"that last hand... nearly killed me."

Went to see Casino Royale today with my girlfriend. I never thought that I'd actually go and see a Bond-movie in the theater, less actually enjoy it. This is, hands down, one of the best Bond-movies I've ever seen, if not the best. Allow me to explain.

I have grown a big distaste for the older Bond-movies, just because it's so formulaic. Every one of them has a villain that basically wants to take over the world, and Bond is the only one who has the wits and charms to weasel himself into the villain's girlfriend, wife, lover, what have you. Q, the gadget man, provides Bond with something that saves his life later in the movie.

He then has a formal meeting with the villain, just to size each other up. Then Bond is chased, but escapes from the evil henchmen. Later, Bond is trapped by the evil villain, but the villain decides to explain his master plan before he tries to kills him. Villain leaves, but Bond, with the help of Q's gadget, escapes, kills the incompetent henchman in charge of killing him, then the main villain, and goes off on a boat somewhere, while doing the nasty with the woman he weaseled himself into earlier.

That said, I actually enjoy one or two of the Bond-flicks, but only for it's campy value. The first one is Goldfinger, mainly because of the scene where the villain has Bond strapped to a table, with a laser inches away from slicing off his manhood, but decides NOT to kill him, for some ridiculous reason. The second one is The Man With The Golden Gun, because it was the first Bond-movie I ever saw. Plus, it has Christopher Lee in it. And that wacky redneck sheriff from Texas.


"Hey! You're that secret agent! That English secret agent!
From England!"

So, what did I like about this movie? First off, the dialouge is superior to any of the other movies. It also has a couple of clever visual gags, and you are smirking through almost the entire movie, sometimes even laughing. Also, no gadgets. And a lot of blood. Oh, and the new title sequence was really cool.

Daniel Craig does a very good job as a more ruthless, violent Bond. Not much else to say about his performance, really. It's spot on. Mads Mikkelsen and Eva Green likewise. Not exactly Academy Award material, but believable enough for this movie.



What didn't I like? The length. This is basically my only complaint about the movie. The movie suffers from lengthy action sequences, that not only forces you to suspend disbelief (not uncommon for the Bond franchise), but are borderline tedious. They could have easily been cut in half, and given us a tighter movie. Also, as with every Bond movie, we have the obvious product placement from Sony scattered throughout the movie. Annoying.

So, my recommendation is that if you want to see a new, fresh, improved Bond, see this movie. It's not the best movie I've seen this year, but you'll have a good time. 4 kills out of 5.