I’m not much of a James Bond fan. He’s just too clean, smooth-talking, and glamorous. I prefer my protagonists to be the dark, silent, and brooding kind. But Casino Royale updates James Bond to the typical modern day hero. He is still generally clean, smooth-talking, and glamorous but now he got his dark, silent, and brooding moments. For that alone this movie gets stars. But of course that’s not all of it. The movie is plenty entertaining too. It traced how Bond got started in the 007 role and his first major mission of spoiling the money making schemes of an infamous money launderer for terrorist organizations. It gets a bit tedious as the story dragged on a bit more after the villain already got dispatched. But I guess that’s how the book went and so does the movie.

Rating: 4/5

I thought The Prestige was a romance movie. But since I was bored and there was no other movie to see (the only remotely interesting alternative was The Marine), I decided to watch it. It turned out that what I had in mind was The Illusionist. The movie turned out to be quite nice. It’s about two magicians, Borden and Angier, who started out as friends but had a major falling out when Angier’s wife died in a magic trick that went horribly wrong. Angier sought revenge on Borden who he blamed for his wife’s death. As their rivalry on the stage heated up so it did too behind the stage. Their conflict finally culminated in death. But all is not what it seems. The movie, after all, is about magic. Have I spoiled it for you? Not yet. After all, you haven’t seen the prestige ;)

PS One thing I totally disliked is the idiot-proofing at the end. Hollywood movies seem to do be doing it more and more.

Rating: 4/5

I’ll have to admit that I was leery of The Departed after seeing the billboard. Coming from Hollywood, I thought it is just another one of those gunfire blazing unlimited ammo action flicks. And the title didn’t help: It actually got me expecting some demonic horror twist. But haven’t watched a movie for so long that I actually did go and watch it. Fortunately, I was oh so wrong. The movie turned out to be pretty good. It is essentially a cat-and-mouse game between a police mole in an organized crime gang and a gang mole in the police force. There were no guns blazing. During the whole movie there were probably just over a dozen pistol shots. And there was absolutely no demonic horror twist. Instead, there was intense palpable drama full of twists and turns as the two moles hunt each other out while at the same trying striving to protect their identities and maintain a grasp on the false life (or is it their real life?) they both live. The game culminated in a tragic ending though not without a few more twists.

Okay. That was actually my review, with some word changes, for Infernal Affairs where the movie was based on. But to a large extent, it was faithful to the original and the review is still quite applicable. What Scorsese did different was to make things less complex and easier to understand (or should I say made it idiot-proof?). In that he did quite well. He also strived to develop and establish the characters more. All the actors were great for their roles except for Leonardo De Caprio (okay so maybe it’s just my bias showing :P). And finally, he culminated with a montage of death befitting a classic crime drama (think The Godfather). The end result is a great remake that can stand on its own as a great movie.

Rating: 4/5