I finally got a chance to see Casino Royale the other day. I’m not a big Bond fan per se, but I essentially grew up watching these movies so for better, or for worse I have certain fondness for flicks featuring agent 007. That said, I could hardly stomach any of the recent Bond garbage.
I can say I like what they were trying to do with this movie. Instead of having some assface failing miserably at trying to be Sean Connery they went and created a brand new Bond with 80% less cheese and and a hint of awesome. They essentially rebuilt him from scratch (apparently they had the technology – or so I’m told). Daniel Craig makes Pierce Brosnan look like a batnipple – must have seemed like a good idea at the time, and someone green-lighted it, but seriously.
So we have this brand new Bond, who can kick more ass than the last 3 or 4 Bonds ever even saw kicked in their lives. He can do realistic fight scenes, and even some parkour. Yes, he is actually chasing some dude through the construction site – he doesn’t whip out an invisible jetpack from his wristwatch. And since this s a prequel of sorts, this Bond is still fresh, ambitious and hungry. He has a big ego, and a lot to prove. He also has a problem with authority, and regularly pisses off his boss, and gets in trouble for being hot-headed.
With this kind of setup, there is about a billion exciting things you could make him do. Playing poker is not one of them. I have nothing against having a game of poker in a Bond movie. It kinda fits right in. But, this movie is all about a poker game. Bond’s mission is essentially “go play poker against the bad guy and win”. Apparently during the production of this film, someone decided that it will really be a good idea to have this awesome new Bond playing cards throughout the whole movie. I don’t know about you, but last time I checked it is really hard to kick ass when you are sitting at a poker table. And I don’t care who you are, but kicking someone in the face delivers more pwn per pound than calling a bluff at a high stakes poker game. Sorry but if I really wanted to watch people playing cards I would just flip to ESPN and then go fucking kill myself in the face.
So instead of kicking ass and taking names, agent 007 is tossing around poker chips through half of the movie. I would probably fall asleep if he didn’t take short breaks from playing cards to kill some people in the stairway, get poisoned and almost die, and do some other assorted Bond like stuff.
Then to add insult to the injury, we have that retarded scene where Craig tells Eva Green that “whatever is left of him belongs to her” or something among those lines. I can’t recall the exact lines, but I remember thinking that his manhood was seriously damaged in the torture scene just before, because that crap was about the gayest shit that a straight man could say to a woman. Then, instead of sleeping with her and leaving, he tells her he loves her, and quits his job. WTF? This is not James Bond! This is fucking Lifetime Chanel shit! It just didn’t make any sense to me. Bond either really suffer some massive testicular damage, or he just got whipped like a schoolboy by a chick that is not even all that hot, and was kinda annoying me throughout the movie.
And then it clicks in. Since the movie is not ending, you just know that the girl will either get brutally killed prompting Bond to go back to work seeking revenge, or that she will betray him and break his heart just after she is done completely emasculating him. They were just setting it up so that he goes back to work either totally pissed off, or heart broken – having learned a lesson that getting to attached to someone when you’re a 00 agent is probably not a good idea. Bond girlfriends tend to die easily, and get kidnapped even easier and rescuing them is a pain in the ass.
All in all, it was a decent Bond movie. It would have been better if it wasn’t for all the poker playing. It also had surprisingly little of gratuitous sex and nakid boobs – these things are kindoff Bond gold standard by now. Strangely they decided to skimp out on that part, and add gratuitous poker pr0n instead. To each his own I guess.
Oh, and btw – I know this movie is not new. This is why I’m not even gonna bother with the hReview rating. This is why you’re not seeing any stars underneath this review. If you really want to see some stars, go outside and look at the sky. :P
[tags]bond, james bond, casino royale, poker, daniel craig, eva green[/tags]