REVIEW: Casino Royale, Eragon, Charlotte's Web

On Sunday, I saw Casino Royale, which has been the best called "the best James Bond film since Goldfinger (1964)" and is currently enjoying a 95% favorable critical consensus (and 93% from users) at rottentomatoes.com. Although not a big fan of the James Bond oeuvre overall, I did enjoy Halle Berry in Die Another Day and of course grew up watching the classic 1960s and 1970s Bond movies (Dr. No, Diamonds Are Forever, Live and Let Die, Goldfinger, etc.) on television like lots of other people. It's always a pleasure to see Dame Judi Dench on screen, even if she only appears for a few minutes, and she plays 'M' the head of the British intelligence agency MI-6. The casting of modestly regarded British actor Daniel Craig (Elizabeth, Lara Croft: Tombraider, Munich) as the new embodiment of the most successful cinematic franchise in history was a gutsy move. So was the decision to make an official film adaptation of Ian Fleming's first book to feature the James Bond character despite the fact a unauthorized movie using the same material had been previously made way back in 1967.

The results are impressive. Although the director Martin Campbell was previously known for his work on the execrable Zorro movies, here he has crafted an absorbing, fast-paced pop movie spectacle packed with suspense and jaw-dropping stunt-driven action sequences. Even the script by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Crash and Million Dollar Baby's Paul Haggis is not too outlandish (some of the more recent Bond films looked like they might not have even been shot with a script).

The centerpiece of the film is Daniel Craig, or more accurately his piercing blue eyes and rugged good looks. Although the James Bond films are clearly rooted in nourishing white male escapist fantasies (look, I can kill anyone with my bare hands with immunity! And bed as many women as I want with impunity! All the while using really cool gadgets and looking fabulous!) in Casino Royale the filmmakers are able to rescue the franchise from its cartoonish excesses reflected by the Pierce Brosnan films and infuse a large dose of vérité. This is done by actually showing the sweat, blood, bruises on Craig's well-sculpted (chemically enhanced?) body which are the results of killing people with your bare hands, being nearly poisoned to death and sprinting at top speed through an active construction site. The film actually starts with a black and white sequence, to add cinematic heft to its theme of verisimilitude.

The villain (the Bond villains are often the best aspect of the film) is ably played by Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen and "the Bond girls" were played by the exotically beautiful Caterina Murino and more traditionally pretty Eva Green. Green's part is pivotal to the plot and in I thought she was perhaps slightly miscast in the role as Bond's first love. Interestingly, Green, Craig and Nicole Kidman will be appearing together in Fall 2007 in the highly anticipated film version of Philip Pullman's first His Dark Materials juvenile fantasy novel: The Golden Compass. At one point this trilogy was outselling Harry Potter in England (Mad Professah reviewed the series in July 2006).

Overall, Casino Royale is a well-made, entertaining genre (spy, action/adventure) film which features a handsome movie star in his first breakout role.

GRADE: B+.

Early Monday morning while other people were probably unwrapping presents or biting their tobgues so as mot to start or contune arguments with rarely seen but always annoying family members, Mad Professah fled to the multiplex, the well-maintained Burbank AMC 16 movie theaters, and saw Eragon and Charlotte's Web.

Since I have read the first two books by Christopher Paolini in the now-named Inheritance trilogy (Eragon and Eldest) and of course loved the Lord of the Rings book and the brilliant Peter Jackson film versions I have been curious how the film adaptation of Eragon would turn out. The reviews have been brutal (12% critical consensus favorability on rottentomatoes.com). While it is true that the main criticism is that the source material is somewhat derivative of J.R.R. Tolkien's work as well as Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern with perhaps a smidgen of Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain series, this is not my main complaint. Eragon simply is not a very good movie. There are direct cinematic "homages" (theft is such a dirty word!) to Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and even The Karate Kid.

I blame the director Stefen Fangmeier, who previously had been a visual effects supervisor on numerous films with impressive visual effects like Jurassic Park, Twister, The Perfect Storm and Signs to name a few. As one critic said, "As a director, Fangmeier is an excellent special-effects supervisor." The acting is truly atrocious, with John Malkovitch the most celebrated offender. Oscar winner Jeremy Irons is not bad and newcomer Edward Speelers has an attractive, puppy-dog like cinematic presence. Sadly, he has the acting ability of a puppy also. Oscar winner Rachel Wiesz is fine as the voice of the dragon Saphira, although I think an actress with a voice in a lower register would have been more effective, but no actress could have rescued the clunky dialogue she is given to read. Sienna Guillory as Ayra is actually quite goodbut is not as forbidding as the written character. The less said about Djimon Honsou's appearance in the film, the better. I think at its core, the problem was trying to adapt a 500-plus page book into a 100-minute movie was just a fantastically bad idea.

There are some good aspects of the film (the visual effects are acceptable, the wide shots of the countryside and mountains are stunning, the dragon is well-done) but the bad aspects are overwhelming (the acting, the truncated storytelling and the production and costume design).

GRADE: D.

After walking out of Eragon with a bad taste in my mouth and with some more time to kill I noticed Charlotte's Web was starting in ten minutes so I ducked into that theater with no expectations. I had read the much-beloved book by E.B. White ages ago and had little memory of the story. The voice over cast is huge and stellar: Oprah Winfrey, Julia Roberts, Steve Buscemi, Robert Redford, Cedric The Entertainer, Dakota Fanning and Kathy Bates. Although it is a simplistic and child-like tale it is well-made and incredibly faithful to the heartwarming source material. It is really a perfect kids movie.

GRADE: A.