speechless.

hi there!

right now, if you are doing absolutely nothing and just twiddling your fingers, surfing the net, reading people's blogs, taking a break, EVEN if you are really doing something important, like studying perhaps, as long as is its nothing short of a major emergency in your life, or there's a fire at your place or exams are a few days away...

I'M telling YOU to. get. your. ass. off. your. chair. and please do yourself a big favour by catching the 24th Bond film, Casino Royale.
it is truly magnificent, excellent, absolutely worthy of the bond franchaise. in fact, i believe it marks a milestone in the Bond series for being so different, non-formulaic and atypical. ian fleming and albert brocoli would be so proud.

why is it so deserving of the lavish praise im shamelessly giving it? ive been a bond fan all my life, parent's influence. ive seen so many bond flicks over the years, i can tell when what will happen, because bond follows a formula. its always very straight forward with the world's best but not-so-secret secret agent. he enters, he shoots, he kills, he gets the babe, he kicks the bad guys ass, he gets another babe, they sail around the mediterranean, maybe she dies, he blows up another few more buildings, he crashes his bmw/aston martin, he gets the real bad guy this time, and then in time for the next vodka martini, shaken not stirred.

but not this one. oh no. this film is an anomaly in the franchaise.

this film draws out bond. it tells you he's just like any other man, he bleeds, he cries, he gets hurt, he doesnt smile all the time, he really falls in love and he can die. casting daniel craig as the 6th james bond, is in my humble opinion, the absolute right choice. brosnan would not have been able to pull off james bond in the craig sort of fashion. while other past bonds have become bond, and thats the only contribution they make to the film industry, bond becomes craig.

he redefines bond.

ok, granted that the scriptwriters have done a whole lot of work developing the new bond, craig breathes life into bond. he is makes him real, raw and edgy. next to him, brosnan looks like an advertisement for colgate or darlie. not that im trying to slam brosnan here, i mean i love the guy, but move over dude! craig's the new bond. craig doesnt smile too much, isnt very clean and tidy with the bloodstains or killing people and cant really jump for nuts (compared to the yamakasi dude), but you're silently rooting for him because you know he needs your support. the other bonds just make you sit back and relax because you know at the end of the day they will come out in a clean tux with nary the crease and with a babe on their arms.

besides the man, the movie itself is vastly different from its predecessors. warning: spoiler alert! thumbs up for the opening black and white sequence, its your first clue that this aint no usual bond film. and its the first thing that draws you to craig's gorgeous eyes. ok. gushing right now. and then the opening music sequence with the poker card theme. old school bond, more colourful and a lot of focus on craig. didnt really like the new theme though, because its a tad poppy. where's my shirley bassey? but i must say that the original theme has been reinvented a little, and i like!

clocking in at 2hr45mins, the movie is long, but you dont feel it. and the directors have played around with usual bond elements and putting them at different places. example, the long romance scenes with bond girl appear right at the back rather than in the early to middle part of the show. its obviously a foreshadowing of something, but placing right behind makes the end alot more poignant. i shant say too much.

bond girl, ahem, bond woman played by eva green is yet another piece of fantastic casting. calling her a bond girl seems to be an insult because when one says bond girl, you get the idea of buxom tanned bikini babes, brainless, always in trouble, helpless, i must say michelle yeoh set the trend for kickass babes, but when halle berry followed up, the kickass-sidekick bondgirl thing sort of got very cliched for me. in contrast, green dresses very elegantly (a lovesick samuel can attest to that), speaks with the quintessential clipped english accent, does not have a stupid name (cf dr christmas jones in the 'world is not enough'), she is called vesper lynd here (rather elegant dont you think?), is bond's match on verbal sparring (the conversation on the train is to die for) and she is not altogether ms goody two shoes. and they actually show her slow death (im sorry, i had to say that). usual bond films dont do such a thing. i mean they have shown bond girls dying thats for sure, but this one shows you a very, very, slow death and bond watches her die so slowly. i seriously almost cried. it was heartbreaking i tell you, heartbreaking.

evil guy, le chiffre, played by mads mikkelsen (danish!!!) is amazingly adept at being psycho-deranged, im actually creeped out by him. and he's a bad guy who gets his ass-whipped by other bad guys, how's that for a change? so he's not so straightforwardly i-want-to-take-over-the-world bad. plus, the tear-bleeding and the constant inhaling are nice touches to the eccentric baddie that every bond movie is famous for.

dame judi dench does not disappoint again, as m, for mother of mi6, and this movie humanises her (geez, they actually showed her in bed with random husband!) and explores her relationship a little more in depth with bond. very motherly. there is no q, no moneypenny and no gadgets. like i said, the aim of the show is to build up bond. no distractions. although the advertising for sony was pretty darn exaggerated. and its the first time i hear 'omega' being said in the show too! and i like the way he couldnt care less about his vodka martini. heck with the shaken and stirred, thats old.

finally, the defining bond phrase 'bond. james bond.' appears right at the very end of the film, just before they hit the theme song. then i realised he's never introduced himself as such at at other point in the film. it was always 'james bond'.

see the irony? he's telling the world that the new bond has arrived.
and i welcome it.