David Kronke was appointed Mayor of Television after a bloodless coup in 2000. Since then, he has improved infrastructure, championed greater educational opportunities and fought for reforms that have utterly erased corruption and incompetence from the television industry. Since Mr. Kronke has ascended to power, Television is a far better place. Escape from Bondage
Your Mayor took time off from the whole familial gratitude thing yesterday to bore himself silly by attending a screening of “Casino Royale.� The film apparently runs four and a half hours, with spectacular amounts of time lavished on scenes of James Bond playing poker with eight extravagantly ignored extras and some guy who you can tell is evil because he comes equipped with his own Catholic Church Miracle: He can weep blood.
Let’s just say this: Poker is only interesting if it’s actually being played and not scripted, and even then, it no doubt helps increase one’s level of interest in the game if one is participating, with one’s own money on the line.
While it’s refreshing that all involved opted for a more mature James Bond over the cartoonish idiocy of late, it might’ve been nice for them to remember that it’s still James Bond; it’s not like they’re making “Babel� or something. Daniel Craig’s Bond is, as reported, a more compelling character than has been seen in the series in a while, but the film’s lumbering, brooding pacing begins to weary after a surprisingly short time in the theater. And with that:
SPOILER ALERT: Possibly important/possibly dumb plot points revealed ahead
Worst theme song ever. Next time, try a melody on for size, guys. Stupid title sequence in general with the use of playing-card imagery – OK, so you’re striving to avoid the hackneyed babes-in-silhouette sequence, but this is scarcely an improvement. Look, if you’re trying to revolutionize Bond and you have a crappy title sequence and an even crappier song, why don’t you actually revolutionize Bond and scrap that dinosaur of a title sequence completely and save people four and a half minutes of their lives?
Probably a bad idea to include the film’s two genuinely exciting action set pieces in the first hour. But, one question: Given how much fuel was copiously spilled all over the place at the Miami airport, wouldn’t the guy blowing himself up have ended up destroying the superplane (not to mention Bond and everyone else in the area) anyway? A quick edit doesn’t really buy you out of that.
Again: Poker is not cinematic. Especially not at the elephantine pace used here, where Bond and his nemesis appear to be trying to gaze into one another’s very souls. A staring contest would’ve been just as dramatic.
Jeffrey Wright is a really good actor. Why he agreed to the nothing role of a CIA guy who’s also at the poker table (except for the travel and the no-doubt-sizable per diem) is anyone’s guess. And then he just disappears, when, really, the movie’s action has been placed in his hands. Maybe the worst waste of a talented performer in a movie all year.
So James Bond falls in love with a raccoon?
Like many sequences, the torture scene … goes … on … forever. And not in a not-for-the-squeamish way, in a goes-on-forever way. And by the time the recovery sequence pops up, I’m pretty certain the filmmakers thought they had started work on a completely different movie. Certainly, this one should’ve been over by then.
Venice: What can I say? I have no idea what happened there. Bond shoots at what appears to be a couple of canvas-covered tanks, and so the building he and the bad guys are in sinks into the canal. A) Bond already went with the shooting-pressurized-canisters-to-escape-danger route earlier in the movie, and it’s probably wise to limit such a dubious plot device to one per film and B) Huhhh? The whole building just collapses into the drink? If that was likely, might've the building's owners considered not having those tanks there in the first place? I’m just saying.
Comments
Well, it's too damn bad they didn't torch the entirety of the Miami airport. It's a cesspool of ineptitude and corruption.
Better you than me to sit through this film. Daniel Craig is just too fugly to be Bond. I'm just sayin'.
Posted by: Suzy Q | November 24, 2006 6:41 PM