Blah !

Rating: 5/10 (16 July 2011)

This and (2001: A Space Odyssey - 1968) have something in common.
So they wanted to rewrite Bond, not only replace an actor instead of another. Unlike some rewriting done with another old hero, and I mean Batman in (Batman Begins) one year earlier, they boldly smashed some of the basics: The lead as an orphan of a poor family grown up to disturbed Oxford boy recruited as hot-blooded reckless and offensive spy / hit-man. He enjoys violence, prefers married women and drinks something else his familiar martini shaken not stirred (too long to memorize). Torturing him was newly cruel; since he was nude, and screaming! We have an evil man who doesn't want to take over the world, an afro-American Felix Leiter, and no Moneypenny, Q, or sci-fi. The climax isn't about beating the evil man in a lair, or stopping a ticking bomb. But who said that every bold deed has to be great?!
First off, how come Bond freshly had the 007 rank and dame M is the one whose in charge? This movie deals with the matters before it as if they never happened. Remember (GoldenEye), when they told the very much 007 that the new M is a woman, now how can I believe that he's the new one?! The only answer is: This is a new agent with the same name (so they give them the James Bond rank, then the 007?!). Anyway, I told myself get over it and live the dream. However, it was almost a nightmare; for whoever loves the good old Bond, or else!
It's 3 movies. The first is about that raw 007, with 2 good action sequences. The second is one of the most boring movies I have ever been tormented by, with endless poker and endless narration by (Giancarlo Giannini) for all what winded up as unintelligible, ok, I fought the urge to cry to get the whole picture! Let alone the DULLEST evil man in Bond's history; he's a pray more than a beast of prey, living threatened more than threatening, and doing nothing but using the asthma spray and weeping in blood?!! After that, there is a third act where nothing to understand either. Sure insisting on dealing with it, especially in the start and the end, as vol. 1 made it kind of amputated movie, with deliberately obscure events. And it takes itself so seriously; at times, I thought I was watching an existential movie from the 1970s!
The first scene is in black and white (To feel that it's a flashback?!). The long chase in the start could fit as a pre-credits hot sequence instead of that cold, short and incomprehensible black and white one. Why to combat the African terrorist; that sounded fabricated to spread some heat in the second act. (Le Chiffre) is one-eyed, and the organization's collector at the end also! While there are no gadgets, Bond runs everything by cell phones (The movie is almost a very long ad about them), which makes a TV show like (Alias) more creative and droll!
There is nothing comic about the dialogue, not even one-liner or one double-entendre. The question isn't about how to stand that in a franchise that had been the greatest reference for the one-liners and the first teacher of the double-entendres?! No, it's about how lousy, at anything, this dialogue was. (Charles Manson)'s diary is more romantic than the scenes of Bond and his love. Whoever wrote these scenes is real sick and got nothing to do with love. I'll never forget lines like "If nothing was left from you except your smile and finger, you'll be more man than any man I have met. / That's because you know what I can do with my finger." WHAT IN GOD'S NAME IS THAT?!
Bond, of (Denial Creag), is stiffer and sillier than (Pierce Brosnan) himself. (Creag) reminded me of Magic (1978), an early (Anthony Hopkins) movie, since he identified with a dummy there with the exact wooden face and blue, always gazing, eyes. Yes, he mastered the action scenes, but this is absolutely his worst role and performance up to that moment. The girls, (Caterina Murino) & (Eva Green), are horrible to say the least. At one scene, (Giannini) tells the second, while she's in a flashy dress: "Half of the men is still looking at you." Well, from where I was sitting, I presumed these men were gay! (Eva) is creepily pop-eyed with an unattractive everything. So how about fascinating Bond to the extent of leaving the MI6 for her?!! Needless to say that that love story was forced. Actually in terms of stiff goggle dummies, it was more like (Bride of Chucky)!
The cinematic factors were fine, especially the soundtrack which is certainly better than the movie. And the action; cut it out, and you'll have something to watch.
For times, the action remains absent. At the old Bonds, the funny spirit, the wicked gadgets, and the beautiful landscapes do compensate. Not this time thought. Although change is good, but not to the worse I believe. Because (Casino Royale) is over serious, no funny, and too boring it's sleepy. It isn't about taking off the dream out of Bond to some extent. It's about how uninteresting that realistic Bond was. So, while it has the intention to be something else the Bond nonsense, it ended up as another nonsense, however less enjoyable!
This is not the Bond I love, or Bond I loved. Before watching it, I read everywhere that it is a Masterpiece. Now you should have guessed what's in common between it and (Space Odyssey). Yes, your guess is right!