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Casino Royale Press Screening Reviews - 3 Nov, 2006


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#151 stamper

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Posted 04 November 2006 - 10:13 PM

Could this be a problem for the general audience, though?


"I met general audiences, and they are [censored]" Sid Vicious 1977

#152 Fro

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Posted 04 November 2006 - 10:38 PM

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

But without giving too much away; this film is a belter and Daniel Craig is rightly being tipped as the best Bond since Sean Connery.


Boy did we lap up the return of the phenomenally successful 44-year-old franchise complete with its sexy MI6 British Secret Service agent, twists and turns, vodka martinis, Aston Martins, English wit and charm, gadgets, explosions, action, glamour, beauty and romance.


Sounds like a lot of the smaller papers are under NDAs until next week.

#153 tdalton

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Posted 04 November 2006 - 11:28 PM

It's great to hear all of these positive reviews, and I'm very happy for Craig to be getting all of these great reviews after all the criticism that he's faced.

#154 JCRendle

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Posted 05 November 2006 - 12:37 AM

Different review in Sunday Times

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

THEY said he was too ugly, too chunky and too blond to play the sixth James Bond. Bookmakers took bets that the actor known as

#155 triviachamp

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Posted 05 November 2006 - 12:57 AM

Resents his mysterious benefactor? Hmmm....

#156 JCRendle

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Posted 05 November 2006 - 01:39 AM

http://observer.guar...1939830,00.html

You might be shaken, but this Bond won't leave you stirred

Tim Adams is a lifelong aficionado of 007 movies. Last Friday he was one of the first critics to see the superspy's latest incarnation. This is his verdict

Sunday November 5, 2006
The Observer


Give or take the odd Octopussy, I suppose, like all of us, I've pretty much seen them all. My first, memorably - you never forget your first - was a rerun of Thunderball at a Gaumont in Birmingham, which in my memory was in the process of being demolished. I'd have been eight, and the most dramatic big screen extravanganza I'd seen previously was Swiss Family Robinson, so Bond came with something of the force of revelation; I went home to re-enact Sean Connery's underwater fight with Largo's men with a single rubber-suited Action Man in the bath.
My first on its proper release, not long after, was The Man with The Golden Gun, complete with Lulu's soundtrack. I had nightmares for a while about Christopher Lee's Scaramanga, and recall trying to join in with playground discussions about the voluptuous merits of Britt Eklund's Mary Goodnight in relation to Pussy Galore, a name whose reference was possibly still beyond me. I was, in any case, hooked, for a long time secretly thinking Roger Moore was the best Bond, a fact which would have dismayed my Dad who properly held out for the more spartan virtues of Sean Connery, and my Mum, who would sometimes make an impassioned, slightly flushed argument for the missed opportunity that was George Lazenby.

Anyhow, with some of this in mind, I went along to the Odeon Leicester Square on Friday night for the first screening of the new Bond, the Daniel Craig Bond. Most of the other balding, paunchy one-timeschoolboys in the queue seemed to have a similar not quite cynical sense of expectation. There'd be chases, and gadgets and gags - the last Bond line I'd heard in the cinema, was also one of the best: Pierce Brosnan, on the Bosphorus with Dr Christmas Jones at the end of The World is not Enough: 'I've always wanted to have Christmas in Turkey.'

Hopes were high. If nothing else, there would be John Barry's theme, which, as I joined the line to have my mobile phone confiscated - an emasculation I could never imagine 007 submitting to - was already dun-de-dunning in my head. The word before this screening was that Daniel Craig's Bond would be a purist's Bond, dirtier and grittier than recent smoothies. Casino Royale was the first of Fleming's books, and the only one, for contractual reasons, never previously filmed except in the Peter Sellers spoof. It would return James to his roots, the cold-blooded killer, the ex-wartime Commander, before fast women and invisible cars turned his head. It begins, after a title sequence involving the designs on the back of playing cards, and diamonds coming out of guns and writhing croupiers in silhouette - you know - in exactly that retro spirit, apparently in black and white, in Prague: Bond is in the shadows surprising a double agent rifling through a filing cabinet. Craig had effectively auditioned for Bond in Layer Cake, in which he played a cocaine dealer out of his depth, and we cut to what looks like a scene from that film - the very un-Bond-like graphic violence of Craig murdering an informer in a white-tiled public lavatory, holding the man's head underwater in a cheap sink. This, we are led to understand, was Bond's first kill, the most traumatic, his 007 status still pending, before the quips set in. His second, of the double agent by the filing cabinet, with a silencer, is more straightforward, and prompts a wry smile.

That grainy preamble over, Craig is in colour and up and running - straight through a staged cobra and mongoose fight in a market in Madagascar, over the odd trashed car, past plenty of startled villagers carrying unlikely dry goods, up some serious scaffolding scattering hard-hatted building workers, and on to a crane tower over the impossibly blue ocean in pursuit of a scar-faced villain with a bag of explosives. Who wants backstreet grittiness when you can have fights with guns that run out of bullets at opportune moments at high altitude?

Craig is the first Bond since Connery who looks more than capable of doing his own stunts, he runs like a streetfighter, falls credibly from great heights and has been practising his free running. This is pre-Q Bond; the closest he gets to a gadget is a decent mobile phone; he spends a good deal of his time chasing fast cars on foot in a manner Roger Moore would have deemed far too keen; to start with he doesn't even seem to have his own motor. Worse still, he hasn't yet earned Barry's theme, except in odd mangled chords.

The best preface to Casino Royale is Simon Winder's wonderful book The Man Who Saved Britain, out in paperback to coincide with the release of the film. It's the comic history of an obsession with Bond, both his own and our own - an unravelling of all the curious hang-ups about posh drinks and hat-throwing and casual misogyny that takes in the demise of imperial ambition, post-war austerity and Fleming's taste for torture. It's a brilliant deconstruction of those staples of British life that Paul Johnson, writing long ago of Bond in the New Statesmen, denounced as 'sex, snobbery and sadism', (this before Johnson moved to the Spectator and discovered the pleasures of the same).

You rather wish Cubby Broccoli and the rest had studied Winder's memoir before embarking on Casino Royale. One of the things his book argues well is that the explosion of a gas tanker is no real substitute for vaguely plausible plotting or some notion of contemporary relevance - a key element in Fleming's thrillers was his sharp move from villainous former Nazis, to Cold War paranoia.

In attempting to flesh out the idea of Daniel Craig's Bond as backstory to subsequent Bonds - trying on his first dinner jacket for size, tripping over his chat-up lines to Eva Green's gorgeous Vesper Lynd, replying when asked if he wants his martini shaken or stirred, 'Do I look like I give a damn?' - almost everything else seems to have gone out of the window (along with various not particularly sinister villains).

I'm quite happy for Bond to live in a continuous present, but the time frame of the film is perplexing. After the grainy Fifties Prague opening, there is the predictable Seventies, Whicker's World rush of destinations, taking in Uganda, Madagascar, the Bahamas and Venice, while Bond, who we are presumably supposed to believe we have never come across before, suggests from time to time that he is in 2006. Judi Dench as M, seems more than usually unsure about the wisdom of her role or which era she's in. She speaks at one point of her nostalgia for the Cold War, before outlining the plot, such as it is, which involves an attempt to manipulate the stock market using terrorism, bringing in the first and only reference to 9/11. You don't expect Casino Royale to be 24, quite, or Bond to be Jack Bauer, but it seems bizarre to be employing a mix of Albanian and Swiss and African and Italian financial terrorists when you might think there are more real current fears to explore.

Director Martin Campbell is also unsure about how much of the glamour of violence he wants to strip back. There are unusual 007 moments in which Bond lets us know he's human, sitting soaking in the shower in his blood-drenched dinner suit comforting Vesper after she has helped him kill a man; or, oddly, screaming in pain. Raymond Chandler praised the original book of Casino Royale for its brutal description of torture, exposing genre-fiction to a new realism. The scene that Chandler singled out is reproduced here, with Bond tied naked on the frame of a chair while his exposed scrotum is whipped with a knotted rope. Craig is, not surprisingly, in more obvious pain than any previous Bond , but having put him there, the only way to remove him is through a comically unexplained ambush; by the next scene, like the Bonds of old, he is recuperating by the Italian lakes, his tenderized tackle magically restored.

The problem with making Bond more real, is that everything around him then seems even more fake than usual. Craig, always a charismatic presence, often looks unsettled by that dislocation; his sex scenes are more energetic than those of his predecessors but even less convincing; he is hardly allowed any comedy. As a result, by the end of a curiously back-to-front film, when he finally gets his theme tune and introduces himself - 'Bond. James Bond' - he, like the creaky franchise itself, seems profoundly unsure whether he is coming or going.

What the other critics thought of Casino Royale

Daniel Craig is brilliant, oozing the kind of edgy menace that recalls Sean Connery at his best. It's everything that makes Bond Britain's finest cinematic export - slick, fast-moving and pulse-poundingly exciting. The best since GoldenEye
David Edwards, Mirror Film Critic

Casino Royale takes us back to basics. To a leaner production and to a Bond who looks like he can do serious damage. Craig is up there with the best. His sex appeal is off the scale. The stunts are more physical and the violence raw.
Wendy Ide, The Times

Craig's Bond has been rebooted as a man not quite secure within his own tuxedo and the result is a nervier epic. It could have been off-puttingly dark but Craig holds the screen: When this Bond laughs there is a sense of relief.
Sinclair McKay, The Telegraph

Running at two hours and 20 minutes, the movie is too long. But you can bet on Craig being a hit because when he sorts out his enemy at the end of the film - with his well-worn line 'Bond - James Bond', you just can't help cheering.
The Sneak, The Sun

#157 JCRendle

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Posted 05 November 2006 - 01:51 AM

Edit: "You rather wish Cubby Broccoli and the rest had studied Winder's memoir before embarking on Casino Royale." - Keeping up with the times I see?

#158 Fro

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Posted 05 November 2006 - 01:58 AM

My head hurts after reading that Guardian review. Sounds like he would have loved it if LeChiffre was replaced by Osama Bin Laden and the Bond theme blared all the time.

Not to mention there's about a billion factual errors.

Edited by Fro, 05 November 2006 - 02:00 AM.


#159 JCRendle

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Posted 05 November 2006 - 02:01 AM

http://news.scotsman...m?id=1637482006

CASINO ROYALE (12A)
FOR years, James Bond has had more to worry about from the competition than from old foes such as Blofeld. Fantastic gadgets and sleek wheels? Check out the Mission Impossible franchise. Committed thumpings meted out by, or indeed upon, our hero? The Bourne series has its own kicking boy in Matt Damon. Fantastically beautiful women prepared to go to bed at the drop of a deadly double entendre? Even Austin Powers scores there, baby.

The heft of Bond history has bogged down his adventures, stringing together action sequences in the expected variety of exotic locations in a way that felt not so much hip, as hip replacement. But now - after 44 years, 20 films, five actors and countless schoolboyish sexual puns - Casino Royale has made 007 licensed to thrill again, with a bolder, edgier Bond.

From the very start, when the film skips its traditional gun barrel signature, this is a very different kind of Bond feature. Shaken but not deterred by the derision that greeted Pierce Brosnan's invisible car in Die Another Day, Casino Royale has opted to swap gadgets for grit.

The famous credits sequence even eschews gun-caressing nude women for casino motifs of hearts and clubs - and what follows is a lot of hearty clubbings, as well as some tersely expressed hearts and flowers with a sophisticated Bond girl (Eva Green).

In this film, Bond has just been awarded his 'double O' status and has yet to acquire his trademarks, even a well-made vodka Martini.

Unlike his predecessor - the well-groomed Brosnan - Daniel Craig doesn't look like an ultra-smooth consumer of girls and guns. More often, he's boozy, bleeding or battered.

This is altogether a more vulnerable Bond, who can get hurt both physically and emotionally. Not since Sean Connery has the suave British spy seemed so multi-faceted.

Still, some things have not changed: there are elaborate chases across airports and over-tall buildings, a quirky villain who weeps tears of blood and Dame Judi Dench's crisply irritable M.

Casino Royale will be on general cinema release on November 17

#160 Jackanaples

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Posted 05 November 2006 - 02:06 AM

Hmmm. The writer of the Guardian doesn't seem to "get" this James Bond movie. At the very least, I'd venture that what he likes about Bond in general isn't what I like.

#161 triviachamp

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Posted 05 November 2006 - 02:16 AM

Edit: "You rather wish Cubby Broccoli and the rest had studied Winder's memoir before embarking on Casino Royale." - Keeping up with the times I see?


And thinks the film is set in different time periods?

#162 K1Bond007

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Posted 05 November 2006 - 02:25 AM

So the Guardian reviewer is such a big Bond fan that he didn't even know Cubby Broccoli was dead for the past ooh decade? Yeah, what a fan. Everybody has an opinion and they're going to vary, but come on...

#163 stone cold

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Posted 05 November 2006 - 02:41 AM

Hmm. That guardian review has a tone throughout that irritated me from the word go. I disliked this smug, somewhat misinformed, bored-sounding pedestrain explanation of the movie greatly. He's more interested in his own ( entirely unfascinating ) take on bond as a life long afficianado ( apparantly ) than in the new movie. He's dismissive in a way that is almost certainly to do with the distance he felt from this new edgier, more sophisticated Bond movie. He wanted to see safe, lightweight cartoon Bond, but got lean, mean and classic. I'm glad they gave this movie a more heavyweight feel..but this guy seems to recoil from every instance of that. If these are the 'fans' this movie loses then so be it.. this evolution will work as it draws young people in, and reignites real bond heads. If that lame Brosnan line is his favourite then I can see why a bone-shuddering fight in a bathroom ending in drowning might not be the poor chap's cup of tea. I just think the more dangerous, more modern, bolder approach of this film goes way over this guys head. Unusually for the Guardian, he also misses the point and comes across as not entirely the sharpest tool in the box, despite his weary seen-it-all tone. I'd be interested in hearing a more critical response to the film - I'm sure we'll get some - and of course I'm thrilled at the great early reviews.. but save me from a review written by someone so clearly not in possesion of the faculties with which to view this new Bond with an open mind. Tedious.

I find it funny also how he seems so confused with several of the core conceits of this Bond 'reboot' - for all his smarmy cynical sniffing at the movie - he overwhelmingly fails to grasp the scan of the narrative, the continuity ( come on - it's not that hard ) and the occurence of cubby's death. What does this dude want? A campy Moore-style romp about real life geo-political events? Bin Laden? He is confused at the idea that this is a new start.. where's my beloved bloated, dated, unfunny, lightweight crap gone?! He's outraged! He fails to see that the plot, as it stands in the movie and in the book, is the perfect jump-off for a new Bond.. it not only reintroduces us to Bond cleanly, in isolation, but also reintroduces us to the classic Bond tenets, and a new, more modern Bond universe, and a new enemy ( which we will obviously see more of in future ). Wow..this guy must have felt left out at the end when everyone applauded. I think we can safely say Casino Royale left this guy waaaay behind, alone in it's wake.. and so it should. He also seems to have failed to read the Casino Royale novel ( re: Le Chiffre's fate ). He sounds like a buffoon. I can't take a reviewer seriously who can't hack violence, a deeper level of emotion, acting, directing, an oldboy who yearns for the simple lightweight dated thrills of yore. He seems to fundermentaly bemoan the idea of change in Bond. Those times aint coming back man, get used to it. I think we can ever so slightly discount various things from this piece.

Now..with that out of my system I can fully dismiss the review and pretend we live in a world where all reviews of CR are perfect. :)

Edited by stone cold, 05 November 2006 - 03:13 AM.


#164 Jackanaples

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Posted 05 November 2006 - 02:55 AM

Great post, stone cold. I thought the same when I read his opinion of the Turkey. Christ, he thinks that passes for wit. Whatever. He's probably the kind of guy whose friends ask advice from so they know they can safely make the opposite decision.

#165 deth

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Posted 05 November 2006 - 02:58 AM

"The Spy who Bored Me" was the title for the review of DAD in my local paper back in 2002... and so it was noticed all over that a staleness had set in (not that I minded.. but hey). Critics all over the world seemed to realize that it was time for a change....

http://www.rottentom.../?critic=rotten

these are of course, just the negative reviews... but most say the same: a creative rut.

apparently, the Guardian wants this rut to continue... I think the Guardian will be in the minority...


(sorry for the sloppiness of this post... have no time)

#166 EyesOnly

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Posted 05 November 2006 - 03:19 AM

For anyone who has seen CR, how is Craig's delivery of 'Bond..James Bond?'

#167 jaguar007

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Posted 05 November 2006 - 03:38 AM

The Guardian is the least positive reveiw we has seen thus far, but i would hardly call it a bad review.

#168 K1Bond007

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Posted 05 November 2006 - 03:40 AM

Speaking of Rotten Tomatoes, how do you report screw ups on their site?

http://www.rottentom...?critic=columns

Right now there are 2 reviews listed for CR06 except these are for CR67.

??

#169 MystikTK

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Posted 05 November 2006 - 04:01 AM

I hate to disagreee with most folks on here on this topic, but about the only thing in The Guardian review that I agree with is that the time-frame of the plot IS rather perplexing, and for, it's also a little off-putting. I still believe that they should have just made it a period piece if they wanted to show Bond's origins, rather than make it seem as if it's the Cold War-era and post 9/11 all at the same time.

Also, what's the about there not being a gunbarrel opening? :P Have I been out of the CR loop for so long that I've completely missed this bombshell? :)

#170 Andrew

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Posted 05 November 2006 - 04:04 AM

Also, what's the about there not being a gunbarrel opening? :P Have I been out of the CR loop for so long that I've completely missed this bombshell? :)


Yes, being that it was shown in the teaser.

#171 JimmyBond

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Posted 05 November 2006 - 04:07 AM

I still believe that they should have just made it a period piece if they wanted to show Bond's origins, rather than make it seem as if it's the Cold War-era and post 9/11 all at the same time.


Who said anything about them making it look like it's a Cold War era film? A character "longs" for the Cold War. Meaning they miss it, thus implying the Cold War has been over for a long while, how much more cut and dry can you get?

#172 dinovelvet

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Posted 05 November 2006 - 04:11 AM

Also, what's the about there not being a gunbarrel opening? :P Have I been out of the CR loop for so long that I've completely missed this bombshell? :)


There is a gunbarrel in the film, though it is done in a bit of a different way than usual.

#173 HildebrandRarity

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Posted 05 November 2006 - 04:16 AM

I want to hear from GS!!! Reaction!!! :)


Why?

We exposed him as being part of those hateful, lying and scummy cowards from that anti-Craig web site.

Let them wallow in their nothingness. They're a worthless bunch who'll suffer in their own misery as the box office kicks in.

#174 JimmyBond

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Posted 05 November 2006 - 04:19 AM

Find it interesting that he disappears after these postive reviews start showing up.

Just saying...

#175 MystikTK

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Posted 05 November 2006 - 04:23 AM


I still believe that they should have just made it a period piece if they wanted to show Bond's origins, rather than make it seem as if it's the Cold War-era and post 9/11 all at the same time.


Who said anything about them making it look like it's a Cold War era film? A character "longs" for the Cold War. Meaning they miss it, thus implying the Cold War has been over for a long while, how much more cut and dry can you get?


Sorry, I should been more clear. I just mean that it's supposed to show Bond's origins, which is a Cold War-era, gritty spy. Contemporizing it, as they've done, cheapens the effect of a prequel, IMHO.

Yes, being that it was shown in the teaser.


Yes, see that's what had me confused. I really like the look of the gun barrell in the teaser, with Craig in what looks to be the bathroom, presumably following his first kill. So, I figured that after all the rumours of there being no gun barrel, it was in for sure. Then, I read The Scotsman's review and it said something about "skipping" the gun barrel, so I was left scratching my head.

There is a gunbarrel in the film, though it is done in a bit of a different way than usual.


Thanks, good to know. Sound like you're referring to an artistic change. Something along the lines of the DN gun barrel, maybe?

Edited by MystikTK, 05 November 2006 - 04:24 AM.


#176 JimmyBond

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Posted 05 November 2006 - 04:27 AM

Sorry, I should been more clear. I just mean that it's supposed to show Bond's origins, which is a Cold War-era, gritty spy. Contemporizing it, as they've done, cheapens the effect of a prequel, IMHO.


Well, it's not a prequel see. Recall the film "Batman Begins." That movie ignored the past four films and told the story anew, on a clean slate. Eon is doing the same thing with Bond, they made this film as if it were the first in a new series.

#177 Publius

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Posted 05 November 2006 - 04:32 AM

Sorry, I should been more clear. I just mean that it's supposed to show Bond's origins, which is a Cold War-era, gritty spy. Contemporizing it, as they've done, cheapens the effect of a prequel, IMHO.

It's a reboot, not a prequel. The last 20 movies exist in a different continuity than this one. Not that any sane person believed more than a few of those other 20 existed in the same continuity anyway...

#178 Andrew

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Posted 05 November 2006 - 04:35 AM




Sorry, I should been more clear. I just mean that it's supposed to show Bond's origins, which is a Cold War-era, gritty spy. Contemporizing it, as they've done, cheapens the effect of a prequel, IMHO.


Well, it's not a prequel see. Recall the film "Batman Begins." That movie ignored the past four films and told the story anew, on a clean slate. Eon is doing the same thing with Bond, they made this film as if it were the first in a new series.


Exactly. This isn't Bond in the world of communism, this is Bond in the world of terrorism.

#179 Auric64

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Posted 05 November 2006 - 09:30 AM


From IMDb

The film isn't as action packed as the trailer might suggest.

This isn't a Bond movie for people who love the gadgets and the girls and the supervillains and the nuclear warheads and the killer satellites and the silly jokes. It's more a movie for people who like the books and who think From Russia With Love was probably the pinnacle of the movie series.


Could this be a problem for the general audience, though? The film sounds as though it could be one of the best for the last 20 years or so, (and I`m hoping to eat a very large slice of humble pie if it is that good - as I was against Craig`s casting AND the reboot) but the general audience IS used to the gadgets, the supervillians, nuclear warheads, killer satellites and silly jokes. They`ve had that since 1995 and it appears they enjoyed it, going by the box office returns.

With CR`s less action packed script, will the audience be shifting in their seats for long periods of time, expecting the customary set piece to happen every 20 minutes, (as happened during the Brosnan years) and getting upset and annoyed when it doesn`t?

As much as many Bond fans on here are looking forward to CR being a return to the type of FRWL style adventure, (and I am one of those fans) will the lack of action, coupled with Bond`s vulnerability and the script giving the characters depth, make CR fall foul of the audience who didn`t seem to agree with the Dalton films, which pretty much offered the same. It wasn`t to the audiences liking, (particulary LTK) and that was one of (many) factors that helped to signal the end of the series for another 6 years.

That to me is the only thing I am worried about. I never thought I would be looking forward to this film as much as I now am, and I`m really hoping I can come out of the cinema feeling as positive as the newspaper reviewers have been.

I just hope the general audience, (who are Bond fans but not hardcore Bond fans as we are) will feel the same and make this film the smash hit it seems to deserve to be.

Best

Andy



Andy, that's why the trailers show the action, it gives the impression of more action - so the general audiences go, paying their money, before find that it's less action packed.


JC, I appreciate your point and yes, you are absolutely right. Once the audience has paid their money at the door, whatever happens, good or bad, the money for EON/SONY is in the bank.

What I was trying to get at, (and failed miserably in getting this point across) is that any bad audience reaction, (once they have seen CR) could become general bad word of mouth, stopping others from thinking of going to see it.

I hope that won`t happen but I guess it`s a possibility. For every film that receives good word of mouth, (and gets more people interested in seeing it) could bad word of mouth do the opposite, despite all the positve newspaper reviews?

Do the general film going public read reviews anyway, or do they just see trailers and go with gut instinct?

If it`s the latter than I guess, (hope) CR will have no trouble at all filling cinema seats.

Best

Andy

#180 Shrublands

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Posted 05 November 2006 - 09:44 AM

Don't know if this has already been posted, its The Sunday Mirror review. (different to the one in The Daily Mirror)

VIEW TO A THRILL
AT THE MOVIES Craig is brilliant as Bond FILM OF THE WEEK
With Mark Adams

CASINO ROYALE (12A)

THE STARS: Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen, Judi Dench, Caterinia Murino.

THE STORY: The storyline takes the franchise back to before James Bond (Craig) held his licence to kill. After two assassinations he is elevated to "00" status and sent on a mission to Madagascar and then the Bahamas on a terrorist trail. He finds a link to Le Chiffre (Mikkelsen), banker for the world's terrorist organisations and is instructed by "M" (Dench) to observe Le Chiffre while he plays in a high stakes poker game in a Montenegro casino. Additional interest comes in the form of government money minder Vesper Lynd (Green), but as the stakes are raised Bond and Lynd find themselves caught in a web of deceit, passion and violence.

WHAT'S GOOD? Bond is back, and with a vengeance! This spellbinding re-imagining of the James Bond spy myth sees 007 back to his bone-crunching best, with Daniel Craig brilliantly intense and gloweringly muscular. This new Bond is no bow-tie-wearing lightweight smoothie, but a tough and determined street fighter who doesn't know when to quit. Part way through the film, when he is readying to go the casino, he gets handed a smart handmade dinner suit by sultry spy squeeze Vesper Lynd (a sexy and convincing Eva Green). He reluctantly puts it on and is suddenly transformed into the James Bond we know and love - smooth, brutal, sensual and darn cool. As expected, the action sequences are top notch, from the spectacular opening chase through to the brutal fist fights.

Great locations, stylish action and fabulous cars are all excellently filmed by director Martin Campbell who keeps the pace up throughout the film. Danish star Mads Mikkelsen makes for an impressively sadistic villain, while the familiar sight of Judi Dench as "M" is a suitable and subtle link between the Bond films of old and this new one. And rest assured, the cars, guns, stunts and sheer sense of 007 style is still brilliantly intact.

WHAT'S BAD? If you are looking for a Bond bearing spy gadgets and battling tall blokes with metal teeth, then this new Bond is going in the wrong direction for you - this time round the story is complex but more grounded. Instead of a plethora of gimmicks this Bond simply has a fast car and lets his fists and guns do the talking. No Miss Moneypenny and no "Q" I'm afraid and, while the one-liners are still there, they are more subtle. Though she looks the part, Green never quite cuts it as a foil for this brutal Bond. Yes, it is long at over two hours, but there is a lot to pack in and frankly you just can't get enough of this new-look 007.

HOW LONG IS IT? A breathtaking 144mins.

FINAL VERDICT: Bond is brilliant! One of the best 007 films ever.

Opens Friday, Nov 17

5 OUT OF 5