Movie Log: Casino Royale

I haven't watched a James Bond movie in probably twenty years, so the fact that I even wanted to see Casino Royale is a good sign. All the critics talked about how "realistic" and "gritty" it was, and how it brought the super-spy genre into the real world.

Well, guess what? It's still ridiculous and silly, but it is noticeably less silly than Bond movies have been since about 1970. That's progress, I suppose...

Like so many "major" modern movies, Casino Royale is too long. It's not desperately too long, but it could stand to have come in right at the two-hour mark rather than running another 25 minutes or so. The main reason it is too long is that the movie's plot spends its first hour running around, and only then gets to the beginning of the novel Casino Royale, which it then follows moderately faithfully. (I say "moderately," but, by James Bond standards, it's amazingly faithful.)

But, before we can get to the plot of Casino Royale, we have to see what a tough guy our new Bond (Daniel Craig) is. So he chases a "bomber" around some African city (I think it was specified, but let's be honest: no one cared) in very silly, very obviously fight-choreographed ways for about half an hour. And then we get some more plotty boom-boom stuff to make the Bond fans happy.

But, eventually we get Bond to the Casino Royale (out in Montenegro now, presumably due to cost-of-shooting reasons) with Vesper Lynd, and then things pretty much run as we remember them from the novel. Sure, here they're playing poker instead of baccarat (in some stupid, big-stakes game that's probably broadcast on the Internet or some such stupidity), because Poker Is Hot Now, but otherwise it's pretty close.

One thing I am compelled to point out: it felt like every single plot point in this movie required Bond to use his own, or someone else's, cell phone. What the hell was up with that? I was expecting him to start TMing Vesper: OMG U R SO HOTT...

Anyway, it's nothing like realistic, but if you drifted away from Bond movies (like I did), you might want to poke your head in and see what they're up to this year. If you didn't drift away from Bond movies, you won't want to take my advice...