Flixens: Movies, DVDs, TV, comic books and pop culture for women. The boys shouldn't have all the fun.

New Bond: "Royale" With Some Cheese

Ian Fleming's licensed-to-kill superspy James Bond is back in both his first and his latest adventure in Casino Royale, the reboot of the venerable film franchise that shows no sign of mellowing with age.

It seems as if each time a new Bond film comes out, the nay-sayers reiterate how Bond has become an anachronism and that his adventures have become old hat.  Daniel Craig's debut as 007 will be the main reason that people go to see the movie, I'm sure.  I'm happy to report that Craig fills out the tuxedo quite nicely, thank you, dare I say even delivering the best Bond since Sean Connery?  At least, I think he's closer to Fleming's original character than Pierce Brosnan and certainly Roger Moore... rougher than either but smoother than Timothy Dalton.

The plot of the film is relatively straight-forward and uncharacteristically low-key.  After earning his 00-status and his licence to kill (after fulfilling the 2-kill prerequisite which we've all seen in the trailer, James Bond is assigned his first mission, which takes him to Madagascar to capture a bomb-making terrorist, played by real-life "freerunner" Sebastien Foucan.  Simply put, freerunning is the art of running as fast as you can, avoiding all obstacles in your path as gracefully as possible, and Foucan is the inventor of the sport.  His talents are put to incredible use in the film's first big action sequence (there are only three).  I've never seen anyone move quite like Foucan before, and the sequence is both thrilling and mesmerizing.

Bond sort of blunders the mission and earns the disdain of M, played once again by Dame Judi Dench.  Trying to set things right, James teams up with Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), one of Her Majesty's Treasury agents and eventually gets involved in a game of high-stakes poker in Montenegro with Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelson), a global money-launderer to various terrorist organizations who just so happens to be gambling with his clients' money.  James' hopes to beat Le Chiffre at his own game in order to leave the villain no safe purchase in the world except with MI6's interrogators.

If you are familiar with the story, then you will know there are some twists along the way, but nothing you won't see coming down Fleet Street.

For the most part, the film succeeds in its mission.  As I said, Craig makes a great Bond, the locales are gorgeous and places we will never see otherwise, the stunts are physical (Craig may be the most bloodied and bruised Bond yet), and the story is interesting.

The film falls apart in its final act, which suffers from "LOTR Multiple Ending Syndrome" and just about grinds to a halt before the 3rd and final action piece.  At 144 minutes, it's about 20 minutes longer than it needs to be, and could have used some judicious editing to keep the momentum going.

Long-time fans may be upset to see Texas Hold 'Em being played instead of Baccarat, or by the absence of Q and his gadgets and Miss Moneypenny, or by the jumbled timeline of Bond's first mission with the M who replaced a previous M, but it is nice to see Bond back in his Aston Martin again (sorry BMW), and there are some nice moments related to previous Bond traditions, i.e. his response to "Shaken or stirred?" is perfect.

Oh, and it's a Columbia Picture, so get ready for the Sony product placements that we've all come to know and despise.  The film is loaded with them, although I was honestly surprised that the PS3 wasn't a major plot point.  There may be hope for Sony yet.

 

Posted by Nina Kincaid on November 17, 2006 - 8:33pm.
Action | Movie Review | Suspense

seekshelter's picture
freerunning

Posted by seekshelter on November 18, 2006 - 12:19am.

ive never heard of that... it kinda sounds like what they did in District B13... this is actually the first bond movie that ive actually had an urge to see... i hope it is full of ass kicking bad assery .... no one makes movies with rough fight scenes anymore... im not talking about kung fu ... i mean those old ones where 2 people are grappling around on the floor for a gun... or a knife or whatever for 5 minutes... somone should remake They Live... haha..

dougieonline's picture
Parkour:

Posted by dougieonline on November 18, 2006 - 4:28am.

The 'sport' freerunning is based on, wiki.There was a few show's aired in the UK that explained how big this craze was in France, and it's taken off quite well here. It's a real spectator sport too, watching young hooded folk leaping across gaps in the local mall, as they catch their feet on the bannister and go face first into the escalator. It's like a real-life YouTube.

Oh yeah, Bond. I'm actually quite interested to see this one too, I think probably because it's Daniel Craig's first. I maintain a strict policy of Indiana Jones > Bond.

Poker? Seriously? The Bond-ites will be furious. I can see it now:

"Do you expect me to talk?"

"No, I expect you to FOLD!"

I'll probably wait for the rush to pass before I catch this. And with only a few theatres showing Tenacious D this weekend, I might not get to see anything :(
--------------------
www.dougieonline.co.uk
Email me

Instant Karma's picture
Great Re-boot

Posted by Instant Karma on November 18, 2006 - 11:21am.

After the Triple X inspired nonsense of the last Bond, this is exactly the shot in the arm that the franchise needed. I think the producers deserve some praise for taking the risk of changing the tone of the series even though box office receipts seemed to indicate that audiences would still turn out for the increasingly over the top style of Bond adventures.

I've always been fairly ambivilent about the Bond movies, but I loved this. By far the best Bond movie I've seen and Daniel Craig is brilliant in the part. Actually, I don't think there's a weak link in the cast. Pretty much character part is well written and cast. I hope they can continue in this vein for a while and I'm really looking forward to the next one.

Oh, and I also really like the 3rd act. I think it was important for sewing the seeds of his character development for subsequent movies, showing just how much he had changed throughout his first outing as a 00.

Did I mention I liked this?

Flash red, yellow and

Posted by menene on March 19, 2008 - 3:53am.

Flash red, yellow and lightning, he went wide. Was it a bird? Was it a plane? Real ufo? Many, including two small boys, on the object in their strange Bandarawela in the playground are convinced it was a UFO. Tharuka Dissanaike and Michelle Henricus report.

Give Sampath Dissanayake usually comes early in the school. Thursday, 30 April 1998, he was in primary school Adikaram until 6:30 pm. He had his school bag in the year 3 classes in which a slight noise strongly taken into consideration, but his attention. He believed that something was out of the room to crumble. But, as it emerged, is a strange encounter his vision of 8 years old eyes. A large object in the form of glass with their feet was on the playground, just under his class. Then, as he looks, he interests red and yellow lights and has become a raging speed.

"He turned around when the plane sideways taken on the jak tree and went into the sky." The weather was just 7.43 hours. Do not heard about ufo crash of before flying saucers. His description of this morning, the view is childlike, direct and as a function of their teachers, the story has not changed, all in the past week. Give adopts a heel of chalk and draws a picture of what he has seen. Simple, but with even violent cartoonish detail.

Sharing this view, some with him on that morning was Ellawalagedera Harsha. This is 10 years of his teachers as a very promising candidate for the year five scholarships for the audit in August. Harsha, as a student in high school, has been entrusted the task of opening up the doors to all classrooms early morning.He unlock the classroom was flanked in the game, when a slight noise that God will return. Nevertheless believed his eyes when he was on the object in the form of the disc which is suddenly a flash bright red and yellow lights.

They disappeared in my eyes, "he recalls." One second later, I saw in the air. He is higher and wider power of the mountains, "Harsha points in the south. Harsha said that the object is large enough - perhaps measure 8 feet in diameter and 7 feet high. The two boys said he has a slight, gentle humming noise while he flew off. But in the sky, he glided noiselessly.

ufo files. Harsha's friend, Priyanjith also on the object in the form of the disc, while he flew high in the sky. The steering wheel is not the subject of these foreign youths. They claim it flies over their school often enough early in the morning. In the air, he takes a strange form of the tube with a single purpose. The kids have nicknamed koka (stork). But it was the first time that the boat had landed.

"I have a problem. During assembly, the students are distracted, they all look at the sky," the director joked. But jokes about the two children, according to the "UFO" are very much for the honor by the fans of UFOs and authors of science fiction. But the fact that a primary school in Bandarawela the importance of maintaining the "site chassis was not examined. At the time when the adults were in a position of the tracks in the sand slope clutch was deleted by hundreds of small feet. The Director of the Bandarawela Madya Maha Vidyalaya, Jayantha Wickremasinghe succeeded, some photos of the flower in the form of trademarks, the curious, remained in the sand. But the large, in the form of footwear brands and the brands churn deep in the sand - the type described Harsha and see on the pitch after the object has - in most cases had disappeared, where the teacher came.

The website is also part of a white, dead insects, a large grasshopper pilgrims. The flyer with these parties was also lost, which try to preserve the remains by drying on a rock. People take this new Bandarawela relaxed into their stride - for most believed that the two children to a really strange phenomenon.

But if we to believe that the "UFO" has a Adikaram partiality in the school, that's really not the case. Many more people, including two doctors have begotten Bandarawela strange monuments of the city in the last two weeks.
new video of ufo.