My thoughts on Casino Royale

[rhythmaning]

Last night, we went to see Casino Royale. This was the first time that we have been to the cinema for nearly a year; we used to go a lot – most weekends – but over the past three years, we have been very rarely: we just seem to have lost the habit.

But we both wanted to see the new James Bond. And yesterday evening seemed to be a good time to do it.

So, first, just let me say that the best bit came at the end: the John Barry Bond Theme*. It is still a brilliant piece of music, as Tommy Smith pointed out last week** - it is a bebop solo, slowed right down and scored for a big band and electric guitar. It works so well. A superb piece of music; and the high point of the film, for me.

Not that I didn’t enjoy the movie: I thought it was good, escapist fun – what you want – and expect – from a James Bond film. I thought Daniel Craig was excellent – somewhat brutish, perhaps (but he was portraying a young, undeveloped Bond) – and Eva Green, as the love interest, was stunningly beautiful, and held her own.

But the story seemed to have been made up as they went along: it jumped backwards and forwards and seemed particularly incoherent: even Bond didn’t know what was going on. There was double-double crossing, baddies turning up all over the place for a bit of random violence, and a fair bit of misogyny (still, it is Bond, I guess).

So much of it seemed to rely on chance: so for me, it didn’t really hang together.

It was violent, too – rather visceral: there weren’t the large set pieces of recent Bond movies: instead, there was a lot of hand to hand, neck-breaking violence.

And not much humour: the only laugh that I can remember getting a laugh was trailed in all the press I read (and I won’t tell you here), which showed Bond as a boor with a temper. I didn’t find Bond particularly charming – the dark side that Pierce Brosnan brought to the role has been built on, but without the charm that Brosnan added, too. Again, this might be because Craig portrays a young, developing Bond – not the finished article.

I did like the way that flash gadgetry was kept to a minimum – not really one for the nerds – though the product placement annoyed me (every car on screen came from the Ford stable – Aston Martin, Ford, Jaguar and so on).

Still, I thought it was good – but ultimately disappointing.


*When we were talking about it after the show, my wife claimed that the theme featured a couple of times during the movie. I am sure it didn’t. I was waiting for it. It wasn’t there. And everyone who left early missed it. Still, there is a remote possibility I could be wrong…

**At a gig which I really want to write up sometime.