Reviews

A few years ago, at a Q & A session with writers Robert Wade and Neil Purvis, I asked them if they thought given the current blockbuster climate, and the expectations of the Bond franchise, it would ever be possible to produce a Fleming-esquire gritty spy thriller. The answer was a resounding ... highly unlikely.

Well, with CASINO ROYALE they have proved themselves wrong. This is about as close to Fleming's Bond as we are ever likely to get. So close, in fact, that I feel the public at large may not warm to it.

That's not to say that CR is a disappointment, far from it. It's just that the public have a perception of what a Bond movie should be, and CR takes those expectations and blows them away within the first seconds.

Wade and Purvis (along with Paul Haggis' re-write) and subtly and effectively extrapolated Fleming's sparse novella into the biggest Bond epic since OHMSS, with which it shares some thematic similarities. Le Chiffre is no longer simply a SMERSH accountant; he is now an accountant for the world's terrorists. After losing a bundle of cash belonging to some rather scary African gentlemen, he is forced to set up a high stakes poker game to win the money back. Bond is sent to make sure that doesn't happen.

That's the bare bones. What the writer's, and returning director Martin Campbell do is expand this to include, in the first hour, two of the best action sequences of the entire series (Bond chasing a rather athletic bomber, then later foiling a terrorist attack at Miami airport). Following this we get into the story that Fleming wrote; we meet treasury officer Vesper Lynd, Bond's contact Mathis, and a shady looking character who turns out to be Felix Leiter.

The poker game is superbly put together; everything we see is vital, building to a superb climax (though as a poker player I would have to question some of the hands the players choose to play with! A6, off-suit!).

I do have reservations, though none of them concern things that the naysayers were so keen to play up. Craig is, simply, wonderful. He's perfect as the rookie Bond around which the whole film is based. Had it been the perfect hero as portrayed by Moore or Brosnan it simply would not work. Moneypenny and Q are not missed, at all, though M does acquire a rather geeky looking assistant, who appears to be some kind of work experience lad, but he gets little screen time, and fewer lines. The switch to poker from baccarat is subtly explained as well. Baccarat is essentially a game a chance, whereas poker is about probability and skill (it's neatly explained that Le Chiffre is a maths genius and can work out the chances of winning in an instant); so rather than a sop to lazy audiences, it actually makes for a more exciting middle section.

So, those reservations: product placement is the main one. Sony have swamped the film with product, the like of which has not been seen since the Perrier lorry in GE. And Ford too manage to secure a scene which plays more like an ad for their new car, than the actual ad on the TV at the moment. Reservation 2: Bond wisecracking during the torture scene... the audience I saw it with were chuckling away, so obviously it worked for the majority. For me, it was just unnecessary.

Overall though, these are minor quibbles, in a film chock full of good things.

For anyone with a knowledge of Fleming's character as he wrote it, this is the film you've been waiting for. If you're a DAD or TB fan, leave your expectations at home, forget everything you've seen before. This is a whitewash of the series which will hopefully usher in a whole new generation of Bond films, and ensure that the franchise reclaims its place as THE most successful, influential and downright popular of all time.

And yes... "The bitch is dead".

For years Wes Craven and his contemporary John Carpenter, have been disappointing their fans film after film. But with Red Eye, Craven has made his best film for twenty years.

Craven fans may be bemused by the shift in genre, from gory horror to tense thriller, but by god it works. In a way the thriller was always Craven's strong suit anyway. Think of the best bits of Hills Have Eyes, Elm Street and Scream, and they are all easily transposed to the thriller genre.

The flimsy plot (girl on a plane has a meet cute with a gorgeous bloke who turns out to be some kind of terrorist who needs her to change the hotel room of a politician at the hotel she manages so he can be assassinated) is not exactly original, but by having the protagonists stuck on a plane, they are given various interesting scenarios to work through, from inquisitive passengers, frosty hostesses and bad weather.

Relative newcomer Rachel McAdams (Wedding Crashers, Mean Girls) is great in the relatively standard girl-in-peril role, but Cillian Murphy (Batman begins, 28 Days Later) is the real star here. Turning on a sixpence from every woman's dream to psycho-nut-job, he really brings his faceless character to life.

Nothing is ever really explained, it has a disappointingly standard finale, but it doesn't outstay its welcome and is wonderfully tense throughout.

After the most depressing cinema summer in history, this is a film that reminds you that good films can come out of nowhere and really surprise you.

Thrillseekers, get in line now.

Can someone tell me how exactly marky mark still gets work? I've heard of wooden, but this guy is a wardrobe!

I must admit though that as a stiff-assed Brit who prays regularly at the altar of 'Job', I was pleasantly surprised by this 're-imagining'. I've been a fan for F Gary Gray since Set it Off and kind of hoped he would be able to do something with the material, and it was quite imprerssive... in places.

I feel it would have been a better idea to make Jason Statham the gang leader and incorporate his role with Wahlberg's. Statham is quite a good (untrained) actor who can pull off a fast-talking chancer role very well (check out Lock, Stock and Snatch), so why waste him such a such small role?

And for all the talk of Norton's unhappiness with the project (contracts, no publicity blah blah blah) I thought he gave one of the sleaziest performances I've ever seen. He acted the Funky Bunch reject off the screen without even trying!

To my fellow Brits... don't be scared. It doesn't sully the rep of the original. I enjoyed it, I forgot about it and I went home and watched The Italian Job. As it should be.

Now hold on lads... I've got a great idea...

If ever there was a one movie which summed up just how vacuous, disposable and downright lazy Hollywood has become, this is that movie.

I have to admit to being quite fond of the original. Yes it was a popcorn movie, but it knew it, even played on it, whilst at the same time having quite a healthy respect for its origin and the audience. But this sequel (if this re-heated four cheese pizza can be called such) is just awful in so many ways.

The opening sequence promises much: action, laughs, Robert Patrick. But then following an overlong re-introduction of the characters we fall into a soon very tedious cycle that continues throughout the film. The girls meet up, make some jokes, have an action sequence (all to a hot tune available on the soundtrack in all good record stores), end. This is repeated with various costumes and settings (and with increasingly un-funny jokes) for the rest of the movie.

The humour was particularly galling. At times this seemed to be drifting into sub-Airplane! mode with so many nods to the audience and movie references. Which brings us onto the cameos. I actually lost count of how many there were. I know that Matt Le Blanc and Luke Wilson were in the first movie, but they really have no place in this one. Bruce Willis was a bit more inspired: give him no dialogue and have him killed straight away (unfortunately off-screen). And as for Jaclyn Smith, all I can say is she better have been paid a huge wodge for soiling the good name of the Angels.

As i said right at the start, the whole package (for want of a better word) is just lazy and insulting. The film is based around giving the audience what it liked first time around and throwing in enough cameos, loud music and juvenile jokes to distract from the fact that there's no thought, invention, plot or point to the whole sorry affair.

Strangely I did leave the cinema full of thought: Why exactly did Crispin Glover's character re-appear ( and why was he given such high billing for so little screen time - post-test re-cuts perhaps)? Do American moviemakers have ANY IDEA what is going on in Ireland? What was the deal with Bernie Mac? He was great, and I know there was issues with Bill Murray (did anyone else notice his photo in the background in one scene), but .... what... why...? And finally, and rather sadly, is Drew Barrymore back on the blow? To be a star and producer and not notice what a dog they were making, she must have been distracted by something?