DANIEL CRAIG's best BOND movie to date
is undoubtedly CASINO ROYALE. His other two
have been hit-and-miss affairs, being the very oppos-
ite of things better than the sum of their parts. Parts
of each film were good, it was the whole which
was lacking in both of them.
Let's hope that SPECTRE doesn't disappoint.
9 comments:
Casino Royale is the only Bond film I've seen since Licence To Kill in 1989. I saw the DVD of Casino Royale on sale dirt cheap about 3 years ago so I decided to give it a go. It was okay but in my opinion the whole Bond thing is a bit of a tired concept these days.
Bond movies always work better on the big screen first, CJ. Sitting in your livingroom in your underpants (I don't have a livingroom in my underpants) on your lonesome is not the way to watch movies - unless they're a 'certain kind' of movie, that is. (So I've been told.)
Several Bond films seem to have the opposite of synergy. The whole is less than the sum of the parts. That is, they have some cool set pieces, but not enough to add up to a really good movie.
The Craig films have relatively realistic premises compared to the ones with Moore and even the last couple with Connery. That is, 007 is dealing with foreign spies and terrorists rather than comic book mad scientists plotting to take over the world.
Skyfall seemed to be overblown, as did You Only Live Twice, The Spy Who Loved Me, and Moonraker. Maybe it's just the need (whether real or assumed) to have each movie outdo the one before. Every so often, it seems to reach a saturation point, and then they seem to pull back. For your Eyes Only was literally and figuratively more down-to-earth than Moonraker. Maybe Spectre will be an improvement over the last two Craig film.
I saw it in a US multiplex when it came out, I couldn't quite believe how they just took the book and made it into a flick, they even put, 'The bitch is dead' line in it, albeit with an ironic twist. It was a bit like receiving a message in a bottle, from the shores of the island where the exiled fans of Bond were languishing, hiding from the disapproval and censure of Mary Whitehouse and the political correctness storm troopers. There is some embellishment on the novel, where I was kinda thinking, what's happening here? Which is an indication of how faithfully it captures the feel of the book.
The comic book villains were in the films from the start, TC (Dr. No, Odd Job), and I kind of miss them. We need good, old-fashioned escapism these days I'd say. The last one was just a bit too serious for my tastes, and it's far from being the best Bond film of all time, as some people claim.
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I remember reading the book back in the '70s, DSE. I must give it another outing one day. I got a copy free with a DVD set (or was it a magazine - can't remember now) some time back, so once I remember where it is, I'll take another look.
I much preferred the David Niven/Peter Sellars "Casino Royale"
Aha! So you're that person, BS. There can be only one.
In the mid-1960's, the fad was for spy spoofs with a lot of so-bad-it's-good campy comedy. Unfortunately, Casino Royale and Modesty Blaise were more like so-bad-it's-just-unwatchable.
You've got that right, TC - they were pretty awful. The '60s Casino Royale is particularly tedious.
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