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In Reply to: Not "apparently" but definitely. I read all the Bond novels when they came out in the sixties. posted by tinear on November 21, 2006 at 13:58:45:

>>> "I found the Len Deighton books their equal but the films far superior. See The Ipcress File if you wish to see a really brilliant film with a sensational young Michael Caine showing what a REAL secret agent is like." <<<
Seen 'em and like 'em, but we were discussing James Bond, which is a different kind of secret agent film designed around the action hero motif; I'd no more compare Len Deighton's Harry Palmer character to James Bond than compare Caine's portrayal of Palmer to James Coburn's in the Flint series.
>>> "You found the initial chase scene wonderful" <<<
Enjoyable for an action film? Yes! Wonderful is more subjective. The elevated chase and escape wasn't so over the top as to be implausible given the physical prowess of Craig's Bond abd desperation of his target although the Embessy gun battle and creative means escape using an explosion as cover did push the believeability envelope somewhat.
>>> "All the fights poorly were staged and filmed, the chase scenes were ridiculously over-long and the entire film, because of the director's habit of dragging out EVERY DRAMATIC EVENT to the maximum, weaved and stumbled its bloated body to the finish line.
Zero suspense. Or Less Than Zero." <<<
Baloney. Sorry tinear but I have to disagree; I've seen better staged fights and I've seen worse staged fights, but Craig's performance in Casino Royale provided sufficient tension for me, my wife and the audience in the theater where we caught the screening.
>>> "Bond was a gentleman and a high-ranking officer. This guy acted like a drill sergeant." <<<
Ummm, different interpretation, a re-envisioning of the character; you either go with it or you don't; you obviously didn't.
>>> "Bond was a suave womanizer. This guy mugged and leered." <<<
As I stated in my earlier post and above, it's an intentional re-envisioning. This Bond is much more about getting the job done for Queen and country with as little getting in the way of it as possible. He's quite literally a killing machine who is capable of making mistakes, but isn't quite as prone to being caught with his pants down on the job due to an overactive libido.
>>> "Bond, in the novels, had many fights but he wasn't Rambo or a Schwartnegger character: he got hurt, spent time in hospital.
Cardiact arrest and return to the game? Gimme a break." <<<
He was injured and spent time in the hospital recuperating, and while the cardiac arrest and rapid recovery after poisoning may seem implausible, it wasn't beyond the pale (pun intended).
>>> "You liked the card game?" <<<
Hey, it wasn't as long or boring as you make it out to be, and Bond's initial loss humanized the character somewhat as it displayed his personal weakness (vanity & arrogance) and the limits of his self-reliance.
>>> "The guy in Venice with the green glass lens and the other clear one was the same villain as Mr. Bloody Tears? Shock! At no time did the director show him clearly enough. Of course, by that point ennui had reduced my attention span: how many times did we see the building begin to sink, centimeter by centimeter." <<<
Tell you what, I won't critisize your short-attention span if you'll quit trying to put words in my mouth with rhetorical questions like those above and below:
>>> "Also, you thought the scene with the gas truck was exciting? How many times did he crawl back into the truck and resume the fight?" <<<
Exciting is a subjective assessment that varies from person to person. I thought that the scene was pretty good albeit stretched out a bit too much straining suspension of disbelief (with the leaking fuel and all the gunfire around it that jet fuel truck probably would've blown up making both Bond and the terrorist driver crispy critters much earlier). That said, what I liked best about this scene was the subtle subtext that even 9/11 could've been set-up by international terrorists, arms dealers and/or unscrupulous investors to make large sums of money off of a catastrophic event in order to pursue their agendas. This movie had a lot more going on than just a clever high-rolling arms dealer trying to cash in on a plummeting stock through an orchestrated event, but what the heck, to each his own.
AuPh

Films/DVD Asylum

LOL! Well, I guess that you were shaken, but not stirred by the new Bond film.