The Video Game Critic

I rented Casino Royale last night on normal DVD, and although I've never been a Bond fan, the movie impressed the hell out of me.  The action was non-stop, and Daniel Craig is a really edgy, interesting James Bond actor.  The only scene I didn't like was the torture scene, which was hard to stomach.

Anyway, while watching the DVD, I couldn't help but wonder how good the movie would look on Blue Ray.  I mean, there are a lot of really exotic locales that would look really nice on my plasma.  The dark side beckons me!  Will the VGC fall victim to the Sony's spell?  Is this how Sony will ultimately make up for its PS3 debacle and win in the end??  How much are these Blue Ray movies anyway??

And what did you think about the new James Bond??

Hey Critic,

I bought the blu-ray version of Casino Royale last week and watched part of it on my HD plasma using the PS3.  My plasma is not 1080p, but the movie looks fantastic on 1080i--much clearer than the regular DVD version (we watched that a few weeks ago on the same TV).  The movie was $30 at Best Buy.  Pricey, but it was such a good movie.  My wife and I think it was the best Bond flick yet.

Casino Royale was a great film. I say the poker scene ragged on WAY to long. That bored me. And the end was predictable. I still enjoyed the movie and I think this Bond is passable


And I never seen a Blu-Ray movie before. So I cant say anything

I've seen several movies on Bluray, HD-DVD, and DVD.  My TV is 1080p, and I can honestly say that I prefer Bluray.

Every now and then the PS3 wonks out and I have to turn it off, or take out the disc and put it back in, but other than that, I much prefer watching Bluray.

I know I've heard some on here say that you can't tell the difference between 720p and 1080p, but I can clearly see the difference.  My TV is 56 inches, so maybe that has something to do with it, but I can definitely see it.

[QUOTE=m0zart]I've seen several movies on Bluray, HD-DVD, and DVD.  My TV is 1080p, and I can honestly say that I prefer Bluray.

[/QUOTE]

I'm curious why.  Even though HD-DVD is slightly superior in about everything but total storage space, There really is no visible difference between the two.

As a huge Bond fan, I was les impressed with the movie. It's a good action movie in it's own right, but much like the last few moies, there very little of the Bond feel to it. The last really good movie in the series was A View to a Kill way back in '85 - while a number of the later movies (Goldeneye and The World is not Enough in particular) have been excellent in their own right, there's little James Bond about them. And while I realise this is supposed to be Bond's first mission (continuity glitches aside, like having the female M in the movie even though Goldeneye made it quite clear she had just taken command of M16 at the time), it really could've used some of Bond's traditional suaveness - there's barely anything left of the character as it is right now.

I have no idea if you can tell the difference between 720p and 1080p, but Blu Ray movies have incredible picture quality regardless.  I have a Sharp LCD 1080p TV and those movies look incredible.

People will make the arguement that it isn't worth updating your collection to the new format...and they are correct.  Yet I have no problem buying movies that I love on Blu Ray...it makes them that more enjoyable.  From here on out any movie that I have an interest in buying will be on the Blu Ray format...I'm that impressed with it.

Action movies in particular look really, really nice.  Explosions are vibrant, you can see every spec of dirt, every bit of sweat...its hard to go back to viewing DVDs in 480p.

If you really like Casino Royale go buy it for Blu Ray...it will make the movie much more enjoyable.  You can get it at Amazon.com for $26.95 and free shipping.  Speaking of Amazon...they have the best selection (read: cheapest) of Blu Ray movies anywhere.  Don't pay $30 at BestBuy for those things.  I was able to pick up Black Hawk Down for $20 and Kung Fu Hustle for $14.  Very nice!

I suppose the question really is: will Blu-Ray make it beyond the videophile crowd and become mainstream? For years, people touted laserdiscs as *the* audio format. People said the same things about laserdisc as they do blu-ray now. Yet the format never became inexpensive enough to go mainstream, and eventually better technology came along to replace those mammoth discs.

One funny thing about laserdisc. My high school life sciences teacher was getting a light shined on him by some punk student with a little piece of metal or tinfoil. He pulled out his HUGE laserdisc and shone a light back on him. Pretty funny, in that "now THIS is a knife" sort of way.

-Rob

Dave, yer killin' me.  I BEGGED you to pick up at least ONE Blu-Ray movie when you first got your PS3 - I mean, you bought the hardware, you have the 50" plasma, why not get at least one movie just to show it off a little?  And you refused.  Now you're considering giving in?  I highly recommend you get a Blu-Ray movie so that I can at least make an educated assessment as to whether or not it's worth all the hype.  Get either Casino Royale *or* Pirates of the Carribean 2.  I need to see both, and I have both on 'regular' DVD so if I watch one at your house I can then make a good comparison off mine.
Sudz

Casino Royale was a great film until the car chase where he was captured.  The film then just went on too long and got tired.  The torture scene was pretty tame compared to most violent acts in films these days except for the part where they threatened the woman.  I love Daniel Craig's take on Bond but then I never doubted he would do a great job.  Nice to finally get some edge to the character, even if he does look a bit nancy without any body hair.  I was massively disappointed with the Bond girl though.  She was absolutely no different to any of the previous ones yet they made a big song and dance about how she challenged Bond and was independant, which really was not the case.

On the whole Blu-Ray/HD-DVD topic the problem is cost for me.  Brand new DVDs and High def format discs cost £20ish which is around $38 per film.  I love films and have started to get a reasonable sized collection at present but I always buy films from the bargain bins so I get them from £2-6.  It is simply not possible to get the hi-def formats for that price and I would much prefer to save the money and see the films at the cinema anyway which will always be the best way to see a film.