Before the action

Not everyone loves the James Bond movies. Or, there are people who are so in love with a certain style of Bond movie that any screen play which deviates from their favorite Bond actor/idea of Bond is, essentially, no good.

No matter which Bond you like, or whether the gadgets make the movie for you or not, nothing compares to the opening montage.

Went to see Casino Royale today. Excellent movie, good new Bond, great story line (even if the story line of the original book was adapted to a current time line where terrorists are the threat, not Russia), but what I really enjoyed was the opening montage starting with the classic "down the barrel" shot of Bond and the blood. The graphics were designed with very clean lines, the colors were bold, the symbolism of card suites instead of blood, the gun sights that turned into roulette wheels. It really isn't easy to describe and have you understand it; it's just this quick foreshadowing of the story line done is a very stylized manner.

Unusually, there weren't any women in the opening montage. I can't say as I missed that particularly, but it did make the opening quite different from the standard opening. And the theme song wasn't what I would call particularly memorable or orchestrated to the standard Bond expectations.

Neither was the whole movie. Casino Royale is the first in the series, it's the pre-story of how Bond became Bond. So though the tendency to womanize was there, it wasn't fully realized. There was no need to play up the seductress, it would have been completely unrealistic in terms of the story.

I wish I could compare the opening to the ones from other movies. Break it down step by step. But I just don't have that indepth knowledge of this most important part of the movie. It sets the scene for what's to come.

And the work done for the Casino Royale opening was simply beautiful to me. I would love to be able to create something like that.

Of course, I'd love to be able to create a lot of things. I just can't decide on one "thing" to create on a regular basis so maybe I'd become proficient.

Oooo, wasn't that boorish of me? Turning this post back to myself one more time, just can't let it exist as an appreciation of the montage.

Damn I'm self-centered. I can feel the axis of the earth as I write.