Finally saw it last night.

Some comments. (SPOILERS in case anybody hasn't seen it)























The poker scenes were a lot better than I expected. The players didn't play brilliantly, but they didn't play terribly either. It was at least recognizably poker that real people could play.

Poker scenes. I'm sure this has been covered before somewhere, but I've been thinking about it all night and I have to get this down.

Hand #1: Bond checks and calls the whole way with AA flopping top set. That's just stupid. They should have been all-in before the flop. I mean, wasn't it 5-handed or some dang thing? Just silliness.

Hand #2: Bond can't call the Villain's push with AK there. Or at least, he has to throw out his read that the guy is "bluffing." He can only call hoping to split with another AK. Nobody bluffs on a double paired board. I don't care what kind of "tell" you think you have, you don't put a guy on a bluff on a double paired board when he pushes all-in over your 3-bet and you know that he is literally facing death if he loses the match.

Hand #3: Villain needs to fold his A6 to Bond's push. The board is A864A with 4 spades, and there's already been a push and a repush before Villain acts. Villain then reraises over the top. This cannot possibly be a bluff because the raise is into a dry side pot. If Bond has any respect at all for Villain, he has to know that Villain has a boat. There's no way, knowing that, that Bond reraises all-in with A4 or worse. Even A6 is unlikely. Bond has to hold A8 or the straight flush. And again, Villain know that he's dead if he loses the hand. He would/should play borderline weak-tight here and fold.

OK, so I disagree with decisions in all the main hands. But you have to think about them to decide that (apart from the AA vs KK). I liked that part of the movie a lot.

I liked the scene where we saw just the end of the hand, with the black dude losing a bunch to the Villain with AJ vs AQ on that A6x6x board. He had just the right facial expression: hell I know I've lost but I can't quite find a fold.

I thought the movie went downhill fast after the last poker scene. None of the rest of it made much sense, and there were plot holes aplenty opening up. I mean, come on, a 6-digit password for 100 million dollars, and the password is the name of his fellow agent? The criminals not being able to crack it? The Brits not instantly transferring the money to a completely different account as soon as they get it? And then they make a late follow up phone call "weren't we supposed to have that money about now?" as if it weren't worth following up on earlier? And why the **** did the girl want to die underwater? WTF? Nobody chooses drowning. And they have to keep on inventing new villains toward the end, as one villain after another gets killed. Disappointing.

I really liked the initial long set piece, where Bond is chasing that scarred-face black dude all over the place. That was the first time in a Bond movie that I said to myself, "Somebody's been watching Jackie Chan movies." That dude was obviously one hell of an athlete, a lot like Chan. Good stuff.

The Bond chick this time (the agent) was way too wholesome looking. I was surprised. Usually he gets the exotic looking over the top diva types. This one looked like a girl next door. I thought she was cute, but Bond is not supposed to be into the same girls that I like....

There was way, way less cheesy dialogue than usual. None of the stupid jokes after killing someone that Mike Myers made fun of in all the Austin Powers movies. I really didn't miss that, I have to say.

Finally, the obvious question. What on earth are they doing making James Bond first become an agent today, in a post-Cold War world with cell phones and all that jazz? This is a really bizarre alternate universe thing. I suppose maybe that's the point: future Bond movies (and you know they're coming) will probably be set in this new universe, where Bond is a recognizeable human being instead of a cartoon, and the relevant war is and always has been the war on terror rather than the cold war, and Bond is a blonde who seriously works out ....

I liked the movie a lot

It is similar in style to the book but had obvious plot holes

here is some info on the freestyle stunts done in the movie and the guy who did them in the movie is the inventor of this and there is some info on him

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_running
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastien_Foucan

Hand 1 could almost be justified under the pretense that both of the players are superhuman for lack of a better word. Bond knows that he has KK and the other guy is good enough to lay down KK preflop, so Bond goes mad slowplay, etc. Meh, whatever. It's probably the most justifiable hand anyway.

The AK was a wretched call. A dude four bet pushes on a double paired board, GEE I WONDER!

The last hand would have been much better had they given villain A8 instead of A6. The most amusing poker in the whole movie was the showdown here. A real game, Bond would just instaflip his cards and be like "NUTS SHIPPIT!" instead of having the first guy show down the nut flush all cocky, etc. Oh well, needed drama or something I guess.

Xaston mentioned it, but yeah, the reason the chick is so wholesome and all is that he hasn't turned to his cold self of just banging bitches then letting them die or whatever. I thought using the name as a passcode tied in well to that, as well as displaying a "rookie mistake" that he might make. Plus she had an absolutely amazing rack.

Lee