Big Screen: Casino Royale.

People are calling this the best Bond film in years. Yeah, because it’s not really what we have come to know as the Bond film, it just happens to have him as a character in it.
Ways in Which This Film Resembles a Bond Film

  • His name is Bond, James Bond.
  • Judi Dench is his boss.
  • He works for MI6.
  • Sleeps with more than one girl.

Ways in Which This Film Does NOT Resemble a Bond Film
  • He’s blonde not dark, short not tall, and has actual muscles instead of the lanky Moore/Dalton/Brosnan shape. (Craig is bulked up like a male gymnast in this movie. Quite the contrast from his Munich and LayerCake silhouettes).
  • He takes cabs!
  • He fights with his hands a lot (limited gun usage)!
  • He gets the crap beat out of him several times and is very bloody and battered and completely messed up.
  • Subtle dialogue. No cheeseball stupid lines like “I thought Christmas only came once a year” but instead nice play-by-play (Her: “I’m the money” Him: “Worth every penny.” Moneypenny. Get it?)
  • Only one scene with anything very “gadgety” (and it was medical.) Otherwise straight fists / guns / regular cars / nothing fancy.
  • No Q.
  • Falls in love, bares his soul.
  • Drinks some crazy fruity drink he makes up with 1/2 teaspoon of a billion different things.

Ways in Which This Film May or May Not Resemble Bond, I Cannot Remember
A really sadistic sadomasochistic beating scene that I can only imagine made all the men in the audience cringe with sympathy pain.
It was pretty good. Not a GREAT FLICK by any means, but very enjoyable. Daniel Craig is pretty yummy, even bloody and battered. (As some of us like to say, “I’d tap that.”)