6. Casino Royale (2006), dir. Martin Campbell

[strange_complex]

I know I am several years late to the party on this one. I did actually try to see this film when it first came out, but hadn't booked ahead and couldn't manage to get into a showing. So, what with one thing and another, this is the first I've seen of Daniel Craig's Bond.

It's definitely quite a change in direction. I liked how the chase straight after the opening sequence was on foot - it signalled the 'back to basics' approach, but also still made me gasp with awe at the clever use of gymnastics and props. And I like the way some of the old paradigms were inverted - like seeing Daniel Craig emerge dripping from the sea in his bathing trunks, in place of the classic old-school image of Ursula Andress in Dr. No.

I can't say I followed the plot terribly well, despite having read the novel as a teenager, mainly because I actually watched this film in two halves with several months in between them (all to do with a cock-up in setting the recorder for it in the first place). But it didn't really matter - I don't ask for Bond films to be anything much more than a series of impossibly-exotic characters floating through a succession of spectacular set-pieces anyway. And the set-pieces certainly delivered - particular the destruction of the Venetian palazzo at the end of the film, which was absolutely breath-taking.

I did find the portrayal of Le Chiffre's asthma slightly annoying - it's often mis-portrayed in film and TV, and I do wish actors and producers would bother investing five minutes in learning how inhalers are actually meant to be used before trying to portray it on screen. Still, then again, I don't suppose many people really go around bleeding continually from their left eye or re-joining poker games minutes after experiencing cardiac arrest either, so maybe I shouldn't be too picky.

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Comments

[a-d-medievalist.livejournal.com]

I seem to be the only person I know who takes several deep breaths, lets out all the air, and then breathes deeply while depressing the inhaler, then holds it for 10-20 seconds. Makes me think I'm doing it wrong, but that's what the directions say ... :-)

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

That's pretty much what I do, too. Most people in films or on TV seem to just puff on them as though they were a cigarette, though.

[ms-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Sometimes though I can't get a deep enough breath to hold onto til I've had a little bit of a toot on it.

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I get that sometimes too. But that is the other thing about film and TV asthmatics - they're clearly never actually short of breath when they are using their inhalers anyway.

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

I don't think having read the novel helped much with following the plot, but, as you say, it doesn't really matter!

What did you think of Vesper?

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Well, Eva Green is just awesomely hot, so that was my main thought about her! But yes - I liked how her true motivations gradually unfolded, the complexities and traumas she goes through along the way, and her final ending in the lift. She was certainly a lot more complex than your typical '70s / '80s Bond girl.