Saturday, July 05, 2008

Casino Royale: Take Two

What's with me and watching movies for a second time through NetFlix and loving these movies even more? First, I saw Batman Begins for a second time and I was enthralled for the whole two hours and came out super excited for its sequel. This time, I rediscovered the goodness of Casino Royale.

I saw Casino Royale, probably back in 2006, on my computer so I didn't get the whole theater experience. The image quality was great, but it was on my computer and that may have affected my first impression. Since I was able to rent the DVD just recently, I was able to follow the weaving plot and more importantly, the witty, typical Bond dialogue that was heavily accented when I first saw it.

This movie is definitely along the same lines of Batman Begin's reboot of the franchise: it has refreshed double 0h seven. Don't get me wrong, I am a fan of Brosnan's Bond, but it was getting stale. The movies started getting too flashy. The gadgets were just too unbelievable (car controlled with a phone?) and the villains were over the top (diamond faced dude?). They weren't bad. They were good, but Casino Royale showed me that Bond could be better.

While not as gritty as Batman (can anything be, really?) Royale tweaked Bond to rely less on fancy devices and more on solid action sequences. It had parkour for crying out loud! You can feel Daniel Craig exert energy as Bond trying to achieve his mission. There was no ease of accomplishing things with the flick of a rist watch, just the use Bond's wits and doggedness. He friggin' ran after that parkour dude, and he kept up with that airplane bomber by just calling his phone.

Casino Royale has the good kind of glitz and glamour. The locales are amazing (Venice and Prague), and his suits are really sophisticated. Plus, Craig is in super good shape. It makes sense how he can do all these things.

This was and is Bond 2.0. I can't wait for the sequel Quantum of Solace. The sequel promises more of the same (good thing) and be a continuation of the plot established in Casino Royale. Plot continuation, anyone? Yes. Sign me up.

1 comment:

Su Ti Ben said...

Actually, I recently saw this movie and had a good time watching it. Even showed my brother. It was a gay old time. (heh) It was actually more us goofing around while it played out.

I never really saw the other James bond movies so perhaps I missed out. Either way, this new guy seems interesting and makes me want to see the next one.