My wife and I went to see the new James Bond film, "Casino Royale" last night. Here are my thoughts, in a nutshell:
- The film was long, and at many times boring and hard to follow.
- The editing was way off (thanks Stuard Baird - see below). One scene has Bond in the Casino Royale sitting at a poker table, and then it immediately cuts to a shower scene. What happened during the poker game? It just "cut" to a different scene. This is just one of many scenes which were way off.
- Daniel Craig looks too old to be portraying Bond in a film which supposedly tells of Bond's (In the beginning of the film, he got his "00" title) early career.
- And what was Judi Dench doing in a film set toward the beginning of Bond's career? Shouldn't someone who looks a lot like Bernard Lee" be in there in order to provide slightly better continuity?
- And since when does Judi Dench as "M" use profanity in the role? I think that right there is when I knew that this film was going to suck. For some reason, Hollywood thinks that a film will only be good if it has profanity in it.
- And where's "Q?"
Daniel Craig just didn't do it for me as Bond; however I think that can be much remedied in future Bond films as he settles into the role.
Between the profanity used by Judi Dench and the bad film editing, I think that Casino Royale could of been a whole lot more. To me, this film looked "rushed." I also get the feeling that Casino Royale is Hollywood's attempt at catering to a new generation of James Bond fans, hence the profanity used by Judi Dench.
Stuart Baird was put in charge of Casino Royale's film editing (Baird incidentally directed Star Trek: Nemesis, another flop), so his methodologies were clearly shown.
I give Casino Royale a two out of five stars for effort.