Casino Royale on DVD - Page 2

bought the dvd and threw it on the 60 inch plasma at work with the HD-DVD player's upconvert and damn did the movie look good. Great transfer on this baby. Kills me how bare-bones it is considering its a 2-disc affair.

I love this film. I took two people who hate action films (Bond movies especially) to see Casino Royale, and they both loved it as well.

It seems every damn DVD/Blu-ray release apart from the Region 3 has been cut in some way. I was about the get the Region 1 DVD but the cuts seems very noticeable, especially during the stairwell fight.

http://whiggles.landofwhimsy.com/arc...yale_cuts.html
http://dvdcompare.net/comparisons/film.php?fid=10650

I missed this in the theater, so I rented it yesterday. It's a great Bond film -- up until he wins the card game. Then the film simply does not know how to finish. When I saw there was still over half an hour left once he won the game, I thought, "Where the hell do we go from here?" Then LeChiffre gets him and I'm thinking, "Okay, big showdown, great finish." Then LeChiffre gets popped and it's like we've started another film. Was there no way to tie Vesper's betrayal in with the main storyline? Have her working for LeChiffre instead? Have the romance between her and Bond develop during the card game? I know the point was to get Bond to a place where he drops his armor only to force him to raise it again, but the whole last half hour of the film felt so apart from the rest of it. Plus, we're denied seeing Bond get the best of the man he's been up against the entire film. It's a little unsatisfying to have LeChiffre gunned down while Bond sits tied up in a chair.

Honestly, I could have watched a two hour film set just around the back and forth during the card game. That was fantastic stuff.

You realize that Le Chiffre isn't really dead at that point, right? He's the guy in Venice that Bond shoots in the eye with a nail gun.

Really? I thought that's what they were going for with the shaded eyeglass lens, but close-up it didn't look much like him.

Guess I'll have to watch it again. Maybe it was just that the film had sort of lost me by that point.

No it wasn't. Le Chiffre was definitely super-dead by then.

yeah don't know how you survive bullets to the head, but if you know, president bush needs a reason to cut down on armor again.

Then who was the guy that looked like Le Chiffre with the eyepatch over the same eye that Le Chiffre had problems with? Perhaps I need to watch the movie again.

I just thought the whole execution thing was a setup, since Mr. White was the same guy that "shot" Le Chiffre and then walked away with the briefcase in Venice.

EDIT: And with a little searching, I found my answer. I'll definitely have to watch the movie again now. That's really confusing, though.

"The man seen standing near the water, wearing glasses with one shaded lens, is not Le Chiffre, who was killed by Mr. White after torturing Bond. This man is Gettler, another member of the "mysterious organization" which blackmailed Vesper. She realizes they are still following her when she recognizes him, so she decides to hand the money over."

The film's "fourth act" is definitely challenging, pacing-wise. But every time I saw it in a theater, I managed to get through it pretty well, especially because of the big pay-off in the final scene. Hearing the audience cheer with that last line of dialogue made it worth it. But without that final scene, it'd be a somewhat unsatisfying stretch, I'm afraid.

Each time I watch CASINO ROYALE, I try to figure out what you could cut from the post-Le Chiffre section of the film, and although you could trim frames here and there, it's nearly impossible to cut a complete scene out from a story point-of-view.

It's not the pace, it's the content. I don't mind a slow denoument, it's just the fact that so many new things are introduced, it's jarring (look at the confusion above over who the guy with glasses was).

Craig is fantastic though, and I loved the way they didn't show you the iris opening until he'd become a 00. It's a great origin story, I just wish the ending had been a little tighter.

Now that I start thinking about it, Le Chiffre had the bad eye, Gettler had the bad eye...I wonder if that's supposed to be some kind of "loyalty" thing for that group, similar to the Yakuza cutting off a finger. Maybe that will be addressed in the next movie, since it's supposed to be a direct sequel to CR.

For me it wasn't the final line. It was the way he said, "the bitch is dead." Cold, so cold. To me that line is the payoff for the fourth act not the somewhat expected,"Bond, James Bond."

I doubt it. They one-eyed man is straight out of the book.

Anyone who thought that Gettler and LeChiffre were the same person should complain to their projectionist about murky imagery. Or possibly a misplaced reel.

Yeah, I don't really understand how you could confused about that. LeChiffre's head with a bullet in it falls into the entirety of the frame, giving a pretty good closeup of how he met his end. And like 70's said, the two men really look nothing alike...

Yet you could see it in his face that he regrets it almost immediately when M lets him in on the fact that she saved his life. I admired the way Dench and Craig played that scene, she knows he's just been hit with the bitter and murky reality of the shit he signed up for and she's trying to take a little bit of the sting out of the experience so he can stay focused on the idea that he's still fighting for the "greater good" no matter what happens.

I think you just hit the nail on the head. Now I remember--when I was in the theater watching the movie the first time, the film cut off and the lights came up right after the guy shot Le Chiffre. It was like 3-4 minutes, and they finally turned the lights off and started the film again, presumably into the next scene. That must be where I missed it. And when I re-watched the movie on DVD last week, I started falling asleep towards the end (I had been up since 5 AM and started watching at 10 PM), so I probably missed that scene again--because I don't remember seeing that image of Le Chiffre hit the ground.

Jesus. See a doctor. It's a giant close-up.

I was sure I saw that shot, but then I thought maybe I wasn't paying attention. Nice to know I wasn't crazy.

Sorry, I tend not to sleep with my eyes open.

I also really like that moment. The cold delivery of him telling M that she left her phone was a great setup to knowing how much bile is in him and it's only going to get worse. But when he says that "the job's done, the bitch is dead," that line had everyone in the theater going, "Ohh.... so that's why Bond is the way he is."

EDIT: I can see the confusion with Le Chiffre and Gettler. We first see Gettler in a wide shot and we're not really sure who we're seeing and why we're seeing him. And even though this is a less silly Bond, it was only two Bond movies ago that the bad guy's main hook was that he had a bullet lodged in his head.

That final line only seemed to emphasize to me that James Bond is an identity, not a person. This film showed us the newest owner of that identity learning the ropes, and his "Bond. James Bond." at the end was him finally accepting it and all that comes with it.

I actually find myself thinking more fondly of the film as time goes on.

A scene similar to that earlier in the movie is when he puts the tux on. It's fitting that we see a new Bond in the tux for the first time looking at himself in a mirror. I think it's a cool moment, was there anyone out there that thought the opposite?

And the song is definitely growing on me.

And don't forget about the guy with diamonds embedded in his face in the last one.

I also thought the bit about giving two names when he checked in to the hotel seemed to underline this.

And I liked the song from the get-go. Also, one of the best credit sequences in any of the Bond films.

Seeing Bond looking at himself in the mirror wearing the tux actually got cheers and applause when I saw it the first time. It was what it would be like to see Indiana Jones or Batman figure out their iconic looks for the first time.

The reason I love the final line so much is not only that it's the first time we hear Craig's first-ever delivery of "Bond. James Bond," but it also launches the first and only full-blown use of the Bond theme in the film. I've said this before but I think it's incredibly powerful and appropriate that not only did Bond have to earn his double-O in this film but that he also had to earn his theme music. And earn it he most certainly did.

It might not have the character or historical resonance that "The bitch is dead" has but it was just a top-notch crowd pleasing moment. I can't remember the last Bond film I saw with an audience that had this much vocal approval throughout.

Waiting to hit the theme full until the end really seemed to make sense to people I've talked to. No one has complained about the lack of the theme in the movie. They know he finally earned it.

Anyone having trouble playing this disc in their player? Plays on my Dell PC fine, plays on my shitty $30 bedroom DVD player fine, won't play on my 5 year old Toshiba. I suspect the weird Flash screen that comes up when I put it in my PC is to blame. Just curious before I try returning it.

This movie was awesome. I can't see how anyone would complain about the opening chase sequence because it's "fake." As far as over the top bond action goes, that was the most realistic that I've seen. Also, like people have said it was cool to see an early bond in contrast to a seasoned vet. We get to see how he became so cool under pressure, and the real reason why he never get's too close to his ladies. Plus the brutality of some of the kills in this movie were much more visceral than past bond movies. This being said, the end of the movie is a bit shaky, and I didn't get why Vesper killed herself if she was forced to do what she did.(Or even if she wasn't forced for that matter.)

That one is pretty simple, really. She couldn't live with herself after betraying James. Whether she was forced to or not, the guilt was too much for her to go on.

Not me but I've heard several complaints from others that CASINO ROYALE and other recent Sony titles aren't playing properly. Sony's really taken a turn for the worse in recent months.

"That one is pretty simple, really. She couldn't live with herself after betraying James. Whether she was forced to or not, the guilt was too much for her to go on."


I understand that she killed herself out of guilt. It just seems lame because if she was forced into it, she shouldn't feel that guilty because she was trying to save her husband or whatever. Plus it's not like she got Bond killed. If she did it willingly, then it makes even less sense.

M also says that Vesper "may have hoped they'd let her live, but she must have known she was heading to her death." Even if she had survived, "The Organization" would have done away with her. Coupled with having betrayed Bond, she just got it over with.

As to other points in this thread:

Bitch about Haggis all you want, but this is the first Bond film scripted by Purvis and Wade that hasn't been atrocious. The only new varoable is Haggis. Let's be willing to give credit where credit is due.

Oh, and I'm in love with this movie. Repeated viewings confirm it for me, this is the best Bond film of all. And that's coming from a huge Bond fan, as the regulars in the Bond thread in "Franchises" will attest.

Stew is right, as usual. I'll be forcing some poor fool next to me on a cross country flight to endure, without audio, Thunderball (rewatching after finishing the book, my recent tradition) on the way out, and Casino Royale on the way back. Looking forward to it. Saw this an unprecedented four times in theaters - kept dragging the unconverted to see it.

Agreed. Plus, the man with the briefcase was overlooking Bond trying to bring her back with CPR. If he succeeded, my guess is he would've put a hit out on her stat, or maybe even shot at the both of them right then and there....