The James Bond Rewatch: Current Movie - SPECTRE

[Darwinianevolution]

I just saw Casino Royale.

After people's general reaction to Die Another Day, the producers decided to reboot the whole series after more than 40 years of a singular continuity. This also takes into account the general loss of interest for the sillier stuff in favour of the most serious and "realistic" aspects of the series. And it is really good. Craig is a very different kind of Bond, a Bond that constantly looks like he's repressing himself or else he's going to lose it, the pressure and the regrets of being an 00 being something very real in this story. The character of Vesper as a Bond girl is also great. Half of the movie is dialogues, very well written dialogues, between Bond and Vesper, and that really helps you to understand the characters. Their interactions with each other are very sweet, and that makes her betrayal and death that much sadder. The other half of the film is the poker games. The filmmakers manage to create very intense scenes where the actors can really show their acting chops (despite the point of poker being emoting as little as possible), and it makes this movie the most sofisticated one so far. A bit of a surprise for a Bond movie is how down to earth the villain plot is: the guy's just a terrorist banker who's lost his client's money and wants to recover it at all costs in a game of poker. That's it. Everything is so down to Earth in this movie, no weird gadgets, no world ending plots to foil... Not even the fight scenes are that complicated. The most developed one is the one on Venice at the very end, and even then it feels very grounded. This movie is also the one with the least amount of action, though that feels quite intentional. Even the middle fight between the african warlord and Bond feels like it was forced by the studio, it could have been solved by a shooting and it would've gotten the same amount of emotional effect. A bit of a nitpick I have is that they stay in the Montecassino Hotel for way too long. I know that's something unavoidable, but part of the charm of Bond movies are the exotic locals, and the high class casino, while cool to see, it's in pretty much all Bond movies (how many movies do we have with Bond playing cards with the girl or the villain?). Also, that fucking torture scene. I know you want to be realistic, but did you really have to go there? And, by the way, did you know Sony got a hand in making this movie? I wouldn't have been able to tell! So much Sony product placement. So, so much Sony product placement...

Overall, it's a strong movie, but I feel like it's lost a bit of the essence of the Bond movies to try and capture regular spy drama. 7/10