Well it is about time I finally wrote my review of Casino Royale. I saw it, at my partner's insistence, on Wednesday 27th December and I have been a little lax, hence the lag in this review.
Casino Royale is a good movie, let’s not mince words; it is exciting and compelling. Daniel Craig is very good, but lacking some polish to his accent in my opinion. But whilst I liked it as a movie as a Bond film there are some significant issues that a Bond fan has to face. What follows are the ravings of a Bond fan and most normal people would not have the issues with the film that I do.
Bond films have never been trend setters; they follow the trend of the time. When movies were going into space, Bond when into space: hence Moonraker in 1979. During the high tech gadget driven ‘80s the films were full of gadgets, and many of these were central to the storyline, much to the chagrin of many Bond loyalists.
Now we have a period of cinema where prequels are all the go so EON Productions (Bond producers) have decided let’s do a prequel of sorts. Now this would all be fine if the previous films have no consistency, but sadly they do. When Bond is married in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (OHMSS) (which was a great film) that fact pops up as a reference in both The Spy Who Loved Me and For Your Eyes Only. Now this means the films acknowledge character development and growth. In Goldeneye when Judi Dench plays M, comments are made about this being the first female M; this has not been the case before. They are acknowledging that in the past M was always a man. When Bond cleans out his desk after he resigns in OHMSS we see a whole lot of gadgets from previous missions (read films) hence showing the continuity of the character.
Now the problem that Casino Royale has is that it is trying to portray the origins of 007 on his first mission, yet it is set in a time period post all the preceding movies. Now this is the same character that has been married, but now of course he isn't yet because even though this film is set wholly in 2006, look at the cars and the phones, it is meant to pre-date the characters experiences in the 1969 film when he was married. Also we have female M in his first mission and this just is farcical, because M was always a male until later in 007’s career.
Now when George Lucas decided to make prequels of his Star Wars trilogy he went back 30 years in his fictional time line and he had new characters that would develop into the chanters for the films already made.
The Bond producers have gone, stuff the fans they will accept it, lets just make a film set in 2006 that portrays his origins, and for me it just simply fails in terms of believability. That does not mean it isn't a good film, it is, but in terms of where it fits into the Bond world it is ridiculous.
This decision to do a prequel then led to something that is nigh on unforgivable, the poor use of the gun barrel logo. I thought it was another preview when the film started, where was the gun barrel start? Oh it appeared eventually, but they almost lost me at that point. Now I can hear you dear reader wanting to explain their reasoning to me. Let me assure you I understand why they did it, but they still should not have done it.
Finally the criminal use of Bond theme; where was it? Once again I understand why but it should have been there more often.
Having said what that I liked the film a lot, and Craig was good, but he doesn't replace Roger Moore as my favourite 007. As a film it is great, but as an official Bond film it seems like a square peg forced into a round hole. Or perhaps it is more appropriate to say it feels like the number 21 being shoved into the number one position.
