Miss Marple: Wasn't that opening chase scene in "Casino Royale" amazing? Worth the price of admission just for that part!
I've seen every one of the Bond movies in the theaters their opening week, starting with Dr. No (my older brother took me along). I had to digest this one for a while before I made up my mind. Though there are flaws, I'm very impressed with this movie and Daniel Craig's Bond, though Goldfinger and Connery's Bond in that one still stands as my favorite movie and Bond version. Craig is infinitely better than Lazenby and Moore and may be better than Brosnan, but I think I'll have to see a second outing to decide that.
The biggest issue I have with the new film is that it could stand a good editor to tighten up several scenes and maybe two or three more minutes of explanation of what Bond is about in this film. Hitchcock used to talk about "the McGuffin," the object that you are chasing after which is the reason for the characters in the film to be doing what they're doing. It didn't have to be anything intrinsically important to the viewer except that everyone is after it, say the vague reference to "the microfilm of the important secret," but you have to know why these people are doing what they're doing. It's the hook that holds the rest of the story together. That got lost for me in this film.
As to the spectacular opening sequence, the following is from Harry Knowles review on his Aint-it-cool-news web site:
Take for example – the wonderful chase sequence with Sebastien Foucan in Madagascar. In terms of athleticism, Bond is no match for Mollaka as Sebastien plays him. He’s one of the world’s great free running performers and Bond doesn’t have that in him. Instead, the advantage Bond’s character has is this. While Mollaka can navigate his surroundings phenomenally well… James sees the shortcuts, the angles that Mollaka skips past out of a desire to simply move forward. Bond doesn’t have to do the astonishing leaps or climbs, because he sees how to do it easier than his prey. It’s Bond’s keen powers of observation – what his eyes see that others do not, be it a butane tank or a twitch of an eye, he’s soaking it in, looking for his advantage.
I did a web search on Sebastien Foucan because I was so impressed with that bit. I've seen "free runners" in film, particularly a couple of music videos and some ads, but this guy is considered the "father" of the sport. On one of the links they say he spent a month in Madagascar filming that chase. Pretty amazing.
In an interview Daniel Craig says that he felt strongly about the straight up and realistic direction they wanted to take the character. Someone described this as a relaunch of the series, as they've now done with Batman Begins. That sounds about right. I wonder if they will redo some of the films already done? With almost everything from You Only Live Twice going forward they used little more than the title. If they wanted to they could take Craig's Bond, as is, and redo the stories in the books, as they were originally written, just with new titles. The Spy Who Loved Me is a perfect example. The original story involved a college age girl acting as care taker in a small New England motel during the off season being molested by some mobsters who are laying low for awhile. As they're starting to really give her grief and you know it's going to turn ugly Bond, who is on vacation after a particularly nasty mission, turns up. No big plot or uber bad guy, just Bond, with no gadgets (and probably no gun, it's been 40 years since I read it) saving a young woman against a group of thugs. Brosnan talked about doing it and having Martin Scorsese direct. Now that's an idea!
One last item from the Craig interview. He said that when they filmed the torture scene, while he was tied naked to a chair, the producer, Barbara Broccoli, was on set all day. She'd never been on set for more than a few minutes before. He kept asking her "don't you have somewhere you need to be?" and she'd say "no, I'm fine, thank you." Now you know why she cast him for the role.
I agree Pierce Brosnan was terrific as well but when you consider this is Craig's first outing and he will probably get even better...He may be the best.
I have seen very few Bond movies...but, when I was young, I read all of Ian Fleming's books..my father had them in his bookshelf...
I liked the books, because as a GIRL, I wasn't all that excited about seeing a movie that had to have women with big boobs as a VIP.