Even This James Bond Novice Was Floored By Casino Royale

Come 2006, it was time for James Bond to get an upgrade. The Pierce Brosnan era of the character had come to an end four years prior and MGM/EON were eager to address audience complaints that had emerged in response to the last Brosnan Bond movie, Die Another Day. Just like how the prior year's Batman Begins had approached Batman, this new take on James Bond, which would be called Casino Royale, was looking to go back to the very beginning of a cinema icons career and see what informed their personality. Also like Batman Begins, Casino Royale ended up being a big moneymaker that not only revitalized an aging franchise but also stands up as just a great film even when separated from the larger franchise it exists in.

The Fountain Is Amazingly Grand In Both Its Visuals And Emotional Power

There exist a recurring subgenre of more substantive and ambitious high-concept fantasy/science-fiction movies dedicated to using the stylized tendencies ingrained into their specific genres to explore larger-scale ideas about mortality, our place in the world, death, etc. Some of the best films in this subgenre include A Monster Calls, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Cloud Atlas as well as the subject of this review, Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain, an absolutely beautiful motion picture that spans centuries and dances around the cosmos all in the name of an intimate tale depicting man's inability to cope with the looming prospect of death.