Jump to content


This is a read only archive of the old forums
The new CBn forums are located at https://quarterdeck.commanderbond.net/

 
Photo

Mister E's review of Casino Royale


9 replies to this topic

#1 Mister E

Mister E

    Resigned

  • Discharged
  • PipPipPip
  • 2160 posts

Posted 08 September 2008 - 03:08 AM

Daniel Craig's debut preformance as James Bond is the one I think we have been waiting for for too long. Ever since Connery's peak took a tumble, Bond was never really captured perfectly again. Laz was too young but he had potential, Moore was far too humorous, Dalton was the best actor to take the role so far but had no real presence, and Brosnan was simply a factory produced cut out of what the public knew as James Bond. Craig on the other hand, is not only the best actor to have the role yet but he took Bond into farther depths that we have ever seen. He also the dry wit and charisma of Connery in his early films. His preformance is still a little rough around the edges but that is a good thing actually, he still is going through development.

Let me start off by saying that the first half of this film is a cheat, a good cheat but a cheat none the less. First we have the excellent PTS and Danny pulls it off in spades. The intro works so well because, like past Bonds being introduced in the series, he earns his cool moment by doing something clever. Here he assassinates a traitor of MI6 cooly and coldy and tops it off with one great, dry one liner. I'll skip along to were I feel the movie starts to cheat. After we get that very well crafted free running squence, Bond seems to track everyone down with a cell phone. Despite some good humor and clever dialogue, the film should have turned to a smart thriller but it didn't. Bond simply tracked all the operators of Project Elypsis via cell phones and ended it in what else ? A big, over blown action sequence. If I was the writer of the film what I would have done is this, make Bond fall into the scheme incidentally or make him notice something seemingly insignificant. Fleming loved to do that in his books, for example Goldfinger or Drax as a cheat at cards. Thunderball and stumbling upon's SPECTRE plot to hijack nuclear weapons by getting into a small fued with Count Lippe. After the first half, and this is first Bond film were this ever happened, things get signfigantly better.

We arrive in Motenegro and we get are first introduction of Vesper Lynd. Eva Green took the role and made it her own, she was the greatest Bond girl since Diana Rigg as Tracy Di Vicenzo in ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE. Even better, the character has vastly improved from Fleming's verison. In the novel, Vesper was simply a women with a dark cloud over her but nothing about her was particularly memorable. Here, Vesper is the perfect companion for Craig's Bond, smart and hilarously sarcatic. Her conversation with Bond on the train is up there with the best dialogue in the series and also far more adult then past Bonds. Not Adult as in rauchy but Adult as in mature. No idiotic, immature, one liners written by thirteen year old boys that plagued the Brosnan era.

Now the heart of the film, the battle of wits between Bond and Le Chiffre. Mads Mikkelsen as Le Chiffre, like Vesper, is an improvement of the literary incarnation. Le Chiffre was clearly a nastly little man in the novel but fairly unremarkable. Mads carried his character with athority and a very cold deameanor but was just enough human due to the situation he was in. What made the Bond/Le Chiffre rivarly so interesting is that for once in a Bond film, both sides are on the same playing feild. Le Chiffre is a deperate man, he lost the money of his terrorist cilents who are more then willing to kill him. Bond needs to take that money from Le Chiffre to hurt those terrorist clients. Two desperate men in a game of luck and there is no secound prize. The card game, a game of hi stakes poker for Le Chiffre to get he 100 mil he needs, itself was not exactly a revolution in film making but it was tense enough because Bond needed to read Le Chiffre and vice versa.

The end not only leaves us with the mystery of who exactly is this orginization but what will happen to Bond. In the later day early films, the death of Bond girls and death itself was inconsequential. Here it is established that Bond now lives in a wolrd of consequences. You can't shoot up an embassy without the politically back fire and you can't kill without causing a mess. That moment were Bond told Vesper to tell Mathis about the bodies in the hallway was the moment the innocence of death was lost in the series. Basically the opposite of Bond delivering the body of the imposter chauffeur and dimissing the whole thing in a one liner in DOCTOR NO. Bond, now a devistated man in a far more serious world, will have to question who he can trust if he chooses to do so. I can't wait to see what happens next. :(

#2 DaveBond21

DaveBond21

    Commander

  • Veterans
  • PipPipPipPip
  • 18026 posts
  • Location:Sydney, Australia (but from the UK)

Posted 08 September 2008 - 06:40 AM

Fair enough but could you have used spellchecker before posting?

:(

#3 Mr. Blofeld

Mr. Blofeld

    Commander

  • Veterans
  • PipPipPipPip
  • 9173 posts
  • Location:North Smithfield, RI, USA

Posted 08 September 2008 - 10:45 AM

Fair enough but could you have used spellchecker before posting?

:)

True, that; nice review, anyway. :):(

#4 Orion

Orion

    Lt. Commander

  • Veterans
  • PipPipPip
  • 1579 posts
  • Location:Great Britain (rule Britania)

Posted 08 September 2008 - 11:05 AM

Nice Review

#5 Mister E

Mister E

    Resigned

  • Discharged
  • PipPipPip
  • 2160 posts

Posted 08 September 2008 - 01:45 PM

Fair enough but could you have used spellchecker before posting?

:(



I know, this was actually more the spur of the moment spontaneous thing. I never had any intention of posting a review.

#6 DrNoNo

DrNoNo

    Midshipman

  • Crew
  • 79 posts
  • Location:USA

Posted 19 November 2008 - 07:50 PM

Please use spellcheck before posting. And check the wit. You didn't pull it off

#7 Mister E

Mister E

    Resigned

  • Discharged
  • PipPipPip
  • 2160 posts

Posted 19 November 2008 - 08:00 PM

Please use spellcheck before posting. And check the wit. You didn't pull it off


What are you going do now ? Dig up my old criticisms and attack them because I didn't love your stupid "letter" ? Grow up.

#8 williamwilliams

williamwilliams

    Cadet

  • Crew
  • 6 posts

Posted 04 May 2009 - 07:46 PM

it's need to check spell.nice movie i have ever seen.

#9 DamnCoffee

DamnCoffee

    Commander

  • Executive Officers
  • PipPipPipPip
  • 24459 posts
  • Location:England

Posted 04 May 2009 - 07:55 PM

What? B)

#10 dinovelvet

dinovelvet

    Commander

  • Veterans
  • PipPipPipPip
  • 8038 posts
  • Location:Jupiter and beyond the infinite

Posted 04 May 2009 - 08:41 PM

it's need to check spell.


"Why is it that people who can't take advice always insist on giving it?"