With a single dessert and just two glasses of wine our bill was kept in check - but the effort of doing so was not much fun
Babbo
Film
This is a film with beautiful performances and a visual style that urges you towards reflection
Bright Star
Theatre
Although the first half of Kwei-Armah’s production is pacy, funny and intelligent, the energy level then drops off
Seize The Day
I loved this film from start to finish. Take the girlfriend, tell your mum - I'd see it again tomorrow and will buy the dvd.
I saw this last night and can't remember the last time I was so moved in the theatre.
I have been to many of London's so-called best Japanese restaurants and none have been as good as the food that I've had at Aqua Kyoto
London,
Derek Malcolm's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Martin Campbell.
Cast: Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen, Judi Dench
Description: Having been elevated to 00 status, James investigates a terrorist cell run by Mollaka, and comes face to face with international banker Le Chiffre, who holds the purse strings for many criminal underworld organisations. M assigns agent Vesper Lynd to keep an eye on James as he heads to Le Casino Royale in Montenegro, where Le Chiffre is due to participate in a high stakes poker game. Fortunes change on the turn of a card, pitting Bond and his associates against the full might of Le Chiffre's underworld contacts.
Country: US/UK/CZECH. 2006. 144mins
Action man: Daniel Criag as Bond
Craig cuts out the comedy and wisecracks in Casino Royale
The lion's share of the praise for the success of the 21st Bond movie must belong to Daniel Craig. Once deemed too blond for Bond, he makes a rough, tough, bulldozing 007 who turns out to be capable of a vulnerable tenderness when love beckons.
His sex appeal has already been widely commented on, particularly as he emerges from the water to reveal the finely muscled torso of a medium-weight boxer.
At first, though, it's difficult to admire this Bond for anything other than his violent skills. He kills without compunction, remarking that the first time is the worst.
He says he beds married women because it's usually less complicated, and he annoys Judi Dench's furious M by being professionally careless as well as insufferably insubordinate.
But then there's his affair with French actress Eva Green's Vesper, a decidedly sophisticated Bond girl (spurning anything so vulgar as a bikini).
It is difficult to imagine even Connery, and certainly the suave Roger Moore, sucking Vesper's fingers as she sits under the shower traumatised by the violent goings-on. He's clearly a man for most seasons.
They call the film a reboot. But it's more like an updating of Ian Fleming's first Bond adventure that's surprisingly faithful to the violent and sometimes vicious original but that also pushes the film series into the modern era. In Craig's own words: "If you don't get bruised playing Bond, you're not doing it properly."
Craig's Bond helps propel Martin Campbell's film into the realms of a serious thriller. The idea that the franchise is just an expensive joke has largely been exorcised - there is much more to this film than unreal if entertaining-cardboard villains, futuristic-gadgetry and wondrous action sequences.
Although The Cipher, the terrorists' money launderer, is played by Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen with coldeyed relish, you are not supposed to smile when he ties Bond to a chair, having first cut out its wicker seating, and whips his unmentionables as Bond screams in agony. You are also not supposed to treat too lightly Bond's desperate efforts to save the gorgeous Vesper from a terrible death by drowning.
This spirit of new realism, however, is impossible to maintain. There sometimes seems to be a certain nervous anxiety about the change of tone, as if the director and producers, whose screenplay has been partially served by Paul Haggis of Crash fame, are wary of turning off the more conservative Bond fans.
So there are several reassuringly impossible and cleverly mounted stunts, a few not very bright quips, a fairly bland theme song and the comforting line, right at the end: "My name is Bond. James Bond." It feels rather like a director being told to steady the ship with a few familiar old faithfuls in case the rougher waters might make us seasick. But on the whole Campbell's well-produced film steers Bond into the 21st century with what looks like certain box-office success.
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This is the return to form that we have been waiting for for so long. The previous few have been so appauling (invisible cars?!) that it would have been hard not to trump them but all expectations are shattered by Casino Royale. The hard and fast pace is set from the get go and doesn't disappoint. The gadgets are few and far between but this only helps to highlight the resourcefullness and skill of bond himself.
I for one hope that this is a rebirth of the franchise which many thought had died a slow lingering death.
Goodbye Brosnan, you aren't missed.
- Joshua Benstable, London
I went and saw the movie with a girlfriend. I was anxious to see what the new James Bond would bring to the audience. After seeing the movie I was extremely disappointed. There are limited action scenes and one scene with Bond's infamous Aston Martin. In addition, the torture scene from this movie was a little too disturbing for the male eyes. I first thought I would be satisfied with the movie, but after watching, I was convinced I had wasted my money on the movie tickets.
- Thomas Guzman, Bridgewater, USA
In recent years, the anticipation of Bond has always been greater than the experience of him. But not this time.
Daniel Craig is nail-hard, portraying 007 in the most pared-down, gadget-less, gripping and unflinching bit of Bondage in decades.
Fleming's first Bond book was short. Simply a character sketch to introduce the spy - the drinks he prefers, his favoured cigarette, his methodology at cards, his choice of car. CASINO ROYALE The Movie has been updated and up-beefed, but the 1953 simplicity has not been ignored. The book's most harrowing passages are up there on the screen. Bond gets hurt and stays hurt.
A wag on the radio said that David Arnold's title music sounds like a 'Best a Man Can Get' razor commercial. Afraid so. But Arnold redeems himself with the incidental stuff in the body of the movie - warming to his theme with strings and horns in the appropriate John Barry style. This sounds like a Bond movie.
It's tempting to say, like the old posters did, that 'Bond Is Back, Bigger And Better Than Ever'. But that isn't the case.
All credit to Craig, it's like we've met and been mightily impressed by James Bond for the very first time.
- John Donnelly, London, England
Perhaps Bond is a stereotype, but why should that define the franchise?This "new Bond" is a break from the very cheesy mould of all the Bonds since Connery. Gone, thank God, are the double entendre's, back is the grit,the callous killer and the sex. This is not a film for Christmas day,but then neither was Dr No. Unfortunately Bond became a PC franchise, a marketing phenom, and forgot its real roots as a spy thriller. Bond is back!
- Anthony, Kenley
Casino Royale is a disappoitment. A missed opportunity. Daniel Craig's Bond has plenty of grit but not enough style. A muscled 'SAS type'. Eva Green is a stylish Bond girl. But the stunts were so fantastical Bond would need to be a superman to survive them - so we didn't really care. Worst of all was the careless, unfinished, perfunctory plot. The story didn't really carry any conviction at all.
- Richard, London
What a great film - it was the Bond film that brought the character right up to date. Darker, harder and with no messing around this time, there was depth there that any viewer could understand. And finally - a Bond played by a good actor - Daniel Craig dismissed all critics by rebuilding Bond right from the start and building on a great script. It's set him up for a few more films yet and will be a huge success. Definitly worth seeing a second time.
- Rich, Guildford, England
Saw the film last nite and I must say as a huge Bond fan, the M&S advert on tv with Twiggy, Bassey and Co. is far better than the film. Disappointed to say the least, it was a charity event and once the end film titles came up there was total quietness in the cinema as if to say, "what was that all about?".
- Dave, Tufnell Park
Afternoon:
11°c
