It'll Never Fly

Wow! This is a must see movie. The opening scene in Uganda was awesome. It’s great to see parkour getting more lime light. It totally heightens the thrill of a foot race. Banlieue 13 (aka District 13) had a pretty cool parkour chase scene, but Casino Royale shows how much more intense it can be with a bigger budget.

But it really takes you back to the early days of Bond movies. Not quite as epic as the Connery ones that always ended in a huge secret underground base full of people in jump suits, but pretty darn close. No gimmicks. No giant laser beams shooting down to earth from satellites. No tanks. No blimps. No ejector seats. No rocket launchers hidden in the trunk of a car. No submersible cars. You get the picture… It gets back to the roots of what makes Bond so cool.

Basically, it’s just him and his wits. He’s newly assigned to double-oh status, and makes mistakes along the way. It’s refreshing to see a Bond that isn’t perfect. Daniel Craig can pull off the action. You’ll have to ask a lady if he can pull of the suave and debonair part. And just a warning for the guys; the movie takes a bit of a romantic turn. Basically, you get to see the more human side of James Bond. Also, there’s a particularly gruesome interrogation scene that might make you cringe. Oh, and with a title like “Casino Royale” there’s some poker involved. Texas Hold ‘Em, actually, which probably wasn’t the style of poker they played in the original book. But whatever.

I think I’m going to have to go see it again. I got so caught up in the moment at times, that I’d miss some dialogue and be lost for a short time.

If you liked the first Grudge movie, you might like The Grudge 2. I did like the first one, but I didn’t like this one. Yeah, it was creepy, much like the first, although I think the first pulled it off better (probably because it was still fresh). It was rated PG-13, and that’s about how it felt. I’d even go so far as to say it felt like a PG movie. I just didn’t find it scary, or suspenseful even. There were several of those “music builds-up, then silence, then a loud noise” moments that are meant to make you jump, but I found them pretty easy to spot before they started (i.e. where the girl is supposed to appear). The coolest one was probably in the journalist’s dark room.

I didn’t find the characters interesting at all either. They didn’t really do anything you wouldn’t have expected them to do. Again, I think the journalist was probably the most interesting.

Fans of the original will like it because they’ll get some loose ends tied up near the end of the movie. There’ll be a CSI-esque flashback ending that might answer a few questions.

I guess I just wasn’t in the right mood. I might be unfairly comparing it to the original Japanese movie, which received and R rating and was far better, in my opinion. It’s been a while since I’ve seen those.

As far as Texas Chainsaw movies go, this one isn’t much different. There’s lots of sick, twisted, and creepy imagery. There’s a guy abusing the authority a cop’s uniform gives him. There’s a deranged family that has no qualms about killing and eating people. There’s a lunatic with a chainsaw. And there’s a group of teens that gets slaughtered along the way. Pretty much the usual stuff.

What I really liked about this movie, and serves as the reason for the title, is that we get to learn the origins of the characters and the circumstances that lead them to commit the atrocities they did. It starts with the birth of the baby that would grow up and become Leatherface, his first kill, and the domino effect of killings that follows from it.

Worth checking out if you like slashers, or Texas Chainsaw movies in particular.

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