Tuesday, November 21, 2006
A Right Royale Pain in the Balls
It's often said that politicians are out of touch with both reality and the great British Public. A massive disconnect to do with voter apathy, a general distrust of politicians (who are, by the almighty wisdom of opinion polls, "lower than estate agents"), disaffected "yoof" and so on. However, it's hardly surprising, because it seems that the great British Public is well out of touch with anything approaching reality, to judge by the reaction to "Casino Royale" on the BBC News (NEWS, I ask you) web site.
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?threadID=4773&&edition=1&ttl=20061120122938
I feel privileged indeed that my hard earned spondoolicks are not only funding the BBC to give a forum to it's innumerate and scientifically illiterate journalists to spend their time debunking peer reviewed, expertly authored, epidemiological studies about mortality rates in Iraq, but also to give a forum to the equally inept and cinematically illiterate portion of the disengaged British Public that, taken in by the media hyping blitz krieg of propaganda surrounding Casino Royale, have fallen completely for it and believe that, despite the evidence before their very eyes, the steaming pile of festering crap on cinema screens up and down the land, is something approaching a half way decent piece film.
Ok, I'll admit, I'm not a Bond fan. Pretty much I never have been. For example, I used to think Roger Moore was the best Bond, but when I was a kid he was making a lot more of them, and Moonraker did approximate a Sci-Fi film, which is something I've always been a fan of, albeit a tackily cheap one, even for the '80's. More latterly I feel Connery was obviously the best, but that's just because he was a better actor, nothing else. And let's face it, once they got beyond the gadgets with the evident demise of Q, nothing of any interest or surprise ever happens or happened in a James Bond film. Ever. Name one twist, one unexpected plot device, one surprise, one "well I didn't see that coming", or one "that's new" that you've ever gasped when you've seen one. Apart from the gadgets (gondolas turning into speed boats and so on)? You see? Nothing.
"Hahaa" you might say, "that's the point - it's a cinematic convention - we expect a teaser introduction, a flirtation with Moneypenny, an assignment from M, a foreign location, lots of gadgets from Q, much mayhem, lot's of explosions, a few fist fights, a few stop overs for shags with lovely ladies, a secret base detonating, and a comedy shag at the end with a receiver being turned off on indignant MI6 officials, while Bond plus A.N Other model get it on upside down in the torpedo tube of a submersible of some description. The enjoyment comes from seeing what kinds of things happen along the way, we enjoy the familiarity and the easy charm of Bond demolishing villains and causing devastation as he goes, and the cool manner of his dispassionate dispatching of his enemies. We enjoy the cool calm sophistication of this ice-cold killer (the champagne, the caviar, foie gras, the martinis, the sharp suits, all the easy expectation of a public school boy for the finer things in life). He's like a sort of good guy Hannibal Lecter - except we are never repelled by his brutality, only charmed as he dispenses his Arnie Schwarzenegger like witticisms over the corpses of his always-asking-for-it victims with all the subtlety of a bullet in the face ('shocking', 'he lost his head', 'stick around' and so forth)".
Well you might say that, if you had a brain. Mostly you'd probably say "go and see the new James Bond film - it's brilliant - now, the weather".
I had the misfortune to see this utter dross because of a simple moment of weakness last Sunday. My girlfriend had been slavering for weeks about Daniel Craig in the role, and I thought "it can't possible be worse that all the other ones", and I'd been reasonably impressed by Daniel Craig in "Enduring Love", plus it had received a thumbs-up from a previously impeccable source, so I thought, why not?
The plot, if you can call it that? Below par even for Bond - in the post 9-11 world a banker to the world's "terrorists" gambles their money on the stock market, by shorting airline stock, and plans his own airline terror stunt. Bond foils his plans and forces Le Chiffre, a "mathematical genius and gambler" to set up a high stakes, make or break poker game to win back the money he lost in his failed stock market gamble. So far so hum-drum. Apart from the utterly ludicrous plot inconsistencies. First, this is supposed to be Bond's very first mission as a "double-oh agent". Post 9-11? Right. And why would a methodical genius decide that gambling his stake away was a clever use of the money? And why would MI6 and the CIA wait until after a poker game to want to take this guy down/out or whatever they do, when they could just pick him up there and then? Even suspending disbelief, this is stretching it.
So the action? Well, the initial chase through an African building site is bland enough, with Daniel Craig being stunt doubled in about 2 out of every 3 shots; one or two reasonable free running stunts, for some bizarre reason. Now, I thought I had already missed that fad a couple of years ago, but it seems to be making a resurgence (in Cason Royale and in Breaking and Entering - at least in the trailers for it). I expect in a few years the noughties it will be looked on like all those 80's films where you had to have leg warmers and a montage scene in order to have any sort of street credibility. Much is seemingly being made of the fact that the action sequences show that "Bond can bleed", and "he gets hurt", and the action has a "more gritty feel". Hmmmm. Maybe, but that doesn't meant that they are any good as action sequences - any Jackie Chan film, ANY one of them, contains better and more interesting choreographed fight sequences than anything in Casino Royale, and you almost never seen any blood in them. There is, for example, and excellent fight scene in "Gross Point Blank" between John Cusack and a "spook" assassin in the corridor of a school, which for pace, action, direction, style and "grittyness" far outstrips anything in this film. And even the Bourne identity, and the Bourne Supremacy, even though they were woeful had good gritty fight scenes. Yes there's blood, yes there's pain, but none of it is interesting. And as for the much vaunted "showering fully clothed comforting Vesper scene after a traumatic murder" baloney: even my girlfriend, who had enjoyed the soft porn Daniel Craig moments, was laughing (not the intended response I feel).
The one welcome departure from the norm was the standard Bond torture sequence - yet another chance for girly soft porn as Craig gets stripped to his proverbials, and has a nasty series of heavy rope lashes applied to his undercarriage, exposed in a hollowed out chair. "I never understood the need for all those elaborate torture methods" opines Mikkelsen, as Le Chiffre, the subtly disfigured villain, referring to the "Take Mr. Bond away and give him plenty of time to escape" standard scene from the early Bond films. Indeed. If all he wanted was Bond's password he could have tried something infinitely easier - just phone him up on his mobile and try a little social engineering - tell him that it was the MI6 IT desk phoning to perform some routine account maintenance. Or just guess. "Aston Martin", "Bentley", "Shamrock Rovers", or perhaps the name of his current squeeze even, "Vesper" would be good starting guesses. What a funny name - that's a real selling point for film. NOT.
The central action of the film, the supposedly "brilliantly tense" poker game, is nothing of the sort. Not only is the action interrupted several times for idiotic digressions (I was hoping against hope that poison or the terrorists would kill Bond and ease my suffering), but the game itself is intentionally cryptic so that you know the results only when the director wants you to. Plus, whatever action there was (if you can call cards being turned over and a dealer calling hands "action") was supplemented by irritating asides from Giancarlo Giannini, as Mathis, to Vesper Lynd, the supposedly "extremely bright" treasury agent love interest, sent to keep an eye on Bond, unfortunately though without, it seems, even the most rudimentary briefing in counting the face value of casino chips, or how the game of poker is played. Mathis, the "helpful" local MI6 contact, leant close on half a dozen occasions to growl: "14 million in the pot", "28 million in the pot", "all-in means he has to play all his money", "Bond needs and ace to win" and so on. Basically it was like watching one of those all night celebrity poker matches complete with annoying commentary. Just when you thought Hollywood couldn't get any more condescending.
By the time the baddie is all too easily dispatched (without even a mano-a-mano, and not even by Bond's own hand), the girl saved, James' nads re-confirmed in working order after his torture ordeal, and a few nice shots of Venice are in the can, you're left wondering how long it will take for the love interest to turn on James and bring this pain in the balls film to an end. The answer is "longer than most people can stand". By the end of this drivel most of the audience I saw this with were talking amongst themselves, much to the chagrin of one man who asked some people angrily to stop talking, presumably as he was trying to sleep. The introduction of a "twist" in the end, to herald the return of the Bond status quo is as heavy handed as it is unnecessary, and personally, I couldn't get out of the cinema quick enough.
Despite what that prostitute Jonathan Ross may tell you (he gets privileged access to the set and interviews with the celebs - in return he's really sold out his credibility by having too many Hollywood friends that he can't piss off by giving bad reviews to their films - like Russell Crowe and now the cast, crew and director of James Bond films - I mean what's wrong with the Barry Normal model - send a reporter to do the onsite location reporting, keep a distance from the makers of the film, and keep your integrity for your film reviews), this drivel is not worth letting some one PAY YOU to watch, never mind shelling out 10 quid to go and see it.
It's pretty obvious from the "pedigree" of director Martin Campbell (which includes such visionary and groundbreaking films as "Vertical Limit", "The Mask of Zorro", and a pile of second rate TV) that this was never going to be anything approaching a good film - merely a hodge podge of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", plus "Casino Royale", and 100 million dollars down the drain.
If I'd been kicked in the balls and had 10 quid robbed from me, I'd have had only a marginally worse time.
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?threadID=4773&&edition=1&ttl=20061120122938
I feel privileged indeed that my hard earned spondoolicks are not only funding the BBC to give a forum to it's innumerate and scientifically illiterate journalists to spend their time debunking peer reviewed, expertly authored, epidemiological studies about mortality rates in Iraq, but also to give a forum to the equally inept and cinematically illiterate portion of the disengaged British Public that, taken in by the media hyping blitz krieg of propaganda surrounding Casino Royale, have fallen completely for it and believe that, despite the evidence before their very eyes, the steaming pile of festering crap on cinema screens up and down the land, is something approaching a half way decent piece film.
Ok, I'll admit, I'm not a Bond fan. Pretty much I never have been. For example, I used to think Roger Moore was the best Bond, but when I was a kid he was making a lot more of them, and Moonraker did approximate a Sci-Fi film, which is something I've always been a fan of, albeit a tackily cheap one, even for the '80's. More latterly I feel Connery was obviously the best, but that's just because he was a better actor, nothing else. And let's face it, once they got beyond the gadgets with the evident demise of Q, nothing of any interest or surprise ever happens or happened in a James Bond film. Ever. Name one twist, one unexpected plot device, one surprise, one "well I didn't see that coming", or one "that's new" that you've ever gasped when you've seen one. Apart from the gadgets (gondolas turning into speed boats and so on)? You see? Nothing.
"Hahaa" you might say, "that's the point - it's a cinematic convention - we expect a teaser introduction, a flirtation with Moneypenny, an assignment from M, a foreign location, lots of gadgets from Q, much mayhem, lot's of explosions, a few fist fights, a few stop overs for shags with lovely ladies, a secret base detonating, and a comedy shag at the end with a receiver being turned off on indignant MI6 officials, while Bond plus A.N Other model get it on upside down in the torpedo tube of a submersible of some description. The enjoyment comes from seeing what kinds of things happen along the way, we enjoy the familiarity and the easy charm of Bond demolishing villains and causing devastation as he goes, and the cool manner of his dispassionate dispatching of his enemies. We enjoy the cool calm sophistication of this ice-cold killer (the champagne, the caviar, foie gras, the martinis, the sharp suits, all the easy expectation of a public school boy for the finer things in life). He's like a sort of good guy Hannibal Lecter - except we are never repelled by his brutality, only charmed as he dispenses his Arnie Schwarzenegger like witticisms over the corpses of his always-asking-for-it victims with all the subtlety of a bullet in the face ('shocking', 'he lost his head', 'stick around' and so forth)".
Well you might say that, if you had a brain. Mostly you'd probably say "go and see the new James Bond film - it's brilliant - now, the weather".
I had the misfortune to see this utter dross because of a simple moment of weakness last Sunday. My girlfriend had been slavering for weeks about Daniel Craig in the role, and I thought "it can't possible be worse that all the other ones", and I'd been reasonably impressed by Daniel Craig in "Enduring Love", plus it had received a thumbs-up from a previously impeccable source, so I thought, why not?
The plot, if you can call it that? Below par even for Bond - in the post 9-11 world a banker to the world's "terrorists" gambles their money on the stock market, by shorting airline stock, and plans his own airline terror stunt. Bond foils his plans and forces Le Chiffre, a "mathematical genius and gambler" to set up a high stakes, make or break poker game to win back the money he lost in his failed stock market gamble. So far so hum-drum. Apart from the utterly ludicrous plot inconsistencies. First, this is supposed to be Bond's very first mission as a "double-oh agent". Post 9-11? Right. And why would a methodical genius decide that gambling his stake away was a clever use of the money? And why would MI6 and the CIA wait until after a poker game to want to take this guy down/out or whatever they do, when they could just pick him up there and then? Even suspending disbelief, this is stretching it.
So the action? Well, the initial chase through an African building site is bland enough, with Daniel Craig being stunt doubled in about 2 out of every 3 shots; one or two reasonable free running stunts, for some bizarre reason. Now, I thought I had already missed that fad a couple of years ago, but it seems to be making a resurgence (in Cason Royale and in Breaking and Entering - at least in the trailers for it). I expect in a few years the noughties it will be looked on like all those 80's films where you had to have leg warmers and a montage scene in order to have any sort of street credibility. Much is seemingly being made of the fact that the action sequences show that "Bond can bleed", and "he gets hurt", and the action has a "more gritty feel". Hmmmm. Maybe, but that doesn't meant that they are any good as action sequences - any Jackie Chan film, ANY one of them, contains better and more interesting choreographed fight sequences than anything in Casino Royale, and you almost never seen any blood in them. There is, for example, and excellent fight scene in "Gross Point Blank" between John Cusack and a "spook" assassin in the corridor of a school, which for pace, action, direction, style and "grittyness" far outstrips anything in this film. And even the Bourne identity, and the Bourne Supremacy, even though they were woeful had good gritty fight scenes. Yes there's blood, yes there's pain, but none of it is interesting. And as for the much vaunted "showering fully clothed comforting Vesper scene after a traumatic murder" baloney: even my girlfriend, who had enjoyed the soft porn Daniel Craig moments, was laughing (not the intended response I feel).
The one welcome departure from the norm was the standard Bond torture sequence - yet another chance for girly soft porn as Craig gets stripped to his proverbials, and has a nasty series of heavy rope lashes applied to his undercarriage, exposed in a hollowed out chair. "I never understood the need for all those elaborate torture methods" opines Mikkelsen, as Le Chiffre, the subtly disfigured villain, referring to the "Take Mr. Bond away and give him plenty of time to escape" standard scene from the early Bond films. Indeed. If all he wanted was Bond's password he could have tried something infinitely easier - just phone him up on his mobile and try a little social engineering - tell him that it was the MI6 IT desk phoning to perform some routine account maintenance. Or just guess. "Aston Martin", "Bentley", "Shamrock Rovers", or perhaps the name of his current squeeze even, "Vesper" would be good starting guesses. What a funny name - that's a real selling point for film. NOT.
The central action of the film, the supposedly "brilliantly tense" poker game, is nothing of the sort. Not only is the action interrupted several times for idiotic digressions (I was hoping against hope that poison or the terrorists would kill Bond and ease my suffering), but the game itself is intentionally cryptic so that you know the results only when the director wants you to. Plus, whatever action there was (if you can call cards being turned over and a dealer calling hands "action") was supplemented by irritating asides from Giancarlo Giannini, as Mathis, to Vesper Lynd, the supposedly "extremely bright" treasury agent love interest, sent to keep an eye on Bond, unfortunately though without, it seems, even the most rudimentary briefing in counting the face value of casino chips, or how the game of poker is played. Mathis, the "helpful" local MI6 contact, leant close on half a dozen occasions to growl: "14 million in the pot", "28 million in the pot", "all-in means he has to play all his money", "Bond needs and ace to win" and so on. Basically it was like watching one of those all night celebrity poker matches complete with annoying commentary. Just when you thought Hollywood couldn't get any more condescending.
By the time the baddie is all too easily dispatched (without even a mano-a-mano, and not even by Bond's own hand), the girl saved, James' nads re-confirmed in working order after his torture ordeal, and a few nice shots of Venice are in the can, you're left wondering how long it will take for the love interest to turn on James and bring this pain in the balls film to an end. The answer is "longer than most people can stand". By the end of this drivel most of the audience I saw this with were talking amongst themselves, much to the chagrin of one man who asked some people angrily to stop talking, presumably as he was trying to sleep. The introduction of a "twist" in the end, to herald the return of the Bond status quo is as heavy handed as it is unnecessary, and personally, I couldn't get out of the cinema quick enough.
Despite what that prostitute Jonathan Ross may tell you (he gets privileged access to the set and interviews with the celebs - in return he's really sold out his credibility by having too many Hollywood friends that he can't piss off by giving bad reviews to their films - like Russell Crowe and now the cast, crew and director of James Bond films - I mean what's wrong with the Barry Normal model - send a reporter to do the onsite location reporting, keep a distance from the makers of the film, and keep your integrity for your film reviews), this drivel is not worth letting some one PAY YOU to watch, never mind shelling out 10 quid to go and see it.
It's pretty obvious from the "pedigree" of director Martin Campbell (which includes such visionary and groundbreaking films as "Vertical Limit", "The Mask of Zorro", and a pile of second rate TV) that this was never going to be anything approaching a good film - merely a hodge podge of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", plus "Casino Royale", and 100 million dollars down the drain.
If I'd been kicked in the balls and had 10 quid robbed from me, I'd have had only a marginally worse time.
# posted by Flann O'Brien @ 6:04 AM 
