Casino Royale in Review

Personally find the past two scores, dull, more so than the Brosnan Arnold works.

Jack Wade wrote:

Sharky wrote:

Stilicho Bias wrote:

Whether or not Baccarat was exotic to Fleming's readers in 1953 is an open question, but it is also beside the point. The essence of this sequence is the tension of the game, the stakes involved, the repartee, and the ambience. The film gets all of this pitch-perfect and manages to amplify it. This is without doubt one of the greatest cinematic sequences in all of Bond.

The performances of the leading man, the supporting actor and Dench are little things, eh? Alright.

I don't think think the essence of the game, is even well handled in itself. Too much of it is based on arch, and overly self-conscious looks and stares (that becomes almost a self-parody as the game goes on), constantly being told the rules of the game through Mathis's commentary to the audience when Poker was chosen because its familiarity with Western audiences, the tension being interrupted by action and suspense set-pieces, lifeless and unimaginative scoring from Arnold that does little to amplify the drama or provide anything that can't already be inferred from the moving image alone, a lack of character development (partly due to no significant dialogue), and a general monotony to it all.

By little things, I mean those performances can be separated from the film's gestalt - its whole. The film's general ambiance on the other hand, cannot.

I liked the card game. I think they handled it as best they could.

The looks and stares are part of the strategy of poker. Even if poker was chosen because of its popularity, not everyone will know the rules, so they had to do some explaining. And the game being broken up with action can be chalked up to the attention span of modern society.

This all reeks of half-hearted compromise - trying to please everyone. As in 'we're going to pivot the film around a poker game as in the novel, but we're going have to break it up to match audience's attention piss poor spans. We'll also choose Texas hold 'em Poker because more audiences will know it than Chemin de Fer, but just in case they don't, we'll explain it all through Mathis. If they still don't understand, then screw em. Oh, and we're going to kill him off in the next movie.

Signed,

Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson.'

Even though looks, stares and the art of bluffing are part of poker, it doesn't transfer to screen well. I know Phil Meheux tried to make it more interesting by using tighter and tighter lenses, but that isn't enough. The script has got to do more, as does the direction.

I say, they should have gone with one long sequence, and try to make it more compelling.

Jack Wade wrote:

I will agree that the score was underwhelming. Didn't really capture the tension and was really just boring background noise.

Quote :

I have the soundtrack on CD and it is very uninspired.

I'm really confused when fans say this is one of Arnold's finest scores, and how superior is to QOS. There's so much ambiance that drones on and on. Sure, there's about 30 seconds from Blunt Instrument and Dinner Jackets, but even then it's either just variations on the Bond theme or YKMN.

If you've got it on CD, sell it, or use it as a coffee rest.

Sharky wrote:

Stilicho Bias wrote:

Whether or not Baccarat was exotic to Fleming's readers in 1953 is an open question, but it is also beside the point. The essence of this sequence is the tension of the game, the stakes involved, the repartee, and the ambience. The film gets all of this pitch-perfect and manages to amplify it. This is without doubt one of the greatest cinematic sequences in all of Bond.

The performances of the leading man, the supporting actor and Dench are little things, eh? Alright.

I don't think think the essence of the game, is even well handled in itself. Too much of it is based on arch, and overly self-conscious looks and stares (that becomes almost a self-parody as the game goes on), constantly being told the rules of the game through Mathis's commentary to the audience when Poker was chosen because its familiarity with Western audiences, the tension being interrupted by action and suspense set-pieces, lifeless and unimaginative scoring from Arnold that does little to amplify the drama or provide anything that can't already be inferred from the moving image alone, a lack of character development (partly due to no significant dialogue), and a general monotony to it all.

By little things, I mean those performances can be separated from the film's gestalt - its whole. The film's general ambiance on the other hand, cannot.

Participants in the highest-stakes poker game on the planet, in an incredibly posh casino, in a romantic and exotic locale, playing before a rapt audience, are apt to be self-conscious and even a bit hammy. It would have been the height of absurdity for them to behave like Bob, Ted and Mike playing penny-ante poker while swilling Coors Light and watching the Steelers and Bears go at on the boob toob.

As for the game being explained, well it is entirely logical that Mathis would explain the rules to a clueless accountant such as Vesper, particularly when so much is hanging in the balance. I have no problem whatsoever with this.

The tension was not interrupted by the action sequences. Those sequences were devices that ratcheted up the tension. Brilliantly conceived and executed all the way around.

I'll punt on Arnold's scoring here, but at least it did not detract from the proceedings, unlike his scoring in TND and TWINE.

It is a compromise, and I'm not saying it's optimum, but it's reality.

As for the score, I find it boring. I wish Arnold would have been a little more bold like he was with QOS. But still, I found it a welcome change after DAD.

The Bond and Vesper dialogue in CASINO ROYALE.

The Gold Blend relationship is very in tune with what I feel CR gave us, superficial banter in bitesized snippets with the occasional abrupt anouncement that the relationship had moved on. I never felt the relationship was earned nor held enough of a focus to convince that it was amounting to anything deeper.

As to Arnold, I think QoS is his best score for the series with CR probably the worse, the loss of the Bond theme in the reboot left him floundering but seemingly taught him enough to restrain its use for the next film to a much more diverse soundfield (away from the generic action cues that is). I would still enjoy a new sound for the next film mind.

Ravenstone wrote:

There were parts of Casino Royale I enjoyed, and parts I wanted to scoop out my own eyeballs rather than watch. The shower scene for one. Completely bemused me. Consequently, I find it a rather confusing film to discuss. Because part of me wants to like it. When it's good, it's good. Unfortunately, Green is painful to watch, partly because she can't act her way out of a wet paper bag, but mainly because she has a perpetual look on her face of someone who has just had two week old cat litter thrust underneath their nose. She can't smile; she grimaces. And it gets so damn annoying.

The ending is the particularly messy part for me. It's almost as though the film has ended, and then they tag an extra 30 minutes on. It has that 'afterthought' feel to it. Which is probably due to poor pacing and/or poor editing and/or poor script writing. They allow the energy of the film to die just before the end, then expect you to get a second wind.

Plus - seriously - powder blue budgie smugglers? Not a good look. And this is me saying this. But when a guy gets out of the water wearing something like that, I should not be thinking about how much his ears stick out. There is something inherently wrong with that.

So I'm no further forward really after this ramble. I love it. I hate it.

Sorry late to this party but this is EXACTLY how I feel about the film, its almost uncanny ^^.

lachesis wrote:

Sorry late to this party but this is EXACTLY how I feel about the film, its almost uncanny ^^.

I've been called worse :D Usually by Ambler. Or Shark.

Ravenstone wrote:

lachesis wrote:

its almost uncanny ^^.

I've been called worse :D Usually by Ambler.

I said Rave was uncunny. You had to be there.

See?

Ravenstone wrote:

See?

Urgh, argh, bleugh and yeuck.

You can put your panties back on now.

Erica Ambler wrote:

You can put your panties back on now.

Not after you've been wearing them.

Your loss. They pay top dollar in Japan.

I know. They get Marks and Spencers. You get Primark.

I rather like this fan made old school poster I found:

It hews a little too closely to the photographs from the film, and so some anachronistic bits (like Craig's hair and the computer title text) kind of ruin the illusion. But it's enough to make me want an official retro-style poster, even if it's just a limited edition.

I dig this one, though the likeness of Craig isn't perfect:

I remember that one, it was nice. Though it looks like they copied and paste the font title from the book that Penguin released.

The one Harms posted looks like a 30s/40s design.

M's going senile.

Very good film, not quite as good as Skyfall but a bigger deeper and better film than Quantum of Solace. I love the end where he says Bond, James Bond and the music blasts out, such a cool moment. Casino Royale would be a 9/10 film, Quantum of Solace an 8 and Skyfall a 10.

Tennyson wrote:

Very good film, not quite as good as Skyfall but a bigger deeper and better film than Quantum of Solace. I love the end where he says Bond, James Bond and the music blasts out, such a cool moment. Casino Royale would be a 9/10 film, Quantum of Solace an 8 and Skyfall a 10.

At the screening I went to back in 2006, people actually cheered at that moment. It was wonderful. Great, great film and I genuinely believe it to be probably Eon's finest two hours and twenty minutes with the franchise. A lot to prove and they did it. A great start to the Craig era.

Skyfall sucks, CR is the best Bond. There's no Bond in SF, just people who talk aboute the relevance of James Bond and that alone does not make a good film.

Stamper wrote:

Skyfall sucks, CR is the best Bond. There's no Bond in SF, just people who talk aboute the relevance of James Bond and that alone does not make a good film.

Oddly and pretty much by design I'd have to contend there isn't really Bond in Casino Royale, it indulges the conceit of being the journey to the character we know and gives us perhaps the most generic and feckless characterisation in the series, difficult to imagine Skyfall offers even less!

lachesis wrote:

I'd have to contend there isn't really Bond in Casino Royale, it [snip] gives us perhaps the most generic and feckless characterisation in the series

Yep, CR was Maverick Bond™, which might have been acceptable if the actor was young, but played by a 40-year-old man, it just seemed ridiculous. Craig was simply miscast as the professional and disciplined man of the novel. Fortunately, Craig has made Skyfall his own.

Erica Ambler wrote:

lachesis wrote:

I'd have to contend there isn't really Bond in Casino Royale, it [snip] gives us perhaps the most generic and feckless characterisation in the series

Yep, CR was Maverick Bond™, which might have been acceptable if the actor was young, but played by a 40-year-old man, it just seemed ridiculous. Craig was simply miscast as the professional and disciplined man of the novel. Fortunately, Craig has made Skyfall his own.

Strangely enough, Skyfall pushes Craig through the rigours of becoming the full James Bond, all that the role entails and struggling to reach that point far more than Casino Royale does. In retrospect, Casino Royale would have made far more sense in relation to Skyfall if a younger Bond had been cast or they'd simply lost the "new 00" aspect. The accompanying story of Casino Royale still stands well enough, but the "character development" aspect now seems a bit redundant in the wake of Skyfall.