"The name is Bond. James Bond."
Nov. 18th, 2006 01:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annathepiperThe Seattle Times review of Casino Royale says that while the movie has its problems, it is "the best movie of the series in almost 40 years." And you know what? It's right.
Some years ago I read most of the Bond books, since![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mamishka owns them. This includes Casino Royale. And it turns out that that's the only Bond book solarbird and I have of the series between us--though I suspect I'm about to change that. Anyway, when I got home tonight I skimmed through most of the book just to re-acquaint myself with the plot before we went to go and see the movie. And to my delight and glee, it looks like that's exactly what the filmmakers did as well. Because this film? It rocked.
First and foremost, the new guy, Daniel Craig, is extremely effective as Bond. I kept watching him and having this reaction of yeah, that's the character Fleming wrote! (And okay, yeah, fine, I also spent a great deal of time watching his lovely and talented shoulders. I will not be held accountable for my reactions when the man insists on wandering around clad in extremely scanty swim trunks. Because oh my, the shoulders.)
He is getting described as the most "physical" Bond, and that's very accurate. He engages in a lot more outright fighting and death-defying stunts all throughout this movie than any other Bond I've ever watched, and that includes Connery. And, he suffers the consequences of all this physical activity, too. He gets the shit kicked out of him. He bleeds. A lot. It was one of the effective things that always made me sympathize so heavily with Harrison Ford--this reminds me of Harrison Ford in his glory days, especially in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Craig's version of Bond is simultaneously an impressively lethal killing machine and a flesh and blood human who can only take so much punishment. The opening sequence is astounding, with all the action Craig goes through chasing down his bad guy, and there's a sequence later on at the Miami airport that's equally effective. Very, very well done.
I really liked his humor, and how he portrayed the sense of not having quite gotten the hang of what we all know and love as the elan of James Bond. He tries on lines for size and then grins in this half-amazed, half-delighted little "I actually said that? Damn, I'm good" way that charms the hell out of me.
And I really liked that he showed an emotional side as well. This is a Bond who can certainly and does certainly take pleasure in women, but he's also a Bond with tenderer feelings lurking underneath. There's a pertinent line straight out of the book that's very fresh in my mind: "Like all harsh, cold men, he was easily tipped over into sentiment." I absolutely believe that with Craig's Bond. He spends most of the time with an icy calm in those pale eyes of his--except when Vesper is in danger, and when he finally falls in love with her.
Which brings me to the next really neat thing about this film--that there's actually quite a lot of the original storyline in this plot, only suitably updated for the 21st century. It really, seriously rooted me back into the character, and even though there was certainly still an element of fantasy to the whole super-spy thing (as there must be to any Bond flick), it made it all a lot more real. I haven't had much of that from any Bond flick, really--and I'm including Goldeneye in this, the first Bond flick I ever went out of my way to watch due to my Pierce Brosnan fangirling. All the updates they did to make it fit into a modern timeframe were excellently done, including several clever callbacks to original Bond-isms such as the Aston-Martin and even the Cold War itself. Judi Dench, as M, spitting out the line "In the old days if an agent had done something so embarrassing, he'd at least have had the good sense to defect! Christ, I miss the Cold War!"--funniest line in the whole film. >:) And really, very much in keeping with the whole getting-back-to-the-basics feel of this movie. We're not in the Cold War anymore, but that sure as hell doesn't mean we can't get back to the essentials of what makes Bond Bond.
And speaking of Judi Dench, it was a bit of a jolt adjusting to her being M in a completely different continuity with a completely different Bond, especially when I distinctly remember her using the line "I want you to take your ego out of the equation" to Pierce Brosnan's Bond, too. Nevertheless she was excellent, especially when giving James hell for breaking into her apartment.
Last but not least, Vesper Lynd. Oh wow, she was great. She too had been updated for the 21st century plot, complete with some much sharper dialogue to share with James (I particularly giggled at her inquiring archly "how's your lamb?" and his immediate sally "skewered! It sympathizes!"). She was very much on top of things when in her element, and when yanked out of it, very gripping in how she reacts. When she and James are jumped by terrorist thugs and she witnesses him having to kill his attackers, he finds her later curled up under a shower in a state of shock, staring numbly into the air. When he comes to her, she murmurs that she feels as if she can't get the blood off her hands. He kisses her fingers and just gently pulls her close. That really sold me on the emotion between these two, and led splendidly into the later scenes where James is recuperating from being tortured (and OMG the torture scene *wince* O.O), and he tells her he loves her and they're practically glowing at each other.
And then she has to die, of course, because she's the love interest in a Bond plot and waaaaaaah. *Sniff* But the way she went out was especially wrenching, with Bond having to dive underwater to rescue her where she's trapped... and he has to watch her drown... and here this Bond's physicality and his frailer emotional side explosively collide as he has to rip the lift she's trapped in apart practically with his bare hands and haul her back up to the surface of the water. I mean, damn. The frenzy was practically visibly pouring off of him.
And then when he learns what she was really up to and then takes her last little gift to him--the note on her cell phone--and goes and tracks down the real mastermind behind the whole sordid scenario... whoof.
That last "Bond. James Bond" tells you that Daniel Craig's stepped into these shoes and then some.
Now I'm really anxious to see the film again, and to see what they'll do with the next couple of ones I'm given to understand he's already signed on to do. Bring it, Mr. Craig! I will be there.
Some years ago I read most of the Bond books, since
mamishka owns them. This includes Casino Royale. And it turns out that that's the only Bond book solarbird and I have of the series between us--though I suspect I'm about to change that. Anyway, when I got home tonight I skimmed through most of the book just to re-acquaint myself with the plot before we went to go and see the movie. And to my delight and glee, it looks like that's exactly what the filmmakers did as well. Because this film? It rocked.First and foremost, the new guy, Daniel Craig, is extremely effective as Bond. I kept watching him and having this reaction of yeah, that's the character Fleming wrote! (And okay, yeah, fine, I also spent a great deal of time watching his lovely and talented shoulders. I will not be held accountable for my reactions when the man insists on wandering around clad in extremely scanty swim trunks. Because oh my, the shoulders.)
He is getting described as the most "physical" Bond, and that's very accurate. He engages in a lot more outright fighting and death-defying stunts all throughout this movie than any other Bond I've ever watched, and that includes Connery. And, he suffers the consequences of all this physical activity, too. He gets the shit kicked out of him. He bleeds. A lot. It was one of the effective things that always made me sympathize so heavily with Harrison Ford--this reminds me of Harrison Ford in his glory days, especially in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Craig's version of Bond is simultaneously an impressively lethal killing machine and a flesh and blood human who can only take so much punishment. The opening sequence is astounding, with all the action Craig goes through chasing down his bad guy, and there's a sequence later on at the Miami airport that's equally effective. Very, very well done.
I really liked his humor, and how he portrayed the sense of not having quite gotten the hang of what we all know and love as the elan of James Bond. He tries on lines for size and then grins in this half-amazed, half-delighted little "I actually said that? Damn, I'm good" way that charms the hell out of me.
And I really liked that he showed an emotional side as well. This is a Bond who can certainly and does certainly take pleasure in women, but he's also a Bond with tenderer feelings lurking underneath. There's a pertinent line straight out of the book that's very fresh in my mind: "Like all harsh, cold men, he was easily tipped over into sentiment." I absolutely believe that with Craig's Bond. He spends most of the time with an icy calm in those pale eyes of his--except when Vesper is in danger, and when he finally falls in love with her.
Which brings me to the next really neat thing about this film--that there's actually quite a lot of the original storyline in this plot, only suitably updated for the 21st century. It really, seriously rooted me back into the character, and even though there was certainly still an element of fantasy to the whole super-spy thing (as there must be to any Bond flick), it made it all a lot more real. I haven't had much of that from any Bond flick, really--and I'm including Goldeneye in this, the first Bond flick I ever went out of my way to watch due to my Pierce Brosnan fangirling. All the updates they did to make it fit into a modern timeframe were excellently done, including several clever callbacks to original Bond-isms such as the Aston-Martin and even the Cold War itself. Judi Dench, as M, spitting out the line "In the old days if an agent had done something so embarrassing, he'd at least have had the good sense to defect! Christ, I miss the Cold War!"--funniest line in the whole film. >:) And really, very much in keeping with the whole getting-back-to-the-basics feel of this movie. We're not in the Cold War anymore, but that sure as hell doesn't mean we can't get back to the essentials of what makes Bond Bond.
And speaking of Judi Dench, it was a bit of a jolt adjusting to her being M in a completely different continuity with a completely different Bond, especially when I distinctly remember her using the line "I want you to take your ego out of the equation" to Pierce Brosnan's Bond, too. Nevertheless she was excellent, especially when giving James hell for breaking into her apartment.
Last but not least, Vesper Lynd. Oh wow, she was great. She too had been updated for the 21st century plot, complete with some much sharper dialogue to share with James (I particularly giggled at her inquiring archly "how's your lamb?" and his immediate sally "skewered! It sympathizes!"). She was very much on top of things when in her element, and when yanked out of it, very gripping in how she reacts. When she and James are jumped by terrorist thugs and she witnesses him having to kill his attackers, he finds her later curled up under a shower in a state of shock, staring numbly into the air. When he comes to her, she murmurs that she feels as if she can't get the blood off her hands. He kisses her fingers and just gently pulls her close. That really sold me on the emotion between these two, and led splendidly into the later scenes where James is recuperating from being tortured (and OMG the torture scene *wince* O.O), and he tells her he loves her and they're practically glowing at each other.
And then she has to die, of course, because she's the love interest in a Bond plot and waaaaaaah. *Sniff* But the way she went out was especially wrenching, with Bond having to dive underwater to rescue her where she's trapped... and he has to watch her drown... and here this Bond's physicality and his frailer emotional side explosively collide as he has to rip the lift she's trapped in apart practically with his bare hands and haul her back up to the surface of the water. I mean, damn. The frenzy was practically visibly pouring off of him.
And then when he learns what she was really up to and then takes her last little gift to him--the note on her cell phone--and goes and tracks down the real mastermind behind the whole sordid scenario... whoof.
That last "Bond. James Bond" tells you that Daniel Craig's stepped into these shoes and then some.
Now I'm really anxious to see the film again, and to see what they'll do with the next couple of ones I'm given to understand he's already signed on to do. Bring it, Mr. Craig! I will be there.
