DVD review: Casino Royale
By Glenn Abel
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - The home video operatives at Sony have outdone themselves on MGM's "Casino Royale" DVD, now in stores.
From the high-grain black and white intro to the richly colorful scenes in the Bahamas and old Europe, the visuals come across as truly stirring.
The extras don't follow the MGM template for Bond titles (as on the "Ultimate Edition" box sets), so look for a collector's edition down the 007 double-dip road.
The main documentary tracks actor Daniel Craig as he becomes James Bond, including footage of the gloomy day when he first met the press -- the water-shy actor shaken by his jet-ski ride across the Thames. Instead of a goofy life preserver, Craig says, he'll use water wings next time.
The hottest, most popular Bond girl of them all? Pussy Galore (Honor Blackman), followed closely by Honey Rider (Ursula Andress). That's the verdict of "Bond Girls Are Forever," a fun, frothy bonus feature. The lite documentary, made for AMC when "Die Another Day" came out, has some "Casino" material tacked on at the end to justify its inclusion.
Hostess Maryam d'Abo of "The Living Daylights" wanders around the globe checking in on her 007 sorority sisters. Andress, our host points out, was both the original and the ideal: "We all tried to live up to Ursula." The chatty Andress loves talking about "Dr. No," whose script struck her as so lame, "We laughed and laughed."
A side benefit of watching this series-stretching documentary is the reminder that most Bond movies came up lame after Sean Connery -- and how lucky we are to have Daniel Craig delivering the goods as Ian Fleming intended back in 1953.
There's also a stunt-work chronicle and a tired music video, one of those where the singer wanders around in the movie like he belongs there.
The movie comes elegantly letterboxed (2.40:1) or full-screen. The Dolby audio starts off distinctly front-biased, but once the big foot race scene starts the six-speaker soundstage roars into action. Q must have been fresh out of DTS audio, unfortunately.
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
