his own man, alternately impressing and infuriating spymaster M (Judi Dench, making a welcome return from the Brosnan era and bringing her usual wondrous imperiousness to the role).

Bond is assigned to play in a high-stakes poker match in Italy orchestrated by Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), a financier of global terrorism who needs to win the $100-million-plus stake to pay back clients' money he squandered on an investment.

That Bond was the reason his investment went sour makes it all the more poetic, as the card game and its ramifications will have such a huge impact on Bond's destiny.

A Treasury official - beautiful, of course - is assigned to keep tabs on Bond's gambling stake and make sure he's playing prudently with the Crown's chips. Eva Green's Vesper Lynd is everything most Bond girls are not - smart, sarcastic, willful and fiercely independent enough not to give in to Bond's charms.

And she's no sex kitten. Green looks glorious in her various gowns, but she doesn't prance around in a bikini or topple into bed with Bond by way of saying hello.

Vesper is James' equal in so many ways - not a fighter but a thinker, able to do a magnificently witty dissection of 007's character and accept with grace his own playfully insightful critique of her.

There's almost a "Thin Man" quality to their banter. You can imagine William Powell and Myrna Loy's Nick and Nora Charles started out cutely bickering this way before they became such suave lovebirds.

Unlike past Bond films, where our hero's most important relationship is with the villain he's trying to take down, it's the love story that really matters here. "Casino Royale" plays out like a grand, doomed romantic epic in which James' callous nature is cemented in place by the outcome of his attachment to Vesper.

The groundwork for so many of the Bond trappings is deftly laid here. This James Bond doesn't care whether his martinis are shaken or stirred. He's surprised at what a difference a finely tailored tux makes when he looks in the mirror. By chance, a classic Aston-Martin comes his way, and it's easy to see why it becomes Bond's automobile of choice.

We also see his first encounter with his CIA cousin, Felix Leiter, played by the always sly Jeffrey Wright, who's underutilized here but hopefully will return in an expanded role in future Bond adventures.

Giancarlo Giannini adds fine continental charm as an Italian operative who's Bond's local contact.

When Craig was cast, much was made of his look - the first blond Bond. The weight and grandeur Craig brings to the role shows that superficial looks do not a Bond make. Craig has the spirit of the character, rascally yet dark, blithe yet brutish, amorous yet lethal.

In a climactic showdown with Le Chiffre, Craig's Bond is arguably more vulnerable both physically and emotionally than we've ever seen 007 (though the tragic end of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service," George Lazenby's sole, unpropitious turn as Bond, comes close).

And at this moment, when he could be broken for good and left a wispy shadow who never would have become a golden boy of British intelligence, Bond's cheeky humor and unbendable pigheadedness assert themselves, a terrific foundation for the adventures to come.

It's a formative moment in a movie full of formative moments that spell an ominous but productive future for Bond, and a brilliant and even more productive future for Craig as Bond.

"Casino Royale," released by Sony's Columbia Pictures unit, is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violent action, a scene of torture, sexual content and nudity. Running time: 144 minutes. Three and a half stars out of four.

[K1Bond007]

Oh.. well some people need to start reading

..and some need to start linking back to the sites (this is really why I missed it). I also hate to be the one to say it and I might as well here, but we probably shouldn't be copying and pasting those reviews in their entirety here. That's a copyright infringement folks. They put them up on their site so you actually visit them and thus see their ads so they get revenue. How would CommanderBond.net feel if someone out there copied and pasted all their articles to their site or forum (optioning on more than one occasion to not link back). Just saying.

[JCRendle]

Hmm, maybe I should stop. Anyway, I usually link to sources - but that ones Associated Press, so it's in many papers/links

[Mister Asterix]

We’ve just added a new feature to CBn for posting reviews – After Action Reports.

[EyesOnly]

Oh.. well some people need to start reading

..and some need to start linking back to the sites (this is really why I missed it). I also hate to be the one to say it and I might as well here, but we probably shouldn't be copying and pasting those reviews in their entirety here. That's a copyright infringement folks. They put them up on their site so you actually visit them and thus see their ads so they get revenue. How would CommanderBond.net feel if someone out there copied and pasted all their articles to their site or forum (optioning on more than one occasion to not link back). Just saying.


You're right, K1bond007, I will post the link next time..I got so excited and just did a copy and paste job! My bad!!

[K1Bond007]

Hmm, maybe I should stop. Anyway, I usually link to sources - but that ones Associated Press, so it's in many papers/links

Well, I hope that means you don't stop listing them because I've read some ones that I probably wouldn't have if not for your posts. Just post a link and quote a small blurb from it like Rotten Tomatoes to wet our appetites.