Time magazine: A mixed review for CR

highhopes

Time magazine gives CR a mixed review. I won't post it unless the mods give me the OK. It is a copyrighted story that requires permission to reproduce whole or in part.
Here's the link, but you may need a subscription:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1558307,00.html

Klaus Hergescheimer

Like a couple of other mixed reviews, it seems to be praising of Craig, but has issues with the execution of the film, the script, the plot, etc..

Gassy Man

Like a few other reviews I've seen, a major criticism is the idea of a card game being a dramatic focal point, rather than its execution. Of course, that card game is central to the novel (and a rather brilliant concept, I think), and one has to wonder why films like "Rain Man," which features a high stakes card game, or "The Color of Money," which focuses on billiards, aren't similarly criticized. (Is it the spy genre? Bond? Both have featured such games before, though perhaps not to this degree.) Now, if the execution is the problem, that's an entirely different matter.

highhopes

Gassy Man wrote:

Like a few other reviews I've seen, a major criticism is the idea of a card game being a dramatic focal point, rather than its execution. Of course, that card game is central to the novel (and a rather brilliant concept, I think), and one has to wonder why films like "Rain Man," which features a high stakes card game, or "The Color of Money," which focuses on billiards, aren't similarly criticized. (Is it the spy genre? Bond? Both have featured such games before, though perhaps not to this degree.) Now, if the execution is the problem, that's an entirely different matter.

That's a real good point, Gassy Man. How about "The Cincinatti Kid," with Steve McQueen? I think the problem for many has been the length of the game more than anything. I thought the Times guy was both right and wrong about the silliness of a card game to bankrupt terrorists. But it was Fleming's plot, and Fleming did acknowledge his situations were "possible but highly improbable." The criticism of the game begs the question: which plots are more probable? The idea of breaking into Fort Knox, or a newspaper magnate launching World War III or whatever it was he was planning, more plausible. It is a movie, after all.

Dan Same

Plus, the success of a movie arguably rests not on how 'realistic' its plot is but how convincing it is. Wether or not CR's plot is plausible (and let's face it; it's not really), what will ultimately matter is wether or not the audience believes that in the world depicted on screen, Bond would attempt to bankrupt a terrorist at a poker game.

Napoleon Plural

It might have been more plausible if it's Bond's own initative that makes him take on the villain and try to bankrupt him in a card game ie he goes too far and nearly screws up with MI6 finances, when he should only be there in a supervisory capacity.

Hardyboy

I've been reading Richard Corliss's reviews for years, and this is the first time I've noticed him paying so much attention to a man's chest! Is there something you want to tell us, Rich? ?:)

Anyway, when you look at it, this is not a bad review at all--it's respectful of the film and gives it both praise and concerns. It's what a certain news network might call "fair and balanced."

Red Indian

It was given a "tomato splat" so to speak on Rottentomatoes which I don't really understand. I actually found it to be quite a good review - at least more positive than negative. I can't really understand why it's considered negative on RT? If it's neither 100% postitive or negative, does it fall to negative?

Hardyboy

Red Indian wrote:

It was given a "tomato splat" so to speak on Rottentomatoes which I don't really understand. I actually found it to be quite a good review - at least more positive than negative. I can't really understand why it's considered negative on RT? If it's neither 100% postitive or negative, does it fall to negative?

Someone on the RT forum posted the same question and even asked that the site change it from a "splat" to a whole tomato. I don't know how they come up with some of their tomato designations myself--ocassionally a mostly-bad review will get a fresh tomato, and, as you pointed out, a fairly positive one will get a splat. It's sort of the same problem with Ebert and Roeper's thumbs-up, thumbs-down rating: it's too subjective and also too black and white. (If that makes sense!)

Red Indian

Thanks Hardy. It does make sense - your words, not RT!