(no subject)
So went to see Casino Royale with Snow Angel a few days ag0
I don’t like James bond as a habit. I find it flat, same-ish and egotistical. I mean I can see why it’s popular. England is falling apart at the seams, so it’s nice to pretend that we have the best gadgets, the best spies, the best men and that our secret service regularly saves that world, but that doesn’t necessarily make for a good story.
Anyway I was expecting the same old thing, slightly interesting with a new actor but still…but I have to say I was very pleasantly surprised. It was genuinely, really good. Seriously.
The script is sharp, the storyline is clever and Daniel Craig is brilliant (of course it helps that he spent a large portion of the movie with his top off).
The whole thing is set around a game of poker, (there’s this very obvious commentary between a couple of the characters for those members of the audience who don’t know the first thing about poker, which gets a little annoying after a while but I’ll let it slide) but what the story is really about is character development, and that’s what makes it so interesting. It starts off with his first kill, (I think it’s one of the weightiest deaths I’ve ever seen on James Bond. Of course it goes back the whole remorseless killing thing pretty quickly but it’s not quite so gratuitous as usual. -One of the things that really irks me about a lot of modern films is the insignificance they place on life and death. One of the reasons that I love the new Doctor Who is that it always gives weight to deaths, even when it’s dealing with unimportant characters or characters that don‘t necessarily deserve to live. Anyway, back to the film).
The thing about Casino Royale is that it’s a look the character of James Bond, on the brink of becoming who he is in all the other films and it’s very interesting, if a little tragic. He’s not got the suave of his predecessors but that’s sort of the point, and the great thing is that we see him gain it slowly as the film progresses (side note, I have long been of the impression that men wearing tuxes ought to be compulsory by law, this film has done nothing to dissuade me of this). There’s a great line after he’s just lost badly at poker and he stalks up to the bar and orders a drink and the guy asks him if he’d like it shaken or stirred (btw do u know that in the original books it was stirred, not shaken and they changed it around fort he movie because they said that shaken, not stirred sounded better) and he turns around a snaps “Does it look like I care?!”
Apart from that they’ve cut back on the gadgets (thank God! I draw the line at invisible cars). This bond comes armed with only a gun and a silencer. Fortunately Craig actually looks as though he’s perfectly capable of taking out five men.
I think he lacks a bit on some of the more quiet emotional scenes but otherwise portrays the character brilliantly.
Oh but don’t watch it if you’re squeamish. There’s lots of quite nasty bits including a particularly horrible torture scene (if you’re bored take a guy along with you and just watch his facial expressions during said torture scene. seriously) which sort of goes comic half way through, very weird.
But yeah, go watch it, it’s great!
Oh and also, does anyone else think that Daniel Craig looks like a great white shark, or is that just me?
Btw have you heard about the fog? Not quite so great if you’re trying to travel to/from Heathrow airport, but it’s completely gorgeous around here. Almost makes up for there being no snow. All the trees are white with and the cobwebs on the bushes are crystallised and are just hanging there like very elaborate Christmas decorations, and everything is covered in mist. It’s like a fairy land.