Saw Casino Royale last night-Two Thumbs UP!

[efhughes3]

Best Bond movie in a long time! I'm a Sean Connery as Bond advicate, but the new guy does great. Much better than Roger Moore. Also, the story line is plausible, it wasn't about some guy who had his own space fleet or a death ray of some sort.

The only downer was that the A-M DBS that is the featured ride, doesn't see much action.

[Seahawk]

Great...I need a good movie.

[JonT]

Saw it last night too--I really enjoyed it. Daniel Craig plays a much more rugged, not so cheesy Bond. Plot details are a little hard to follow so listen closely. Great flick.

[Joeaksa]

Am in London now and every frigging movie theatre is full! Need to see it before punching out of here on tuesday but glad to hear that its a good watch...

[Aerkuld]

I went to see this last night too. I was a little reluctant as I wasn't sure about Daniel Craig as Bond. But he actually does a stirling job! Reminded me of a kind of Sean Connery and Steve McQueen mix at times.
Hugh R will appreciate the DB4 (or would it be a DB5?) too!

I think I will probably take the kids to see it this weekend, I am certain they'll enjoy it too!

I would recommend going to see it for sure.

[Steve PH]

The original was a DB5 but apparently there is little difference betwean very late DB4s and 5s. I should be seeing Casino Royale next weekend, hopefully the queues will have eased up a bit by then.

[cowtown]

I just saw it today, and agree it's great. The best Bond movie since the Fleming books.

Aerkuld, Craig IS a lot like Connery plus McQueen. That's an interesting way to put it. He's got a lot of intensity, and has also bulked up physically since Layer Cake. He's got the potential to be the best Bond of them all, IMO. The writing was also bounds above the last few. Especially the scenes on the train and at the poker table.

[layzee]

I'm not a bond fan, but it was pretty good if you can get past the unbelivable stuff. They have got to lay off the product placement though, driving a rental Mondeo in the Bahamas with dramatic camera angles like it was a 911.... purleeeze.

[84porsche]

Saw it too. Great movie. The Aston Martin flip was quite painful.

[red-beard]

I saw it Friday. Great movie...

I liked the action without all of the insane gadgets. It really was much more like the earlier bond flicks, Dr. No and From Russia with love. No sharks with frick'n laser beams on thier heads.

I think they needed to spend a little less time on action and more time on tying the plot together. They could have dropped the action scene in the stairwell and it wouldn't have lost anything. Then used the time for plot development. Same with the defibulator scene.

[Noah930]

Like Red-beard said, not perfect. But still worth the money to go see it in a theater. Very entertaining.

[Rick Lee]

I'm a curmudgeon and refuse to see remakes or sequels.

[speeder]

Originally posted by cowtown
The writing was also bounds above the last few. Especially the scenes on the train and at the poker table.

Definitely worth the great reviews, the scenes that you mention are widely believed to be the handiwork of Paul Haggis, (one of the three credited writers), the only person to ever win back-to-back screenwriting Oscars. (For "Million Dollar Baby" and "Crash").

It really is a jewel of a Hollywood film; the scenes between Judi Dench and Craig are magic, and casting touches like Jeffrey Wright, a hugely under-rated American actor as the CIA guy are golden. (He also delivers 2 of the best lines in the film). Even using an incredible world-class athlete as the guy getting chased in Africa, (Sebastien Foucan), yeah, it rocks.

Every once in a while things just line up right, and this was one of them.

[speeder]

Originally posted by red-beard
I saw it Friday. Great movie...

I liked the action without all of the insane gadgets. It really was much more like the earlier bond flicks, Dr. No and From Russia with love. No sharks with frick'n laser beams on thier heads.

I think they needed to spend a little less time on action and more time on tying the plot together. They could have dropped the action scene in the stairwell and it wouldn't have lost anything. Then used the time for plot development. Same with the defibulator scene.

With you on the stairway scene, but the poisoning sequence was amazing acting IMO. (Maybe not the defib thing specifically). This is definitely a guy who has done his share of Shakespeare, probably been poisoned once or twice before.

And Rick, it's really not a sequel or remake. The first CR was a non-authorised Bond spoof w/ Woody Allen, Peter Sellers and David Niven, this one does not have much in common w/ it.

[slodave]

I saw it yesterday and liked it alot. Would go see it again.

[Hugh R]

I liked it a lot, a little slow in some places, but definitely closer to the Sean Connery films than the Roger Moore ones, which were getting to slap stick. I can't tell if it was a Series 5 DB4 or a DB5. For those of you who don't know, in Goldfinger, it was advertised as a DB5, but in reality, it was the last Series 5, DB4's made, Aston took it as a placement to advertise the DB5, in fact, they were indistinguishable, except for a badge on the boot (trunk). You'l also notice it was left hand drive, and obviously not the Goldfinger car since he won it in poker one of the bad guys. I read on the net that they put an automatic trannie in since the actor didn't, or couldn't drive a stick. Personally, I don't believe it. If they could get him to bulk up 20 pounds of muscle for the movie, they could have gotten him to learn to drive a stick. Also, the movie doesn't really show him actually driving the older Aston. My friends at Sony (MGM) confirmed that they wrecked the crap out of that new DBS (only one).

[CJFusco]

Originally posted by Aerkuld
I went to see this last night too. I was a little reluctant as I wasn't sure about Daniel Craig as Bond. But he actually does a stirling job! Reminded me of a kind of Sean Connery and Steve McQueen mix at times.
Hugh R will appreciate the DB4 (or would it be a DB5?) too!
.

Saw it tonight.

You know, my first thoughts seeing Craig as Bond was that he looked like a boxer, like a good, old-fashioned 1930s pugilist. After awhile in the movie, he reminded me a lot of both Connery and McQueen. He had the kind of Scottish charm that was a hallmark of Connery's Bond, but also the "less is more" approach of a Steve McQueen. Craig doesn't have a whole lot of dialogue in this movie, but his presence is definitely significant.

I liked the approach of the Broccoli/UA people in making this movie; it's as if they hit the "reset" button (a la BATMAN BEGINS) and used only the source material to shape CASINO ROYALE. Well, this isn't completely accurate - there are tongue-in-cheek references to the now-aborted "old" Bond franchise (such as the Astons - in the books 007 drives a Bentley) - but the differences are enormous.

First off, the audience is introduced to a world of intrigue and espionage - not unlike the Bourne movies - in which large sums of money are what make legitimate governments and terrorist organizations go 'round. There are no "world-domination-bent" overlords with bald heads and tunics stroking expensive cats on a floating fortress. Sure, the technology is impressive... but it's real. The most impressive gadgets are the newest advances in laptops and cell phones. No jet packs, no portable EMPs.

Bond himself is portrayed like an assassin. He is sophisticated - his ordering of the dry martini (6 parts Gordons, 4 parts vodka, 2 parts vermouth, shaken over ice and stirred in the glass, if I remember correctly), which is verbatim from the original novel - is a particularly nice touch... but he is only sophisticated by necessity. If he had his way, he would rather just crash through drywall to get to his quarry, or shoot his next quarry in the leg with a high-powered rifle. It is actually a refreshing touch that Bond still has rough edges at this point in his career, such as his ham-fistedness with the Aston DBS.

Actually, Craig's Bond represents an extreme in the James Bond gallery, with Roger Moore on the other end. I remember reading in the NEW YORKER review of CASINO ROYALE that whereas Craig's Bond drinks Bourbon simply to kill the pain following hand-to-hand combat, Roger Moore's Bond would have stopped to appreciate the craft of the distiller. On one end of the scale we have Bond the brute assassin, on the other end we have Bond the stuffy blueblood, with Connery, Dalton, Lazenby, and Brosnan somewhere in between.

I like this new direction for 007. In spirit it is closer to television's "24" than, say, DIE ANOTHER DAY... and I consider that to be a very good thing.

[J1NX3D]

i saw it on saturday and loved it. i agree with you CJ

[red-beard]

Originally posted by Rick Lee
I'm a curmudgeon and refuse to see remakes or sequels.

There were 2 versions of Casino Royal. There is a 1950's, made for TV movie. From my understanding, it was the reason the Movies started with Dr. No.

The theatrical movie version was a Woody Allen spoof.

So, technically, it's a remake. But really, I don't think anyone really saw the 1950's movie.

Rick, go see it. It's worth the money.

[efhughes3]

Yep, don't let the thought of remake get in your way here, you'll be short-changing yourself. Think of it as the redemption and renewal of the Bond franchise.

I'm saddened to hear from Hugh that they actually did trash the real DBS prototype! All to avoid hitting that bi.....