Casino Royale was the first Ian Fleming James Bond novel written back in 1953. Since then, the movie rights have been tied up in legal matters and just recently joined the ranks of the official Bond movie series. The 2006 movie was essentially a reboot of the franchise. It introduced a BLONDE Bond in Daniel Craig who I am having a hard time warming to. Hopefully with a new adventure arriving in November, he will grow on me. In any case, the lates movie opens in traditional fashion with a pre-credit sequence which illustrates Mr. Bond’s first two kills… thereby granting him his Double-O status. That is about as similar to most films in the series as it gets. This film is considerably darker but no less entertaining than the rest.

The plot of the movie concerns Bond and a female treasury agent (Vesper Lynde) on the trail of a weapons financier, Le Chiffre, who has a rather disturbing physical abnormality. Bond is entered into a literal life and death Texas Hold ‘Em tournament with the villain. The hope is to defeat Le Chiffre and force him to aid the British government in exchange for protection from his creditors.

I found the character of Bond to be quite interesting. He is not the seasoned super spy who has been out in the field thwarting the evil plans of countless bad guys. Instead, he is careless, untried, and has an enormous ego making M question her decision to promote him to 007. Along the way, Bond learns an important lesson in the espionage game both from experience and from the advice from his superior: “Trust no one.”

As usual, the action sequences are quite thrilling to watch. One of the most memorable scenes (in fact one taken directly from the novel) involves 007 being tortured by Le Chiffre in a way which would seem to decimate his manhood forever. In true form, Bond is able to make a quick though painful quip. Also like any good Bond film, is the double entendre and suggestive character name. Ms. Lynde’s cover identity is Miss Tiffany Broadchest.

Although dark in tone, Casino Royale does provide enough heart-pounding action to satisfy. I’m not entirely sure if this was a total reboot of the series. I hope we have not seen the end of original supporting characters like weapons master Q or flirtatious secretary Miss Moneypenny. Casino Royale ALMOST took itself too seriously.

The movie Doomsday is about a virus that wipes out all of Scotland.  I’m not really inspired to write much about it because I didn’t like the movie.  I can’t even think of anyone I know who would.  I wasn’t bored at the theater, but you couldn’t pay me to watch this movie again.  First of all, it wasn’t my type of movie.  It was sci-fi and took place in the future, which is already 2 strikes against it as far as I’m concerned.  And then there was the violence.  The never-ending, non-stop, constantly gruesome and always bloody violence.  People died in any and every way you can imagine and some hopefully you can’t.  I lost count after 5 decapitations, all very graphic, and there were also scenes of people getting squished, burned alive, smashed by cars…  like I said, you name a method of torture, it was in this movie.  I was not expecting this.  I thought the movie was going be more like Outbreak, where people try to combat the virus together – I would classify that as more of a drama from what I can remember.  After seeing Doomsday, I even had a dream involving severed limbs last night…  thank goodness it wasn’t nearly as graphic or bloody as the movie…  I wouldn’t even classify it as a nightmare.  And don’t go thinking I’m some kind of weirdo – if you were exposed to almost 2 hrs. of that kind of violence, you would understand why it came across in my sleep!  But anyway, Doomsday definitely goes on my Worst Movies I’ve Seen list.  So far the list consists of:

1.  The Night Listener

2.  The Producers (2005)

3.  Doomsday

4.  The Devil’s Rejects

5.  Meet the Spartans – I’m actually going to remove this one – it doesn’t really qualify as a movie, plus I didn’t see the whole thing.  I KNEW it was going to be horrible, but my husband wanted to try it for some reason…  we lasted for about 10 mins, if that.

This list is in no particular order.  It’s really difficult to do that because they were all horrible in their own unique ways.  I liked the original Producers (1968), but I never even saw the whole remake with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick because I couldn’t get past the first scene, which is rare for me, usually I will stick it out.  The Night Listener was horrible because it was predictable and dumb, but I would much rather sit thru that movie again than be subjected to Doomsday and all the violence again…  But when I saw each of them for the first time, I was more entertained by Doomsday than by The Night Listener…  so it just depends on the movie and what you mean by worst.  But they are all worthy of being classified as the worst movies I’ve ever seen, for one reason or another, some more than others.

I was totally surprised that Doomsday ended up being so bad after seeing that movies.com gave it an “A” as a rating!  I used to have this theory that I would go opposite whatever the critics said about a movie, and I think I will have to continue that trend.  If I remember correctly, Ebert and Roeper gave Devil’s Rejects “2 Thumbs Up”.  As I said, movies.com liked Doomsday, but I think the following excerpt of their critic’s review just about says it all – I say, see this movie at your own risk, on a dare, or if for some reason you are getting paid.  Otherwise, don’t bother with it, don’t know why we did!

From movies.com:

 “Name something you want in an ultraviolent action thriller and this movie delivers it. Impalement, decapitation, decapitated heads being affixed back onto bodies only to then take arrows through the skull and fall off again, motorcycles decorated with human skeletons, cannibalism, exploding bunnies, insane car chases, wacky costumes, incomprehensible editing, an indestructible a hot chick heroine (Rhona Mitra, who looks like what would happen if Kate Beckinsale and Victoria Beckham had a baby that was the Terminator) whose hotness grows in tandem with the number of people she mows down in the name of truth. Does it suck? Sorta. Is that awesome? Absolutely. In terms of sheer excitement, it’s the best movie of 2008.”

NOTE FROM ME – Best movie of 2008?  I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we’re only in the 3rd month!