Cyrus Reviews "Casino Royale: The Collector's Edition"

Bond, James Bond.

How billions of writers have begun their pieces about any given Bond film and billions more will continue to, as it’s easier than coming up with something new.

Your pal Cyrus, is as lazy as the next guy.

There’s talk a-mondo on our favorite movie site (and every other one) about Quantum of Solace right now, the second Daniel Craig Bond film and follow-up to the series rebooter “Casino Royale”. It’s a tough act to follow, to be sure. The reinvented Bond is more real AND harder-edged than the previous one. It’s hard to swallow the suave debonair ‘luck-of-Domino’ Bond that we’ve seen so many times before as an actual real life dude. Perhaps correctly realizing that the silly Bond had been taken about as far as it could in a storytelling context, the next generation of Broccoli realized that it was time to do something different. The smart combination of choosing to stick so closely to Ian Fleming’s original story, the violence Bond delivers which is unflinching and brutal rather than comic bookish, and Craig’s steely, cold gaze, make for a new Bond that feels like the ruthless assassin he always was meant to be. Sure he falls in love and prepares to give it all up for a normal life, but that’s the point exactly. He’s all that he is, a killing machine, but still inside at one point lurked a human. Here’s the story of how that guy died.

Paul Haggis’ script was perhaps too florid at points but it captured what is wonderful about the character exactly right, especially the most complex and important line the man ever uttered to tell us about what made him what he is…”the bitch is dead”. It was in re-watching “Casino Royale” in this absolutely PHENOMENAL three-disk collectors edition that made me realize just how pertinent that line really was, and how incredible and layered the movie was. This is a film that demands watching again. And again.

But I’m not here to tell you about the movie itself. I’m here to try to convince you how much you want to get this, the best Bond set ever put together. I’m going to take this extra feature by extra feature:

“Becoming Bond”

A featurette on how Daniel Craig was chosen as the new Bond and how he fit in and even changed the nature of the film by being in it.

“James Bond for Real”

I thought this was going to be a look at some real secret agents (which would have been cool) but as a doc about all the stunts in the movie, it rocks pretty hard. All that free running in the beginning AND the world record for the most amount of flips of a car caught on film (7). Highly entertaining.

“Bond Girls are Forever”

This was an hour show that aired on AMC in 2006 and surprisingly it’s well put together and a lot of fun. It’s just what you’d imagine by the title: a look at the women who’ve appeared in the Bond series, and a really in-depth look at these women at that. This has lots of interviews with the ladies including the heavy hitters, Ursula Andress (Honey Rider) and Honor Blackman (Pussy Galore) but no Doctor Christmas Jones?!? I’m shocked. And kidding.

“Chris Cornell’s Music Video for ‘You Know My Name’ “

Yawn

“Deleted Scenes”

A whole four scenes. Martin Campbell must run a tight ship. There’s a sequence with Bond being rushed into the hospital after Le Chiffre smacks his balls around for awhile. This leads into a waking, sleeping, waking, bit with Bond still thinking Mathis is evil and trying to warn everyone, but he’s too ill. I guess it seemed kind of pointless in lieu of the fact that he turned out to be innocent. There’s a brief bit with Vesper and Bond joking about secret agents not having to pay taxes (along with all the other rich people...pre-Barack Obama Presidency anyways) and an extended version of the opening of the film with Bond’s first kill (which oddly, takes place at a cricket game. Can’t see Bond hanging out a cricket games, Englishman or no).

“The Real Casino Royale”

The actual first Bond film was a 1954 CBS made-for-TV adaptation of “Casino Royale” that starred Barry Nelson as an American “Jimmy Bond” and Peter Lorre as Le Chiffre. AND it was filmed live. This almost led into a TV series for Fleming to write, but it never panned out and a number of his story outlines intended for it turned into the Bond short stories in his book “For Your Eyes Only”. This documentary takes a look at the long road between the book, this early version, the later spoof version with Peter Sellers and David Niven, and finally the actualized version we have now. Why did it take so long to get it together? Well, that’s what this here doc is for.

“Ian Fleming’s Incredible Creation”

Did you know Fleming himself was a major force in helping set up the American intelligence services and in fact was given a keepsake pistol as a thank you for his part engraved with the words “For Special Services”? While he was never a field man, he conceived of the idea of the ‘super-agent’ both in real life and in the books he wrote. This documentary is where things start getting totally awesome and essential. All the real-life stuff that Bond evolved from will keep you infotained as hell.

“James Bond in the Bahamas”

I strongly suspect some money changed hands between the makers of this DVD set and the Bahamas tourist division because they go ON AND ON all throughout it about how this place is totally tits. Now, to be fair, Bond and the Bahamas are indeed inseparable. Lots of the films were made at least in part on the islands, and Casino Royale is merely the latest one to do so. This isn’t a dry talking heads/film clips look at the place either. They go diving and take a look at the remains of the underwater sets from some previous adventures and get into a number of anecdotes that I’d never heard before about them from the extensive population of the island who’ve worked on so many of these in the past. Like the stories about the difficulties of the ‘shark wranglers’ and their live tiger sharks. *shivers* Closer than I’d ever want to get.

“Ian Fleming: The Secret Road to Paradise”

Part two of Bahamas: Best Place Evar, on the set. Once again, it’s justified. Fleming lived in the Bahamas along with some other folks who major characters, or elements of characters, were based on. This takes a look at Fleming’s history with the place where so many of the themes and names came from. Fascinating.

“Death in Venice”

That big palazzo sinking into the canals in Venice from the end of “Casino Royale”….how the frak did they do it? It damn sure wasn’t easy. Here’s a look at how these folks achieved one of the most elaborate and difficult set-pieces ever set to celluloid.

“The Art of the Free run”

Damn straight. That guy who Daniel Craig chases near the beginning of the movie is Sébastien Foucan, the crazy dude who invented the sport/art. This takes a good look at him, the history and philosophy of the sport as well as behind-the-scenes footage of his scenes. Honestly, it could have used ANY footage of him doing it somewhere else. I want more free running, gorramit.

“Catching a Plane: Storyboard to Screen”

Much more elaborate than your usual storyboard comparison montage, this is actually a doc about the changes that happen between the story boarding and setting it to film.

“Storyboard Sequence: Free run Chase”

More of the traditional storyboard comparisons but slickly done.

“Filmmaker Profiles”

Expecting a series of text pages synopsizing each creator’s history and list of films? Much to my surprise, this is a 53 minute documentary split up into parts about each one of these people which takes a detailed look at them, their way of working, and their film history. The creators detailed are Martin Campbell (Director), Chris Corbould (Special Effects), Phil Meheux (Director of Photography), Gary Powell (Stunt Coordinator), Alexander Witt (Second Unit Director) and David Arnold (Composer). Talk about exhaustive.

This is such a great set and yet, the Bond history is so extensive they could do five more sets like this and not come close to running out of interesting material to cover. This is, however, the only one out there like it and belongs on ANY Bond fan’s shelf. It even has a slick, glossy paged book with it much nicer than what you’d normally expect to come with these. Hell, the package itself has a pleasant-to-the-touch texture to it. I think...yes...I think it even smells good.

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I’m going to go be alone with my three-disk “Casino Royale” set now. Turn off the lights when you leave.

Click Here to Buy "Casino Royale (Three-Disc Collector's Edition)"