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Casin0 R0yale 7
Nov. 25th, 2006 11:50 pmWhitney's family and I went to see the new James Bond film a couple of days ago. I'd been fascinated by how different the film looked from any other one before it - from the previews, it felt like a revival of a series that had been gone for decades rather than just four years.
It's obvious that the people who made this film viewed Die Another Day as a mistake. To be fair to it, that film was just ridiculous, with its invisible vehicles, ice palace, and slicing off bits of the continent with a satellite. They've taken a more realistic approach for this one, and while it takes some getting used to, it tends to work.
It isn't actually as different as the preview implies, as the spirit of it is still very much alive. The theme song is much better than the dire effort last time around, featuring a vocalist I hadn't heard of before who sounds decidedly like Roy Khan in places. For the first half hour, it's pretty much a normal James Bond film. It opens with a pre-credits chase through an African construction site against a villain who seems to think he's from the Matrix, with his constant wall-running action (down a lift shaft at one point), and quickly progresses on to an airport scene involving cutting a bus in half with a fuel tanker. The conclusion to this scene is hilarious, and provoked a round of applause from the audience I was with.
But it's a lot darker, somehow. I'm well aware that that term has been overused significantly recently, but it's the only way to describe it - the fighting is more realistically dirty, and after the quick start, it's a lot more tense in many places rather than relying on the traditional action-plot progression-action cycle of the other films. Most surprisingly, James Bond isn't portrayed as anywhere near as perfect and superhuman as in the other films - he makes mistakes, hurts himself, though still manages to be a rather self-satisfied smeghead in between.
Despite the quite misleading trailers, it still feels like a part of the series (with a subtle undo of Die Another Day). Just un-maddened a bit.
It's obvious that the people who made this film viewed Die Another Day as a mistake. To be fair to it, that film was just ridiculous, with its invisible vehicles, ice palace, and slicing off bits of the continent with a satellite. They've taken a more realistic approach for this one, and while it takes some getting used to, it tends to work.
It isn't actually as different as the preview implies, as the spirit of it is still very much alive. The theme song is much better than the dire effort last time around, featuring a vocalist I hadn't heard of before who sounds decidedly like Roy Khan in places. For the first half hour, it's pretty much a normal James Bond film. It opens with a pre-credits chase through an African construction site against a villain who seems to think he's from the Matrix, with his constant wall-running action (down a lift shaft at one point), and quickly progresses on to an airport scene involving cutting a bus in half with a fuel tanker. The conclusion to this scene is hilarious, and provoked a round of applause from the audience I was with.
But it's a lot darker, somehow. I'm well aware that that term has been overused significantly recently, but it's the only way to describe it - the fighting is more realistically dirty, and after the quick start, it's a lot more tense in many places rather than relying on the traditional action-plot progression-action cycle of the other films. Most surprisingly, James Bond isn't portrayed as anywhere near as perfect and superhuman as in the other films - he makes mistakes, hurts himself, though still manages to be a rather self-satisfied smeghead in between.
Despite the quite misleading trailers, it still feels like a part of the series (with a subtle undo of Die Another Day). Just un-maddened a bit.
