Friday, November 17, 2006

Casino Royale


Casino Royale opens today. I suspect that Bond geeks everywhere are feeling a bit giddy this morning. I'll just note that I've been feeling pretty good about this movie since I first heard that Daniel Craig was going to be the new Bond, and perhaps even before that. Change was in the air. The results--judging by the reviews I've looked at thus far--suggest that my optimism was well-founded. Here's a quick look at a couple of the more prominent reviews by film critics that aren't all that easy to please.

Moriarty, in a really long review on the movie-geek site Ain't It Cool News, gives it a rave:

CASINO ROYALE is the rebirth of James Bond, and it is the first entry in the series since ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE that can be called an excellent film, and not just a “good James Bond movie.” Somehow, the combination of screenwriting team Purvis & Wade (responsible for some of the worst screenplays in the entire series) and the dreaded Paul Haggis has resulted in a lean and efficient script. It not only effectively adapts the Ian Fleming novel, but it also expands up on it in ways that acknowledge the film’s status as a giant franchise action film without compromising any integrity. There are a few choices I’m not crazy about, but overall, I am impressed and amazed. Martin Campbell has stepped up with his best-directed film to date. Campbell is a professional, and I think he does solid work most of the time, but he’s hardly an artist. Here, I think he raises his game, and the result is something special, something with a real pulse, a vital film that absolutely rehabilitates the character and that delivers Daniel Craig to superstardom, fully formed.


Along with some very astute analysis of what was wrong with the more recent Bond films, Magnolia Darkness of the Times comes very close--for her, anyway--to gushing:

Here what pops off the screen aren’t the exploding orange fireballs that have long been a staple of the Bond films and have been taken to new pyrotechnic levels by Hollywood producers like Jerry Bruckheimer, but some sensational stunt work and a core seriousness. Successful franchises are always serious business, yet this is the first Bond film in a long while that feels as if it were made by people who realize they have to fight for audiences’ attention, not just bank on it. You see Mr. Craig sweating (and very nice sweat it is too); you sense the filmmakers doing the same….

Mr. Craig ... walks the walk and talks the talk, and he keeps the film going even during the interminable high-stakes card game that nearly shuts it down.

If Mr. Campbell and his team haven’t reinvented the Bond film with this 21st edition, they have shaken (and stirred) it a little, chipping away some of the ritualized gentility that turned it into a waxworks.


Finally, I'm struck that the reviewers in some of the local papers really like it but also seem determined to give it only grudging respect. Here's an example from the rubes at the Boston Globe. The reviewer thinks Daniel Craig is great (Though this'll make Bram cringe: "No slight to Connery, Timothy Dalton, or Pierce Brosnan, but there’s something to be said for casting an actor of depth and creative daring as Bond.") but thinks the directing was a little uninspired.

In sum, I'm having a hard time thinking of a recent movie that has garnered this many positive reviews. My contrarian nature makes me wonder what is going on here. Is the movie really that good? Or are Bond fans rooting for this movie so much that they're making it seem better than it really is? I suppose there's only one way to find out. My preliminary conclusion, however, is that the praise seems to be genuine. (Faint praise, I think, would be obvious, and this seems to be the real thing.)

Consider this some homework from jwbblog: Go to the movies this weekend. You have my permission to sneak in to see "For Your Consideration"--or, if you've not grown tired of all the hype, "Borat"--but only after you've purchased a ticket for and seen "Casino Royale." Do it!

UPDATE: Nick checks in from Chicago (or, as we like to say, Chi-town). He saw it last night and gives it three stars (out of, I assume, four), says there are a few problems with the story that will be evident to any Bond geek, but that Daniel Craig is very good. Nick is a certified bad-ass in real life--I can't say more; it's very hush-hush--so he knows whereof he speaks.

There is also a semi-amusing story that I came across in the dead-tree version of the Times about the British reception of Craig as the new Bond: "New Bond Sielnces the British Naysayers." Ah, the sayers of nay. What would we do without them.

Posted by jwb at 11:00 AM   

3 Comments:

Blogger monica said:

Magnolia Darkness? For real? That would be an awesome Bond girl name.
at 10:05 AM     

Blogger jwb said:

It's a nickname some cheaky blogger came up with for Manohla Dargis, who tends to be really tough.
at 10:16 AM     

Blogger Bram said:

Ran across mostly positive reviews as well — maybe, like me, they just have such low expectations.

Way, way too many "clever" takes on the notion of shaking and stirring up the Bond franchise, though
at 6:52 PM     

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