Casino Royal (2006)

[cinemabon]

Casino Royal (2006) – directed by Martin Campbell

I have a confession to make, and I might as well do it in public and online for everyone to read. I’m in love with a man. Not just any man. His name is Bond. James Bond.

Director Martin Campbell seems to be the man to bring to the job if you want your first outing as James Bond. The director of “Golden Eye” Pierce Brosnan’s first outing, made him synonymous for Bond’s new image. However, you can put all other Bond’s, including the critic’s favorite, Sean, behind you. Warts and all, charming yet brimmingly full of masculinity, we have a true picture of how it must feel to be a secret agent in this day and age. Bond is precocious yet stunning to a fault. Campbell has given Bond not just the humanity he’s been lacking, but a full range of emotion from gut-wrenching raw to simply being clever.

This film has some great one-liners provided by previous Bond writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade. However, I suspect the final polish was probably given to Paul Haggis, the first screenwriter in the history of the Academy to win back to back for “Crash” and “Million Dollar Baby.” This film rocks in so many ways it would be impossible to run them all.

Based on the book by Ian Fleming, “Casino Royal” has all the elements the first book had and then some… the rough and tumble Bond, the cocky over-confident Bond getting into trouble… the seducer… and the tragic. Fleming put it in the book… all the plot elements are still there, including the ending.

I open the floor… enjoy gentlemen, the best James Bond film to date.

[cinemabon]

I had to see this film a second time. Granted, this is not an import, so I do not have your intellectual clout. However, when a majority of the critics in America like something this commercial, I must have hit upon something this time.

My favorite Bonds:

Daniel Craig in his outing, "Casino Royal"
(favorite scene - foot chase through the construction site. Even Michael stated, "It took my breath away.")

Sean Connery in "From Russia With Love"
(favorite scene - fight on the train. Never has so much energy been packed into such a tight space!)

Sean Connery in "Goldfinger"
(favorite scene - wrestling with 'Pussy' in the hay. Every man's fantasy about how spy prisoners should be treated.)

Favorite Bond song opening - "License to Kill" (Gladys Knight belts out a winner. Obvious runner-up, Shirley Bassey, "Goldfinger")

Best Bond opening graphics - Maurice Binder's opening credits for "Thunderball" with nude women swimming in slow motion.

Best Set design - Ken Adams in "You Only Live Twice" He built a set large enough to house a rocket!

Best Production designer - Peter Lamont (been doing Bond films for over forty years, including the most recent, "Casino Royal"... one of the unsung heros of the Bond look!)

Best M - tie, Judy Dench (modern) and Bernard Lee (classic)

Best Bond one liner - "Casino Royal" (unexpected)

Bond: "Vodka martini"
Bartender: "Shaken or stirred?"
Bond: "Do I look like I give a damn?"


Best Non-Bond character line(s):

Admiral: "How did a man like that ever get promoted in the Navy?"
M: "Don't ask"
Moneypenny: "Don't tell"

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by cinemabon
I had to see this film a second time. Granted, this is not an import, so I do not have your intellectual clout. However, when a majority of the critics in America like something this commercial, I must have hit upon something this time.

I have to admit my taste in commercial movies points toward fantasy and animation. I may not be as much a fan of the Bond films as you are, but I really enjoyed Goldfinger, From Russia With Love, and Goldeneye.
I do plan to watch Casino Royale but I know it will be playing into next year. Other films playing now won't stay around that long and I wouldn't want to miss them. I do have to admit that the running time seems excessive to me. Did it have to last 144 minutes, cinemabon?

Regarding animated films...I get the impression most if not all Filmleaf members disregard them. For me, watching The Nightmare Before Christmas in Digital 3D was the theatrical event of the year. And I liked Flushed Away a lot, but it's apparently not a movie that interests our fellow "leafers".

[cinemabon]

Sometimes films originally shot flat (2-D) have that layered look, where flat characters act in front of backgrounds (also flat) that move in different rates. "Nightmare" is playing locally in 3-D, so I was curious, Oscar, about how it came off before I dragged my son off to see it.

As to Bond, I read the first novel in the 'adult' book section of my library when I was twelve years old. I snuck in. The librarian caught me, but allowed me to read the novel(s) if I left them there. So I read all of them, starting with Casino Royal, his first. The novels are short. A quick reader can knock one off in an afternoon or two.

Oddly enough, most of the book transfered to the screen remains intact, while the screenwriters have brought the timeline into the 21st Century. When I got to the end, the story's moral suddenly struck me how tragic the Bond character is (or was) in the novels.

Daniel Craig's Bond is as close as the filmmakers have come to creating a persona similar to the one found in the Ian Fleming books, a rough, tough street-thug kind of man... one who had to prove himself as he rose through the ranks. He did not major in Oriental languages at Oxford, or have a command over wines and gourmet food (though in later novels, he develops the taste for finer things as he travels about the world). Most critics have compared Dan to Sean because both men bring Bond's character back to being masculine, rather than an over-refined effete.

The novels are the British equivilant to our Mickey Spillane, more noir than sophistication with Bond, not out to solve the problems of the world, but tackling one job at a time... with a little sex thrown in.

[oscar jubis]

The 3D process used for the re-release of Nightmare doesn't look at all like that layered look you describe. I'm not well-versed in the technology of film projection but the process used is said to be quite advanced. I know that it looked fantastic to me and that you and Michael should watch Nightmare 3D pronto (there's a $2 surcharge per ticket, by the way). If you do, please comment.

Dylan (13) just came back from watching Casino with his friends. He really liked it, and he told me the girls liked it as much as the boys. He told me the film doesn't "feel" that long. Your comments about the movie seem to indicate there's a lot of attention payed to character, which I always like in a movie.

[Chris Knipp]

[cinemabon wrote:]
Daniel Craig's Bond is as close as the filmmakers have come to creating a persona similar to the one found in the Ian Fleming books, a rough, tough street-thug kind of man... one who had to prove himself as he rose through the ranks. He did not major in Oriental languages at Oxford, or have a command over wines and gourmet food (though in later novels, he develops the taste for finer things as he travels about the world). Most critics have compared Dan to Sean because both men bring Bond's character back to being masculine, rather than an over-refined effete.

The novels are the British equivilant to our Mickey Spillane, more noir than sophistication with Bond, not out to solve the problems of the world, but tackling one job at a time... with a little sex thrown in. This idea is going around, but is quite preposterous: how long has it been since you did your extensive youthful devouring of Ian Fleming? The original Bond and Fleming were both from the priviledged classes all the way, and in their own peculiar way quite effete in putting huge emphasis on status symbols, having the right suits, the right drinks, the right cigarettes; driving the right car. Shaken, not stirred--all these little details are hardly expressive of a "rough, tough street-thug kind of man." "Bond, James Bond...." his way of expressing himself was dashing, elegant. He was a kind of iron-willed and deadly, "cruelly handsome" David Niven. I think it's clear that the talented Mr. Craig was chosen, apart from the fact that he was eager and available, as being up to the most challenging physical action, for a new series emphasising brawn and flexibility over gadgetry. The new Casino Royale shows that in the opening chase sequence, which, though irrelevent, is impressive and up-to-date in the use of a new street-wise kind of movement. I don't think this is true to the original Bond or to Fleming's conception, but it needn't be. Iam Fleming's thrillers aren't aren't holy writ. But to equate them to Mickey Spillane is ridiculous. I repeat, has anybody read Ian Fleming lately, or are we just repeating what people are writing in promoting the new Bond and the new Bond movie?

My 17-year-old goddaughter also loved the movie--but that isn't how I judge quality. However, I'm not saying it isn't a good movie, just that saying this is the real original Bond conception just doesn't gibe with my experiences in reading the books.

P.s.
Bond: "Vodka martini"
Bartender: "Shaken or stirred?"
Bond: "Do I look like I give a damn?"
This is one of the new film's witty ways of distinguishing the new Bond from the original one. Fleming's Bond very much did give a damn, and so did a lot of the previous film reincarnations of 007. This, though the plotline is unusually close to the book, is a new James Bond, not a return to the original one.

[Chris Knipp]

The real James Bond will be found described in the obituary written by M when he was thought dead in You Only Live Twice. Here is some of that (found in toto here http://www.klast.net/bond/jb_obit.html). Let me know if you think this sounds like "a rough, tough street-thug kind of man... one who had to prove himself as he rose through the ranks."
James Bond was born of a Scottish father, Andrew Bond of Glencoe, and a Swiss mother, Monique Delacroix, from the Canton de Vaud. His father being a foreign representative of the Vickers armaments firm, his early education, from which he inherited a first-class command of French and German, was entirely abroad. When he was eleven years of age, both his parents were killed in a climbing accident in the Aiguilles Rouges above Chamonix, and the youth came under the guardianship of an aunt, since deceased, Miss Charmian Bond, and went to live with her at the quaintly-named hamlet of Pett Bottom near Canterbury in Kent. There, in a small cottage hard by the attractive Duck Inn, his aunt, who must have been a most erudite and accomplished lady, completed his education for an English public school, and, at the age of twelve or thereabouts, he passed satisfactorily into Eton, for which College he had been entered at his birth by his father. It must be admitted that his career at Eton was brief and undistinguished and, after only two halves, as a result, it pains me to record, of some alleged trouble with one of the boys' maids, his aunt was requested to remove him. She managed to obtain his transfer to Fettes, his father's old school. Here the atmosphere was somewhat Calvinistic, and both academic and athletic standards were rigourous. Nevertheless, though inclined to be solitary by nature, he established some firm friendships among the traditionally famous athletic circles at the school. By the time he left, at the early age of seventeen, he had twice fought for the school as a light-weight and had, in addition, founded the first serious judo class at a British public school. By now it was 1941 and, by claiming an age of nineteen and with the help of an old Vickers colleague of his father, he entered a branch of what was subsequently to become the Ministry of Defence. To serve the confidential nature of his duties, he was accorded the rank of lieutenant in the Special Branch of the R.N.V.R., and it is a measure of the satisfaction his services gave to his superiors that he ended the war with the rank of Commander. It was about this time that the writer became associated with certain aspects of the Ministry's work, and it was with much gratification that I accepted Commander Bond's post-war application to continue working for the Ministry in which, at the time of his lamented disappearance, he had risen to the rank of Principal Officer in the Civil Service. Eton does not produce street thugs, even when they're boys who get kicked out for seducing chamber maids.

[cinemabon]

I beg to differ, Chris. In "You Only Live Twice" Sean clearly says he majored in Oriental languages at Oxford. Bond did not attend Oxford in the novels. And his manner is quite rough... I am amassing details as we speak. The novel has been reprinted. I would suggest you read it. He is far from being a certain kind of "upper class" Brit, the kind so deftly portrayed by Bond's like Roger Moore. Although he later becomes infatuated with having the 'right' stuff, car, drink and so on.

Sean is Scottish. He isn't even English!

Also he only attended Eton (the college famous for its notable alumni) for two semesters (halfs) before his Aunt pulled him out by the school's request. What is outstanding is that Bond 'tested' his way in, which bodes well for his level of intellect. However, hitting on the chamber maid got him the boot, adding to his reputation early on as being a lady's man.

Yet, this is also the same man that gave us "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang."

[Chris Knipp]

I am not sure in what matter you differ. The fact that Bond was enrolled at Eton at birth indicates a priviledged family of origin; of course his background and nature are intentionally patchy, colorful, rakish, unpredictable, dashing. Fleming was a bit of a snob. Show me where Fleming describes Bond as rough. Your descriptions don'[t hold water or parse gramatically very well.
Bond is precocious yet stunning to a fault. Campbell has given Bond not just the humanity he’s been lacking, but a full range of emotion from gut-wrenching raw to simply being clever.
"Precocious yet stunning to a fault"? What does that mean? "Simply being clever" is not an emotion.

I would agree that Craig is a new Bond for our times. I'm simply questioning your description of the original 007 as conceived by Ian Fleming. It's fine that he should be different. God knows in the frnachise he has gone through a wealth of body types and personal styles. Craig is rough; Connery was urbane. The original Bond was tough, but not uncouth. I'm not sure this series is one you'd go to for "humanity." We're looking for action and for exploits and for seductions and colorful villains. For humanity we go to Rossellini. Or Spiderman.

[cinemabon]

There you go again, just being clever. However, no one said, least of all me, that being clever is an emotional state. I simply wanted to explain that within the range of acting, in which one emotes to communicate, a person can create "clever" by using the occasional smirk, sly devilish grin, or even a raised eyebrow; perhaps an enduring stare across a smoke filled room. How do you emote clever?

[Chris Knipp]

Indeed. Exactly my point.

[tabuno]

While I enjoyed some of the new Bond, I was also disappointed. The theme music was took a back seat for the first time in the long series of Bond movies and I do miss the gadgets. This new Bond is so serious and not as nearly as charming. I don't see what women would really be attracted to. I am glad that there is a secret, secretness about this Bond, but his ability as a secret agent who doesn't seem to appear to know how to really fight (compared to the billion martial art movies to date) nor how to look for and lose a trail (this Bond just seemed to be surprised by every spy who attacked him). The thrills weren't as spectcular and the ending was more of a let down.

[Chris Knipp]

I think I was disappointed too, for the reasons I've given up above: this pared down tough Bond lacks the charm and elegance of the one I encountered in Ian Fleming and earlier Bond pictures. I do think we have to acknowledge though that this is a well-made movie with excellent production values and fine supporting roles, notably Eva Green and Judi Dench. Craig isn't how I see Bond, but he gives us our money's worth.

[tabuno]

Chris Knipp posted:


I think I was disappointed too, for the reasons I've given up above: this pared down tough Bond lacks the charm and elegance of the one I encountered in Ian Fleming and earlier Bond pictures. I do think we have to acknowledge though that this is a well-made movie with excellent production values and fine supporting roles, notably Eva Green and Judi Dench. Craig isn't how I see Bond, but he gives us our money's worth.

I agree.

[Chris Knipp]

Glad we're together on that.

[oscar jubis]

I found Craig's Bond to be more interesting a character than the previous ones. The action set pieces are thrillingly preposterous, with the one set in an Ugandan construction site highly influenced by Hong Kong flicks. The movie is about half hour too long though and I lost interest during the poker game (until 007 gets poisoned that is).