Casino Royale: Best New Bond Yet

Posted on 18. Dec, 2007 by The Gimcracker in Beratings, Movies

I really enjoyed Casino Royale and let me tell you why. I got really tired of the Pierce Brosnan flicks which got progressively worse and worse. The franchise needed new life, and a new bond was the ticket. It’s sort of like the Batman pictures which started out great but declined rapidly until we were left with a cast of George Clooney, Chris O’Donnell, Alicia Silverstone, Uma Thurman, and Ahhhhhnold. Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Uma Thurman in the Kill Bill series and Gattaca, and who can deny that Mr. Schwarzenegger is the best actor on the planet, but the cast was just put together wrong.

And the plot of the Batman films started to become absurd. Which brings me back to the Bond films. Goldeneye was the first Bond film I saw in the theaters, or anywhere for that matter (I was 13 when it came out), and I loved it. But let me just run through this list real quick and see if any of these movies stand out in any way shape or form for you: Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough, Die Another Day. If you’re like me, you’re saying to yourself “oh I know what that movie was about, or wait, was it that other movie that was about that, what was the second one about again, have I even see all three of these?” That’s because they suck.

Well Casino Royale doesn’t.

The Good

I’m not going to go wasting anyone’s time spouting off actors’ real names or recollecting the names of certain places in the film blah blah blah. You just want to hear why it was good. Rather, I want to document why it was good so I know in the future which movies to buy and watch. If anyone actually reads this and rents the film because of it, then that’s real swell.

The guy who played Bond was oh so perfectly cast. He is the quintessential Bond. He is everything a Bond should be, and not having seen the pre-Brosnan Bond films I would argue that he is one of the best ever.

The car was oh so sticky sweet. It really wasn’t sticky though as it had velvety upholstered dash boards and sleek bevels and such. It was some sort of Aston Martin (of course) that I don’t feel like researching.

The girls were oh so exotically beautiful. Wouldn’t be a Bond film without that, now would it?

And the plot was excellent. I loved that it was about a high stakes poker game in a casino in some exotic town in Italy (that I don’t feel like researching). It was hilarious too. Remember the torture scene? Yeah, that’s right, a torture scene was actually hilarious. How did they do that? I’ll tell you how – the guy who played Bond was amazing, and somehow he made you laugh at him while he was being tortured. It was like an episode of 24 infused with humor.

I want to keep talking about the good. I don’t want this portion to be over. Oh I got it: the ending was spectacular. I’ve never seen a bond film end in such a way as this one. I’m not going to say any more because I don’t want to ruin it for you if you haven’t seen it yet.

The Bad

It wasn’t that believable. First of all, they’d never be able to get away with driving that tanker on the tarmack of an airport during the debut of the world’s biggest plane. It just wouldn’t be as simple as they made it seem. Secondly, it didn’t seem right that during a 100 milion dollar poker tournament these guys would try to kill each other during the breaks and then come back and sit down and pretend like nothing happened. Why not just kill each other straight up and steel each other’s money? Finally, at the beginning of the movie there were a few goofs. No one can run as fast or jump as high as that crazy street runner guy. And no one could get away from 20 automatic guns aimed right at their head by simply shooting the nozzle off a propane tank. That was definitely a cop out scene.

I really can’t think of anything bad about this film as a whole. I remember sitting through it and loving every second of it both times I watched it. Whoever directed it (which I don’t feel like researching) and whoever acted in it (which I don’t have time to look up) and whoever wrote the script (which I can’t spare the time to find out) should be awarded some sort of movie award (whichever ones there are – can’t research that right now) in a town that is known for producing movies where a lot of actors tend to live (wherever that may be).

The Beratings

Acting – no beratings
Plot – no beratings
Inconsistencies – no beratings
Unbelievable Events – 1 berating
Schematics – no beratings

Recommended Investment = See it the first weekend

0/10 Stand in line for the very first showing
1/10 See it the first weekend
2/10 See it at full price
3/10 See it at the Five-Buck-Club
4/10 See it at the dollar-fifty
5/10 See it OnDemand
6/10 Rent it from Blockbuster
7/10 Watch it on TV
8/10 Watch it purely for spousal points
9/10 Never watch it
10/10 Buy it and publicly destroy it

154CommentsCasino+Royale%3A+Best+New+Bond+Yet2007-12-18+15%3A19%3A18The+Gimcracker to “Casino Royale: Best New Bond Yet”

Diremirth 18 December 2007 at 9:41 am #

I too thought this Bond film was awesome. Daniel Craig is a fantastic Bond…not who I would have pictured initially, but completely perfect for the role. Now, its been a while since I saw the movie but I seem to remember there being less goofy, new, techy, gadet-y things that he plaid with that I thought made it more real. And, I could watch the street walking scene all day long. That’s just cool!

By the by, the new theme is fab. Loving the day/night options. Also noticed you are officially the “Gimcracker.” That is wicked cool.

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Arthur 18 December 2007 at 9:50 am #

Not that this movie needs it, but I will attempt to make it more awesome by disproving a few of “The Bad” moments.

I agree with most of the unbelievable moments, but this movie was a remake of the earlier version, so they kind of had to stay in line with the whole “kill your enemy in between hands during the poker tournament.” Although, I think Maverick did that theme better.

Secondly, that street runner guy really can do all that. The guy who played that part basically invented the whole “street gymnastics” or whatever they call it. I remember doing a post about Russian Ninjas or something. I’m too lazy to research it, but I bet if you YouTube “ninjas” or something like that, you’ll see guys who can do that crap. Crazy.

So yeah, this was an awesome movie. And how do you get away with saying “the girls were oh so exotically beautiful?” If I even came close to writing anything remotely resembling that (not that I ever would, because I don’t believe it’s true), my wife would use her own Google-like abilities to sniff out that phrase and leave an extended comment explaining where the sheets are, so that I could sleep on the couch for the next month.

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Chris 18 December 2007 at 10:14 am #

I would say that I agree with Art’s last paragraph, except that I would never even ponder or even want to get away with making such a statement as Brian made because it’s so unbelievably false. There is no such thing as a beautiful girl other than my wife. There are only three types of people: Men, My Wife (who is the only girl on the face of the earth, and is the most absolutely beautiful thing in existence), and then Woe-Men, who are just men with long hair and different parts than me who produce babies and talk with higher voices and don’t need to shave the same things who I completely ignore and find to be obnoxious and did I mention how pretty my wife is and that she is the only girl? Heh… yeah… No offense to your wives or anything though… I mean, I got the only girl, so what else were you supposed to do? You had to marry a woemen, it was your only option…

*Ahem* Anyways, yeah, this bond was the best since Golden-eye. I loved that one. Probably had something to do with my dad taking me to see it in theaters when I was 11. It was awesome. One of the first DVDs I ever owned too.

I think I would give it two beratings though. Mostly because I am too stupid to follow the plot, and even having seen it twice now, I’m still not exactly sure what actually happened and why certain things happened the way they did… Which makes it very re-watchable because I never really know what’s going on or what is going to happen next.

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Caleb 18 December 2007 at 11:49 am #

I wonder if Chris forgot to do the dishes last night or something. Eh Chris? You in the doghouse, there buddy? As for Casino Royale, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie as well. I found the parts that B found just as ridiculous, but after looking at Art’s Russian Ninja blog again (well, fine I didn’t look, but I remember watching it the first time) and now the streetrunner guy is now plausible. As for Montenegro, I did look it up because I wanted to go there after I saw the movie and it’s a small country between Bosnia and Albania. If you don’t know where either of those are, then it’s across the sea from Italy. If you don’t know where that is, then I can’t help you. But yes, I now want to go there. And beat a guy who bleeds blood out of his eye. How weird. I must say though that I found the main villain in this Bond HILARIOUS. At a couple of certain times he goes from one state of mind to the complete opposite end of the spectrum and I cracked up. But yes, I will agree with the B-ratings on this one, and I just might go see the next Bond film in the theater, something I’ve never done.

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The Gimcracker 18 December 2007 at 12:11 pm #

I remember that post Art, and I also remember Emilee (I think it was her, not sure though) telling me about that street performer and that it’s real. I totally believe there are people out there that can do all that stuff.

I think, though, that they map out their routes carefully and make sure everything is solid enough to leap off of, soft enough to land on, just close enough to where they can make the jump, etc. That’s why I don’t think someone could just blaze through a live construction site and not receive a scratch. Still unbelievable to me. Although I think, by me saying that, I’m being too critical and one could use the same types of arguments to say that most things in most movies are unbelievable, so I don’t know what use it is to point it out I guess.

Looking back, it seems I may have tried to hard to come up with at least one Berating for this movie so it wouldn’t get a perfect score (reserved for such films as The Big Lebowski, Casino, Dazed & Confused, Braveheart, The Devil’s Advocate, Tombstone, Raising Arizona, etc.) Maybe I need to restructure my rating system.

So thanks for enhancing my Berating and reinforcing the goodness of this movie.

As for the thing about the exotically beautiful women and the wives and girls and woemen and sleeping on the couch and all of that gewgawy hornswagglish tomfoolery, I’m gonna go ahead and say that one of the agreements before my wife and I got married was that I could KEEP my bollocks.

Seriously though, I know you’re joking. I hope.

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Caleb 18 December 2007 at 5:17 pm #

I just watched it again. I’m officially going to Montenegro, even though the movie was filmed in Italy. I’m out.

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