Casino Royale

I never understood the passionate criticism of the selection of Daniel Craig to play James Bond. I care more about the Bond franchise than probably anyone, and after seeing Layer Cake, I thought that Eon Productions and Sony hit a homerun. I'm extremely excited about Casino Royale, and I'm intrigued to see what they've done with this movie.

I heard it was a little rougher and darker, and that's a very good thing. The Bond franchise needed to trim the fat a little and return with a leaner, more gritty movie. Die Another Day was slick, true to the character and very entertaining, but they've taken the action sequences and gadgets about as far as they can without ruining the movie by straining believability to the breaking point. Not that films like Moonraker were too concerned with that, but I'd like to see them reign it in a bit.

Craignotbond.com needs to shut down their pathetic little site and get on board with the movie finally. They're doing more damage to the Bond franchise than anything the producers ever did. I can't believe all the childishness going on here. Listen, Sean Connery is never coming back.

The only thing that gets me fired up about the recent Bond movies are the theme songs. Sheryl Crow and Madonna's tracks have been horrendous, not just as theme songs but as music in general. And I like those artists. I find it hard to believe that St. Etienne's version of the Tomorrow Never Dies theme song was not at least 543% better than the Crow song.

The last I heard, Tony Christie was writing the theme song, and Robbie Williams had been batted about as the performer. That's old news though, so I don't know what the more recent developments are. The Goldfrapp rumor was unfortunately untrue.

Here's a short list of groups who could write and perform a song better than any in recent memory: Portishead/Beth Gibbons, Morcheeba, St. Etienne, Goldfrapp...

There's an entire legion of musicians who take inspiration from the classic Bond and spy-thriller music, why not use one of them?

Here's the trailer:

http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/casinoroyale/site/