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In Reply to: Finally saw Casino Royale. I knew better but posted by Analog Scott on December 9, 2006 at 16:45:15:
Well IMO it's the best Bond film hey've made -- I have seen them all and it's not much of a horse race.I have to say for once the critics are generally right on this film.
Follow Ups:
But I think this still flies way under it. I'm not much of a Bond fan but I seem to remeber some of them, like Goldfinger being stylistically consistant, humorous, and not nearly so stupid. I don't rmember anyof them having a dreadfully bad poker game in the middle of them with an arbitrary deadly poisoning only to be foiled by one of the most ridiculous Bond devices ever contrived and the lucky expertise on such devices by the Bond chick who just happened by his car at th very last second during what? a casual walk in the parking lot? But of course he was fine to continue the game and no one had any interest in persuing the person who poisoned him. I could go on and on about how pathetically stupid this movie was. Is that really true, even more so about all the Bond films? Didn't the really stupid ones from the past, at least some of them, establish a cinematic style that said "we are going to be over the top with our tongues in our cheeks?" Casino Royale had no specific style. Each segment was completely different from each other. Oh well you can fool some of the people all of the time etc.
Bond films just like 99.9999999% of the action adventure science fiction genres typically have convenient plot devices. How fast can the starship Enterprise go? At the speed of the plot. Ie; if the plot needs the ship to arrive late then darn it all warp 9 just isn;t fast enough Scotty.Bond films like virtually all action films have the same kind of issues that you either accept on their terms or you don't. That is why Action/Adventure are not generally lumped into competition against arthouse films. Since the goals are different the reviews are different.
The guy on the other side of the card table tried to kill Bond (well his hench woman).
James Bond was never supposed to go ove the top with tongue in cheek. This is one reason that most people today hate the Roger Moore films -- and one of the reason's that Sean Connery wanted out after Thunderball (though he did others later).
Casino Royale is not trying to emulate other Bond Films and there are logic problems, the film runs too long, the villains are not as clearly drawn as I would like, but that can be said about most action films if not all of them and within this genre there are few better.
And since when does a film need a specific style? What exactly are you referring to with the word style? Cinematic style certainly does not need to be in a homogeneous box. Though granted homogeneousness has become popular -- see McDonalds.
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I haven't read Casino Royale but I find it kind of surprising if not impossible given the fifty year gap between the two.
I don't agree with your premise entirely. Yes bad genre films seem to bend their own rules as a matter of convenience. Good ones don't. They set the rules. ask for certain suspensions of disbelief and then stay true to the alternate universe they create to tell their story. More importantly they either don't do stupid things or they do them for a reason that goes well beyond a lack of enginuity in story telling. If you want to see an example of just such a movie check out Deja Vu.
My recollection of previous Bond films, both likable ones and not, were that they were at the very least stylistically coherent, That is simply not the case with this one. The film makers apperently didn't know what sort of film they were trying to make. Nor did they know how to tell a story with any sense of flow. The segmentation of this film is just awful. These are not things that any decent film can have. Genre films are not granted licences to be plainly stupid just because they ask us to suspend certain disbeliefs.
I don't have a problem with the bad guy trying to kill Bond during the poker game. I have many problems with how it was executed and why it was done. In terms of story telling it was a tangent that made no sense and ultimately went nowhere. It was treated like such an isolated event that it simply became stupid. It ignores all the circumstances surounding the situation and it forgets itself within seconds of it's passing. If you think it through it is ridiculous. She dumps poison right in front of everyone and he drinks freely knowing the risk. He is poisoned and knows he is about to dies yet he decides to deal with the situation without the aid of anyone there in his support team. Why does Bond need to be discete about being poinsoned? Heck, logically they could have literally achieved their goal right then and there. I'm pretty sure that poisoning your opponents is a form of cheating and grounds for disqualification. The point of that poker game was simply to beat the bad guy at poker no? Jeez at the very least they could have had the game postponed which would have achieved their goal as well. The bad guy needed the money right away. So any way....Then we see the real purpose of this whole folly, to force the use of a "Bond gadget" to make the Bond fans happy. It was in and of itself ridiculous. Thank goodness the Bond girl timed her casual walk in the parking lot as well as she did and thank goodness she was familiar with the gadget and knew precisely what was going on and what to do at the momnent. Then the game procedes as though nothing happened. Sorry but if you are going to set up a major story telling point, the poker game, in a public place that would logically be crawling with CIA and her majesties secret service you have to come up with less ridiculous story lines that rely on no one observing what is going on or acting upon it. Thwere's no way Bond gets poisoned, dies in private in his car, gets revived, and then goes on as if nothing happened.It is stupid on every level. If the setting doesn't support the action in *any* logical way then the writers have to come up with action that does. They failed at every turn to do so. Again this is just one point that was the rule of stupidity through out this movie rather than the exception.
Now take a movie like Deja Vu. You will not find any such holes in it. Every action has a logical motivation. All the rules of make believe are followed to the T. The story is tight.It is interesting. The set ups have payoffs etc etc. That is good genre movie making. Not the drivel that was Casino Royale.
If Bond was never supposed to be over the top or tongue in cheeck how do you for one moment forgive that first over the top tongue in cheeck Jackie Chan style chase in the opening segment? Again, stylistically this movie is a mess, never knowing what it wants to be, all over the place and with no purpose other than expose. Bad film making at it's most obvious.
I disagree with you about a film needing a style. It most certainly does. If Tender Mercies turns into Godzilla vs. the smog monster in mid movie and then into singing in the rain for the last twenty minutes there are fundimental problems with it. A cohesive style sets a tone that will allow the audience to suspend their disbelief and follow the eb and flow of story telling without disruption. For me it is pure lack of diciplin that this moie would go from Jackie Chan, to Marathon man in it's stylings. You may as well have a banjo solo at the ned of an aria. Yes great artists can expand the gamut of stylistic fusions. but clearly this isn't what happened in Casino Royale.
Firstly I disagee with most points you are making regarding style. This is an action film with a character Called James Bond who is supposed to be the world's best killing machine. Therefore he "should" be able to hang in with all the Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan's of the world and not only that beat them! That is the character and the action sequences in this film represent an actor able to do such scenes. The fight scenes at the beginning of this film are stylistically similar to the closing fight scene as well as the fight in the stairwell.Taking the opening Jackie Chan fight scene at the beginning of the film well no need to watch past that if you are not willing to suspend your disbelief. For a James Bond film it was more realistic than most. Believable? Well of course not because if a James Bond existed then Bin Laden's head would be on a stick two days after 9/11. One day of which to get the flight.
The card game scene is a series of convenient plot devices no arguing that from me. It sets up primarily the only one liner in the entire film. Should Bond ask for help - nah this is a rough around the edges epic ego's. Showing weakness - he'd rather die - as it turns out he did. The girl walking by is another convenience to the plot - though she is no dummy and she can recognize that device as heart paddles. Gee there is a wire loose and only one place for it to go - let's stick it in there. So I'm with you on the fact that she happens to be near by at the most convenient time - but not on what to do with the wire. And I am also quite willing in such movies to "fill in" the cutaway scenes. Perhaps she saw Bond out the window and went out to him - or saw him leave the room.
Why Kill Bond in the first place? Well Bond was the primary adversary in the game and look what was at stake.
You point to one action film that is flawless in your view -- how about giving me a list of 25 action films that are superior -- preferably something that made 50 million at the box office so it might actually be available to some of us.
By the way I can write a 3000 word essay on exactly why Citizen Kane and 81/2 are complete pieces of crap - I don't have to agree with what I write but I can write it from a logically strong position. Casino Royale is hardly a perfect film - but it is still the smartest most realistic film in this series aside from perhaps On Her Majesty's Secret Service, but that film was so hampered by it's lead actor as to knock it down several pegs.
Goldfinger? Yeah a guy throwing hats at people to kill them while a robber is going to gas the entire army to blow up Fort Knox to devalue the dollar. And you are worried about the preposterousness of the Bond girl seeing Bond in his car to save his life? I mean Casino Royale is the least preposterous Bond movie of the lot by a lot. It is also the only Bond movie in 20+ years that actually creates a character rather than a cartoon. The merits the film has outweighs some editing and plot convenience issues.
1. Terminator
2. Terminator II
3. Aliens
4. The Blues brothers
5. The seven samarai
6. Raiders of the lost ark
7. house of flying daggers
8. hero
9. crouching tiger hidden dragon
10. Enter the dragon
11. drunken master
12 star wars 9the original)
13 The matrix
14 Kill Bill I
15 The wild bunch
16 Die HardThat is just off the top of my head. these are not just better they are hugely better.
I have given Casino Royale 4/5 stars.To see the rest of your list you have indeed provided some that are better and some that are vastly overrated and even more supposedly idiotic than Casino Royale. Some I'm leaving off because they are not truly in the same classification - CTHD is a better film but hardly in the same genre.
1. Terminator ****1/2 (This is actually one of the best films of the 1980s for me and not because of the action adventure - I happened to think it was one of the most effective romance films of the decade and a lot done on a little money.)
2. Terminator II **** (Most like it better than the original I do not but I have it higher than Casino Royale). This film has convenient timing as well - the directors cut fixed up some of the mistakes and I would add 1.2 star to the director's cut version.
3. Aliens (****1/2 though CR is better than Alien) - Alien was more of a slasher flick in space while Aliens is the better film in terms of holding up over the years.
4. The Blues brothers (** never understood the appeal from this flick)
5. The seven samarai (***** Should not really be on the list as the films are wolrds apart -- but it's a great movie - one of the 100 best on my list)
6. Raiders of the lost ark (***** The best action adventure film of all time - One of the best films of all time - still holds up extemely well).
10. Enter the dragon (huh? - This may be hailed as the great martial arts film -- but that's like saying the Big Mac is the best fast food burger - like who cares? - Unwatchable trash and Kill Bill may be inspired by it but Quentin knows how to direct)
12 star wars 9the original) Cowboys and Indians in space (****) That is essentially the depth of the plot. It should not really be considered action adventure - though Science fiction/Fantasy is a reach - still it is closer to sci-fi/fantasy than action adventure. Empire Strikes Back (*****) is better than both! I enjoy Star Wars for the tongue in cheek nature and because it sets up the better Empire Strikes Back. The Return of the Jedi however was a weak "let's sell Ewoks to the kids" money grab and the series should have died there and then. Episode I was the first film in a decade that I shut off half way through - it was insufferably bad with Jar Jar possibly as annoying as Michael Jackson on helium (which is redundant).
13 The matrix (***) This is perhaps the most overrated film I've seen and while good it is a total rippoff of a 1974 Doctor Who episode right down to the Matrix itself. Indeed that same Doctor Who episode has the lines "Resistance is Futile" so it's no wonder where the American creators get all their supposed "orginal" ideas from. Add in the wooden acting and zero character development in the matrix and the only reason it musters *** from me is that at least it is visually impressive. The rather boring obviouness of the exercise means it can only be sat through one time -- and it was not good enough for me to sit through the sequels. Keanu Reeves hinders he film as well with his one note wooden performances.
14 Kill Bill I (Kill Bill Vol II was better) as a Set I prefer it to Casino Royale - but this is a preposterous duo of films with preposterous situations, action sequences, story line and even the premise. I loved it though (****1/2) for the 2.
16 Die Hard (**1/2) Yes those Cops sure do have Marine James Bond calibur training. The idiots on the ground are some of the most incompetantly handled people in film history. (Paul Gleeson's character is completely unbelievable and serves no other purpose than to fill time badly.) Nobody this dumb could be a deputy police chief. Great action - good villain - better than the horrendously awful second picture.
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