Review: Casino Royale

The Major and I went to the movies on Sunday, and we saw Casino Royale. Yeah, I know we're a little bit late to the party on this, but better late than never.

In general, I really enjoyed this movie. Daniel Craig has a real screen presence and is really enjoyable to watch. He really brought a physicality to the role that the other Bond's didn't bring in the past. I'm not entirely convinced he's believeable as Bond, but I think he will settle quite nicely into the role. Maybe I missed a few things about Bond in the past, but in this movie he came off as the bad boy of MI6, a rogue, foolishly headstrong and apt to make really stupid mistakes. Also, the movie had some really excellent cinematography.

But -- there's always a but -- there are some serious flaws with this movie. The first 20 minute chase scene is entirely too long, and almost pointless. It could have been pared down and still had the same effect. The plot seemed very thin in this movie, and at points I was wondering "why are the characters doing this and why is it relevant?" The last 20-30 minutes seemed like they were tacked on and really ruined the momentum and energy of the movie for me.

I found it hard to care for or relate to many of the characters. The only one I felt was truly developed and intriguing was the guy with scar on his eye. (And why do Bond films always have a bad guy with an obvious physical trait that lets you know they're the bad guy?) Finally in the realm of character-dom, what was up with the Bond Girls? They weren't particulary attractive: the love interest was at best bland, the bad guy's ho looked exactly like one, and the only one that seemed interesting bit the dust early on.

All in all, this is a good film. What would make it a great film is some tweaking and fine tuning of the plot, and pacing. This movie is like a really good recipe you know, but somehow you make an error in the porportions of the ingredients. They all taste really good separately, but when you put them together in the wrong way they don't quite fuse together like you'd hoped.