Another week, another movie review and I’ll give you the conclusion first: two thumbs up, go see it.
A lot of the James Bond movies recently have been very cartoony. Surfing on the wave from a calving glacier, fights that are finished with a “JUDO CHOP!” and leave 007 without a mark, and on and on. This one is different. James Bond is a man, he bleeds like us, he hurts like us, but he’s just so fucking cool that you want to be him.
Of course, I do have some quibbles… I’m not sure they needed to have Daniel Craig bulk up that much. There’s one scene where he’s swimming and your only thought is “wow, that’s a fucking lot of muscle.” It would also be nice if he didn’t have such nice suits* and cars, since I’m never going to have a Aston Martin DBS or a Brioni suite. Also, the book has him playing baccarat instead of hold ‘em. I suppose there have to be some concessions to modernity though. Waterboarding might have been a better torture too rather than whipping 007’s testicles with a weight on the end of a rope.**
The New Yorker has a very nice review of the movie that I would recommend reading too.
*One funny thing about Brioni. They make an amazing custom tuxedo shirt for somewhere around $600. The really cool thing about it though is that you have to send it back to Brioni for laundering. They have a special process and machines to get the collar just right. It’s something to have a shirt that has to go back to the factory every time you wear it. 007 goes through three of them in one night during the poker scene.
**Waterboarding’s been done though, in the last one that Pierce Brosnan did with the North Korean bad guys.
