my name is mwd

Laura and I went to see Casino Royale last night. Like a lot of people I felt Bond had become very tired, and when I heard there was an invisible car in the last Brosnen film I opted to not bother seeing them any more, the previous one had been daft enough as it was (although having Judi Dench in it more helped save it a bit, but still could save it from the level of daftness – e.g., helicopters with circular saws). In the end other films such as The Borne Identity and Mission Impossible 1/2 were out Bonding Bond (though never of the most recent sequels in either franchise did much for me, with MI3 going to bond levels of daftness).

Anyway, Casino Royale is a weird attempt to reset the Bond franchise in a similar way to Batman Begins and Superman Returns have done. Like Batman Begins they’ve stripped it back, gor rid of most the over the top devices, and turned it back into a story about a man on a mission, rather than a man with lots of gadgets on a mission. Bond’s nemesis was more credible too, not trying to take over the world.

Bond was well played, with Daniel Craig acting the part well, and the story giving him time to do so. Bond here is a cold killer, and gone (thankfully) are the one liners post kill that came with Roger Moore and managed to stay through to Brosnen (who I felt was good in Goldeneye). But there are still nice Aston Martins and modern chase scenes (that might be going a bit over the top – alas they’ve not gone all minimal).

Anyway, I recommend it. It’ll be interesting to see if with this and the new Batman franchise they can resist going more over the top in subsequent films. Goldeneye was a bit of an attempt to reset the Bond trend, but very quickly went back into very daft Roger Moore type territory.