November 9, 2006, - 4:51 pm
New Bond . . . James Bond = Yawn . . . Big Yawn; The Metro-Sexual Bond
By Debbie Schlussel
Just got back from seeing, “Casino Royale,” the new James Bond movie, the 21st installment. My reaction:
Bring back Sean Connery . . . . Bring back Roger Moore . . . . Bring back George Lazenby . . . . Bring back almost anybody (but not Timothy Dalton or Pierce Brosnan). This new dude, Daniel Craig, just doesn’t cut it. He’s DULL. No charisma, no charm, no suavity and debonaireness.
Too old and haggard looking. And he’s way too thin (scrawny) and small (hair’s too short and ears stick out, too–like Alfred E. Neuman). Very blah. Not sexy. Nice eyes, but nothing behind them. Would Ian Fleming fancy this guy playing Bond? Doubtful.
James Bond is meant to be tall, dark and handsome. Not small, blonde, and nebbishy. Jeans, a biker shorts swimsuit? James Bond wouldn’t be caught dead in Daniel Craig’s “Casino Royale” everyman mallwear.
And the plot . . . oy. James Bond, MI-6 Secret Agent, is fighting the enemy in a boring poker game. Puh-leeze. There’s a reason “The World Series of Poker” is not an action adventure spy movie. It’s a yawner.
I predict Daniel Craig will last about as long as Dalton. As in not very. He’s just not hot. Ironically, both leads, Craig and French Actress Eva Green got had their biggest roles to date in Islamist movies, he in “Munich” (playing Steven Spielberg’s phony version of a Mossad agent uttering outrageous statements Mossad agents would never utter, but in which he, ironically, looked more like James Bond–beefier and with better hair) and she in “Kingdom of Heaven.”
Gotta say I agree with (the new, female?!) “M”‘s line in the movie: “I miss the Cold War.” I do, too. Because without it, James Bond is boring. And out.
Stay tuned for my complete review when the movie comes out.
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Fave DebbieSchlussel.com James Bond flick: “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service,” starring George Lazenby, the one and only time he played Bond. Also liked, “From Russia With Love,” “Goldfinger,” and “Dr. No.”
Fave DebbieSchlussel.com James Bond: George Lazenby, with Sean Connery a close second.
Fave DebbieSchlussel.com James Bond villain: Blofeld (full name: Ernst Stavro Blofeld), as played by Telly Savalas (Blofeld was also played by Donald Pleasence and Max Von Sydow).
Tags: actress, Alfred E. Neuman, Casino Royale, Daniel Craig, Daniel Craig's "Casino, Donald Pleasence, Dr. No, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, Eva Green, From Russia With Love, George Lazenby, Goldfinger, Her Majesty's Secret Service, I, Ian Fleming, James Bond, Kingdom of Heaven, M, Max Von Sydow, Mossad, Munich, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Pierce Brosnan, Roger Moore, Russia, Sean Connery, spy, Steven Spielberg, The World Series of Poker, Timothy Dalton
Heard Howard Stern knocking this movie yesterday as if it was some posthumous contrived Ian Fleming story when in fact this was the FIRST Bond novel he ever wrote, and some people considered it his best!
YOUR contention that DC may be a bit long in the tooth to have played Bond flies in the face of what 007 was originally…a 40-something-year-old’s Walter Mitty doppelganger. But let’s face it, Bond jumped the shark when “Our Man Flynt” get-smarted the whole genre.
EminemsRevenge on November 9, 2006 at 5:18 pm