Passion of the Bond

Now, in “Casino Royale,” the thuggish-looking British actor Daniel Craig (the blond Mossad agent in Steven Spielberg’s “Munich”) plays Bond as a humorless brute with a flat, classless Estuary English accent, and the critics (other than this one) are going wild. Bond is supposed to be tall, dark, and handsome, but Craig is none of…

Casino Royale takes itself completely seriously.

Well here we are with Casino Royale and Purvis and Wade are still with us and uber-hack Martin Campbell is at the helm. And instead of making a better James Bond film the producers were determined to milk the success of the Bourne films and Batman Begins and entirely deconstruct the franchise. This is certainly…

Casino Royale Worst James Bond Ever

Ratings for the new James Bond: Casino Royale are through the roof. Every review site on the internet is hailing it as the best Bond movie yet. I love James Bond, but I HATED Casino Royale. And another thing, Daniel Craig does not look the part of a smooth super-spy. Throughout the entire movie, that…

James Bore

Well, I finally saw Casino Royale last night, and came away thinking my colleague, Cosmo (Landesman) got it absolutely right in his review: “The film aims to be a character-driven study of how 007 was changed by this mission and meeting Vesper. But as far as I can tell, it’s the story of how a…

Joyless

Now comes Daniel Craig, a casting decision that was at first raked over the coals and is now nearly universally praised. Is he the Bond we’ve been waiting for? Yes and no. Given the confines of the script, Craig plays the role with pitch perfect precision — temperamental, stubborn, crazed and dangerous. The producers, though,…

Bond is -not quite- Back

Yet another *sigh* underachieving screenplay and mediocre direction, overly long, boring and unsatisfying Gee, what a disappointment. I was thrilled to watch this one approach release and even more thrilled to see the almost universal critical acclaim that Casino Royale ’06 garnered. I guess I should have stayed home. No. I m glad I made…