Keith and I finally decided that Sunday is officially our movie night. So, for our first official Holiday Blockbuster we chose Casino Royale to get the party started.

I first have to talk about the new guy, Daniel Craig. When it was announced that Daniel was filling the shoes of James Bond, tons of Bond purists were friggin’ outraged. They hated the fact that Daniel is only 5’-11” (a whole 2” shorter than the other dudes) and that he was blond, penning him James Blonde! Come on people, is this all you got?!? I thought Daniel totally rocked. He was HAWTY MCHAWTSTER! Try dialing 1-800-HOT-HOTT! Seriously though, Daniel did an amazing job as the 6th actor portraying James Bond in this 21st installment. I have to say, I don’t think any other Bond boy has been as ripped and rugged as Daniel… I like it!

As for the Bond girls, well, I thought they fell kinda short. There’s no Pussy Galore here people. The main gurl, Vesper, played by Eva Green was cute and all but she lacked that special “oomph” and Keith thought her accent was a totes fake! But what I was really excited by was this… Do you guys remember Sensa from Felicity? She was the Polish girl in the dorm that got Noel the vending machines. Well, good ole Sensa is back as the baddy’s girl friend! Loved her! And Dame Judy Dench as M is wonderful. Judy is amazing at anything she does. She would be genius just taking out the trash, I’m sure!

Okay, Casino starts out with this amazing chase scene… James is after this Bomb-face dude in Madagascar. The chase/fight is beautifully choreographed and incorporates many “crazy jumping” moves from the French break dancing-gymnastics movement called Parkour, which is also featured in Madonna’s Jump video. I’m not gonna spoil this gem ‘cause you really have to see it for yourself.

So, in this installment of the Bond saga, it’s 2006 but apparently this is James’ first mission out as a 007 agent. His Virgin Tour if you will. He’s assigned to Montenegro in Croatia to stop our bad guy du jour, Le Chiffre, who is financing terrorist organizations around the world. He plans to do this by beating him in a crazy high-stakes, two day long game of poker, thus getting all his cash and stopping him “dead” in his tracks. I’m not a huge gambler, so I found the poker scenes a bit boring at times, but they’d take breaks for some high action scenes, which I liked. My favorite thing in the poker game though, is when James gives the recipe for his infamous cocktail, the Bond martini, shaken not stirred. I wish I had a pen so I could have written it down. Oh well, there’s always the DVD.

Well, James ends up saving the day AND falling in love with Vesper. The ending too, kinda dragged a bit but there’s a wonderful twist at the end that I just didn’t see coming. So, even though Casino has some flaws I thought it was thoroughly entertaining. I loved the action scenes tremendously. The locations, from Madagascar to the Bahamas and Montenegro to Venice were so totes glam! And, they really showed Bond in a totally different way: he was definitely more brutal and raw that any other Bond we’ve seen before, but he was also sensitive, funny, real and hello, IN LOVE! I’m also now officially obsessed with Daniel Craig’s hawtenss and I’m eagerly awaiting the next James Bond film, Bond 22, due to release in November 2008.

I give it 3 outta 4 hearts!
Hello James, I’m Flare, Fred Flare… Sars, I had to say that!