I watched Casino Royale yesterday, and I appear to be the only person on the face of the planet who thought it sucked majorly. Oh wait, my wife thought it sucked, too.

I went in expecting an action flick, but it was all a stupid *** love story that ended up being fake in the end, anyway . Not only that, but who really wants to watch some naked dude getting his balls whacked over and over again ?

The plot was flimsy at best, it had no grand scale to it like goldeneye, there was not ONE decent car chase scene in the whole movie, and the whole texas hold-em theme is about 2 years too late to be relevent.

The new actor dude was okay, whatever. But the movie itself sucked, it doesn't matter who they put for bond, it still sucked.

Aw, man

Oh well, opinions schmopinions.

Well, there you go. Everyone is entitled to their opinion.

Someone said in another thread they they wished it was "Less James Bond and more 007". You seem to follow this opinion. That's fine, but I think the reason it focused more on James than the 007 stereotype is being the first film in a reboot, they had to establish the character (much like Batman Begins). I have a feeling in the next film we'll see a lot more of what some (like you) were expecting.

As for my opinion, I loved it. Definitely near the top of my list of favorite Bond films.

One of the things that I thought was hurting the recent Bond films was just that they were trying to out do the previous in terms of action. The frnachise had grown from spy films to another generic action movie franchise.

The love story wasn't fake. You didn't pay attention. Your entire post is rendered null and void.

Indeed. Die Another Day was a generic action film. The Bond element was irrelevant.

Well, at least this Bond flick didn't have bad genetics, stealth-sub-owning media barons, bad russian accents, or explosions from not-exploding substances.

The torture scene made me cringe, though.

Brian, you've been spoiled by the most recent (and downright awful) Bond movies.

I know of only one other person who disliked Casino Royale and their reasoning was much the same as yours and it's an opinion I just can't respect. Casino Royale is how bond is supposed to be, it's how bond was created to be.

Actually, the last bond movie I liked was goldeneye.

The chase scene at the start of the movie was great, especially if you're just after generic action fare.

Here's the problem: you went in expecting a new Bond movie, and what you got was not another in a long series of Bond movies. What you got was a modern day movie version of Ian Fleming's Casino Royale...the fact that it's the same character in name and basic traits as in the previous films is almost irrelevant.

It wasn't the movie you were expecting (and apparently not the kind of movie you like).

Personally, I think it was an awesome film on its own, and it was a special breath of fresh air after ever more boring and lame bond movies. Goldeneye was good, sure, but the character was just getting very old. Now he is reborn in a much more realistic fashion.

I want my body to look like Daniel Craigs.

What a coincidence, I saw this last night with a friend. I had been wanting to go see it since it came out but I never had the time. Personally, I loved it, but it was a LONG movie when you combine the plot and actual length. Daniel Craig played a great James Bond, and this movie wasn't as 007 as the last ones, but it was still a good leader into telling us how Bond came about. I agree that Goldeneye is one of the best recent ones to come out, but I still liked Tomorrow Never Dies and the World Is Not Enough a lot. Die Another Day is the one that kinda gagged Bond, but in itself it wasn't too bad.

Luckily, I asked for all four volumes of the new Bond sets for Christmas and got em all! All twenty movies on widescreen DVD!

I thought it was totally sweet. I think the phrase "action thriller" would characterize this movie's genre nicely.

I thought casino royale was kind of mediocre. The parkour scene in the beginning was awesome, but the poker scenes sucked and the pacing was pretty bad toward the end of the movie.

Hmm...

Spoiled by? The moves just before casino royale were worse.

Story sucked.
Cinematography awesome.
I wish all bond films had this sort of cinematography. Would definately make them more enjoyable. This is the type of film where you pretty much forget the story and just enjoy the scenary.

I thought the story was excellent.

Story was indeed excellent. Might have gone a bit much with the love aspect, IMO. I enjoyed it.

I want to see the return of SPECTRE.

Blofeld, FTW

The book is awesome.

Bacarrat >>>>> Hold'em.

- didn't like the opening credits... they could've at least kept the female silhouettes.

- the story was good, but as zojombo said, the pacing was a little off towards the later half, especially with all those drawn out lovey-dovey scenes.

- daniel craig was awesome, buuut... i dunno, he seems a little TOO buff to be james bond.

The opening credits were awesome, they reflect bond's character in the film.

I also must be the only person who didn't think Daniel Craig looked particularly buff, he had pecs but no abs and his lower torso looked weirdly elongated. He looked more like a normal person than someone with a perfect body and I thought that was kind of the point.

I liked the credits as they were more of a throwback to the original films.

I loved Casino Royale like a mongoose loves cobra........and that's a lot

Daniel Craig is my favorite Bond. He even beat Connery for me.

Well maybe you didn't like this one because it was about character development and a good story instead of mindless action?

Your opinion is wrong.

Except that the story sucked. The Bond character was fine, but the chick, not so much. She was completely conflicted and made choices that simply weren't believable for the character.

That was kind of the point. She was an agent who the bad guys got to.

ITT Brian hates something else, massassi isn't surprised.

I LOVED the movie. It definately was a breath of fresh air. It wasn't the typical mindless action, true. I enjoyed that. The story was much, much better than the last few. It was a bit harder to understand, quite a few questions went unanswered after I watched the film, but that's what makes a good movie. It has rewatchability so that you figure out more of the puzzle.

It focused more upon the bond character and less upon the action, which I really liked because it made the movie so much more believable. The plots of James Bond movies were getting ridiculous, until now. I think cold war conflict has been played out in movies by now.

Although Pierce Brosnan was a great bond, one of the better actors (he follows Connery and Craig, in my opinion), most of his movies have different plots, but they all hold similar action stuff. I loved the fact that they got rid of the plethora of gadgetry in this movie. It made it so much more gritty and realistic, more of a return to the early Connery Bond movies (though it was clearly very different from those, too).

Also, the credits at the beginning were awesome. I never liked the silhouettes of the naked women. That was a really, really weird trend in the bond movies that I never liked. This one was actually interesting to watch. Frankly, silhouettes are not very interesting to me. Now, the real thing would be much more interesting than the silhouettes...

In short, I'm sooo glad that the style of the Bond movies has changed.

[QUOTE=Double Helix]Also, the credits at the beginning were awesome. I never liked the silhouettes of the naked women. That was a really, really weird trend in the bond movies that I never liked. This one was actually interesting to watch. Frankly, silhouettes are not very interesting to me. Now, the real thing would be much more interesting than the silhouettes...[/QUOTE]
Well that whole silhouettes deal was just part-and-parcel of the whole sixties mantra.

If it wasn't for naked silhouettes in Bond, Failure's Stuck on You wouldn't be such a kick-*** video.

I really liked it, but Texas Hold 'Em isn't really a "High Falootin'" type of card game. They should have been playing Baccarat like he does in older movies.

They chose Hold 'Em because the audience needs to understand how the game is played to a much greater extent than in the older movies, Baccarat is a much more complicated game and would have required too much explaining.

Also baccarat is really quite boring... At least Texas Hold'em has some skill involved.

That and EVERYBODY plays Hold 'Em. I think they chose a card game that the audience at least knows something about.

That and the game uses English instead of French.

Exactly. Hold 'Em was just the obvious choice.

[QUOTE=Cool Matty] The love story wasn't fake. You didn't pay attention. Your entire post is rendered null and void. [/QUOTE]

How was it not fake? The end suggests and flat out says that it was.

Also, while I never really liked the silhouettes in the begining, I thought the opening credits of this one was incredibly stupid and boring.