Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Two Movies

Since TV has been showing pretty much nothing but repeats and basketball, I got a chance to watch two movies this week -- Blood Diamond and Casino Royale.

My capsule reviews:

Blood Diamond: Yet another movie about the tragedies being perpetuated in Africa -- different country, same story. But more importantly, it's Leonardo DeCaprio as yet another flawed-yet-honorable romantic leading man type -- which I could do without.

I think that's because every time I look at him, I think about Growing Pains, and how he played second banana to this guy.

Still, it's a very very good movie, and it held my attention for the entire two hours. And, surprisingly, I thought Leo did a good job, and was deserving of his Oscar nomination.


Casino Royale: Let me start out by saying I thought this was a fantastic action movie, and Daniel Craig was absolutely brilliant. He was charismatic and convincing. And, boy oh boy, does he have a killer body.

But . . . other than the chase in the first few minutes, it just did not have that "Bond" vibe. It was too earnest. There was very little witty double-entendre-filled banter. There were no gadgets. And it was, in part, gasp! a love story.

So, I think Daniel Craig makes a fine 007. I'm just hoping that next time, it will be in an actual Bond movie.



6 comments:

E :) said...

I loved Casino Royale. And I LOVE Daniel Craig. Mmmmm. Daniel Craig...

dara said...

I don't think his face is all that pretty -- although, he does have gorgeous eyes -- but his body -- OMG!

And like I said, my only complaint is that this movie is not particularly Bond-ish. I'm sure everyone will say that this was supposed to be the backstory, yadda yadda yadda -- but I don't think that's a valid excuse.

Justin S. said...

I haven't seen Casino Royale, but I really want to. And I've never been a huge Bond fan (the movies are ok, but I don't go out of my way to see them)... the fact that everyone says this isn't a typical Bond movie makes me want to see it more.

dara said...

Justin: I think you'd like it. I really didn't read any of the reviews before watching it, so I went into it thinking that it would be just like all the others, just with a different actor, and was surprised by just how different it was.

CBK said...

From what I've read, they intended the movie to be more human and suspenseful instead of the bloated, ridiculous affairs the movies had become recently. Thus, no gadgets like an invisible car and no ludicrous stunts like sky-diving into a falling airplane to fly it before it crashes. I really enjoyed it except for the slow love part up to Venice. I'm looking forward to the next installment with hopefully a more exciting villain.

And yes, he has a damn good body. I was squirming in my seat while watching it with my wife. It can make a guy insecure. :-)

dara said...

I totally understand wanting to scale back the ridiculousness of some of the plots and the gadgets. But then again, the fact that the only gadgets were a tracking device and a defibrilator? That's taking it a little too far in the opposite direction.

And the dialogue. There were no witty double entendres, almost no flirty conversations or charming pick-up lines. The only word that describes it is "earnest". As with the gadgets, it went too far in the opposite direction from all of the other movies.

Forget about comparing it to Bond movies -- I thought it was most similar to The Bourne Identity -- which I loved -- just without the Matt Damon.