I took my wife to see CASINO ROYALE today and I liked it a lot better than I did the first time. I have no idea why…perhaps it had something to do with the audience, which was a lot more enthusiastic and reactive than the audience I saw it with before.
UPDATE: My friend Javi rates the Bonds. I don’t necessarily agree with his line-up, but I love his commentary.
18. a view to a kill – everyone in this film looks like they are a hundred and thirty seven years old and dying of rickets.
My ranking? My favorite Bonds are Sean Connery, Daniel Craig, Pierce Brosnan, Timothy Dalton, George Lazenby and Roger Moore (though Roger had his moments). But my ranking of portrayals doesn’t match how I would order the films. Each has its unique pleasures. It would probably go something like this:
1. Goldfinger
2. From Russia, With Love
3. You Only Live Twice
4. Casino Royale
5. Tomorrow Never Dies
6. Dr. No
7. The Spy Who Loved Me
8. The Living Daylights
9. Never Say Never Again
10. Thunderball
11. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
12. Goldeneye
13. Diamonds Are Forever
14. Die Another Day
15. For Your Eyes Only
16. The World is Not Enough
17. Live and Let Die
18. License to Kill
19. Octopussy
20. Man with the Golden Gun
21. Moonraker
22. A View to a Kill
Just saw it for the first time. I don’t think that I have seen a better Bond movie than this one, and I was a HUGE Bond fan growing up.
I think you were probably not trying as hard to hate it this time around.
I just saw it for the first time last night and thought it was terrific, though they could have trimmed it a bit.
Daniel Craig and Eva Green were just spectacular. I can’t imagine a better cast.
I saw it the second time over Thanksgiving and though I loved it the first time around, the second time it seemed to move faster, which is weird – what movie does that? But I checked in with the friend I saw CASINO ROYALE with first (she went back a second time too) and she reported the same thing….
Who I see a movie with seems to make a difference to how I view it. The first time I saw THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE, it was with a novelist friend, and I thought the ending fell apart. The second time, it was with a visual artist friend, and I thought the whole thing was great.
Karen,
I never wanted to hate it. In fact, I really enjoyed it the first time, too. My initial reaction was that it was a great movie, just not a BOND movie. More BOURNE IDENTITY than 007 (and I love the Bourne movies). Something was missing for me, though. I also had trouble with some of the leftovers from the old approach (the villain with the scar on his eye, every woman swooning when she sees 007, etc). I guess I didn’t miss whatever was missing so much the second time around.
Lee
I was reading about the movie today – in the Aston Martin rollover scene, those were not stunt cars. They smashed up 3 Aston Martin DBS cars at $300,000 a pop.
Your ranking is similar to mine, although I’d rank GOLDENEYE higher and TOMORROW NEVER DIES lower. A VIEW TO A KILL remains the one MGM/UA Bond I haven’t seen — because when the ads came out back in 1985, it looked so bad.
I am very disappointed that Casino Royale will not be out on Xbox360 or any other consoles. Could you please tell me why as I am very upset about this and sad.
Thank you.
Willem