DIRECTED BY Martin Campbell
STARS Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Judi Dench, Jeffrey Wright, Mads Mikkelsen, Giancarlo Giannini, Ivana Milicevic, Simon Abkarian, Isaach de Bankol�, Claudio Santamaria, Jesper Christensen
Can you picture Pierce Brosnan uttering that line? Never mind, Daniel Craig is James Bond now and he ain't afraid to talk tough, kick ass and get his hands dirty doing it. Right from the striking B&W prologue, which is more film noir than the type of over the top stunts that usually open these movies, you know this ain't the same old crap. As you watch how Bond earned his 00 status, which denotes an agent with at least two confirmed kills, you know all bets are off.
While the film eventually does resort to some of the 007 conventions, having him wear a tuxedo and drink martinis in a Montenegro casino, it's at least refreshingly gadget-free. I mean, what's the fun in an always impeccably coiffed and dressed hero who does nothing but make use of increasingly elaborate high-tech gizmos? Thankfully, Craig's Bond is a straightforward badass in the Die Hard and Lethal Weapon tradition, if less jokey than Bruce Willis and not as wonderfully nuts as Mel Gibson. He does share the latter's taste for torture, though (two words: scrotum smash!).
"Casino Royale" is more or less the gritty, back-to-basics, non-comedic adaptation of Ian Fleming's first James Bond novel that Quentin Tarantino had been saying he wanted to make. It's too bad that the producers, apparently afraid that QT would stray too far from the formula, made the boringly safe choice of hiring "GoldenEye" helmer Martin Campbell, but he actually does a good job here. The film is not perfect, with its at once predictable and muddled plot, which culminates in an endless pile-up of twists, and a not particularly involving romance between Craig and an accountant (!) played by Eva Green (whose acting is sadly not as spectacular as her curves), but the action scenes are some of the most exciting I've ever seen in a James Bond picture.
See Bond chase Parkour pro Sebastien Foucan over, under and through all kinds of obstacles! See Bond jump on a tank truck being driven at full speed across an airport runway! See Bond brawling down a staircase with a machete-wielding Ugandan warlord! See Bond shooting mofos with a nail-gun while the whole building around them is collapsing!
And even though I've mentioned that the story scenes aren't all that, there are some neat little character moments in between all the mayhem. I love that the cast is full of great international actors. Besides the British Craig and the French Green, we get Jeffrey Wright from America, Giancarlo Giannini from Italy, Isaach De Bankol� from the Ivory Coast, Simon Abkarian from Armenia, and last but not least, Mads Mikkelsen from Denmark. As villain Le Chiffre, he's not as imposing as Orson Welles, who played the same role (with magic tricks!) in the dumbass 1967 "Casino Royale", but he brings an engaging mix of creepiness and geekiness to the part. Mikkelsen's Le Chiffre is a pale, asthmatic math nerd who just happens to have a scarred eye that weeps blood (don't ask), handle the money for a network of terrorists and enjoy torturing his enemies (two words: scrotum smash!).
At a whopping 144 minutes, "Casino Royale" is undeniably too much of a good thing - an hypothetical 90 minute might have been the most relentlessly entertaining flick of the year. Still, as is, overblown and all, this remains a pretty damn cool ride.
When Pierce Brosnan took over the role of James Bond for Goldeneye, much was made about how the franchise was being "modernized." In reality, the only apparent changes were cosmetic. Brosnan's 007 was easily connected to the character previously played by Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, and Timothy Dalton. With the ascension of Daniel Craig to the gun, tux, martini, and license to kill, seismic changes have occurred. This is no longer the James Bond we know from the '60s, '70s, '80s, and '90s. Welcome to the new world of MI6's most storied agent.
The purpose of Casino Royale is to "re-boot" the franchise. Craig isn't succeeding Brosnan; he's re-inventing the role. As far as this movie is concerned, nothing in the previous 20 entries has happened. This is Bond's "origin" story and the only thin bit of continuity is Judi Dench's return as Madam M. Forget everything you think you know about 007. For years now, the Bond formula has been drowning in a sea of rip-offs and pretenders, each more over-the-top than its predecessor. In order to retain a market niche, the Bond franchise had to strike out in a different direction - something less cartoonish and closer to the Ian Fleming source novels. It's impossible to say where the filmmakers will take Bond from here, but Casino Royale hints that it may be in a more down-to-earth direction than we're accustomed to.
What's missing? Quite a bit, actually. Until its rousing introduction during the end credits, the "James Bond Theme" is heard sparingly, during brief, subdued passages. The signature line of "Bond, James Bond" keeps us waiting. There are no gadgets - in fact, there's no Q. Nor is there any Moneypenny. There's action, but it's surprisingly low-key (at least for Bond). Absent are the over-the-top, gravity-defying stunts that have characterized 007 movies over the years. This time, things get brutal. Not only is there a nasty fight in which Bond beats the crap out of a bad guy (he has to kill two people to get his double-zero status, but the deaths don't have to be neat) but our hero ends up on the receiving end of some vicious treatment. One can't imagine Connery, Dalton, or especially Moore going through that ordeal.
The plot follows Fleming's story a lot more closely than the original Casino Royale (a pathetic and uneven spoof) did. It's early days for Bond. Having completed the requirements for graduation to the elite level, he has been assigned 007, although M is convinced he's not ready. His first assignment is to track down one of the most elusive worldwide suppliers of terrorist money. After following the clues, which first take him to the Bahamas then to Miami, Bond learns the identity of his quarry: Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), who's about to enter an exclusive poker game at Casino Royale in Montenegro. Bankrolled by MI6, Bond enters against Le Chiffre, with accountant Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) watching the money. As the action at the tables heats up, Bond finds himself in trouble away from them as Le Chiffre and some of his associates try to eliminate the British agent.
It has been a long time since Bond has been this human. Not since On Her Majesty's Secret Service - the last time he fell in love - have we seen this side of the super agent. It's s curious thing to see Bond develop deep feelings for Vesper. We're used to him treating women like disposable commodities. Oh, he has affection for them, but love is not in his vocabulary. Yet there's no better way to humanize a superhero than to make him fall in love. We have seen that with Superman and Spider-Man. Now we see it with 007. This aspect of the movie is one reason why Casino Royale is a cut above anything we have gotten from the Bondmakers in decades.
The plot is oddly constructed, and plays out in three clearly defined acts. The first is the most like a traditional Bond film, with James hopping from country to country, engaging in a meaningless romance (with Caterina Murino), and chasing after two henchmen (a foot chase that involves scaffolding and a rush to stop a bomb at Miami Airport). Act II takes place mainly at the poker table. Surprisingly, there's a lot of tension even though there's not much action (except a staircase fracas), and the movie uses this segment to build the romantic tension between Vesper and Bond. I won't say much about the third act, except that it goes some unexpected places and initially seems disconnected with what precedes it.
For Daniel Craig, this is a triumphant debut. Not since early Connery have we seen a Bond this magnetic. Craig manages to show us both the human and the inhuman sides of Bond, and the portrayal is free of fatuousness. This Bond isn't beyond uttering the occasional quip, but when he does so, there's not a lot of humor in the delivery. Not since the closing moments of On Her Majesty's Secret Service have we seen such a vulnerable 007. While there's always a certain sadness associated with waving goodbye to a departing actor, Craig's performance makes us ask "Pierce Who?"
With everything else changing, one wonders whether it might have been time to bring someone else in to play M. That's not a knock on Judi Dench - no one can deliver M's acerbic one-liners like her - but if the intent is to make a clean break, why is she here? Eva Green, still best known for taking off her clothing in Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers, is the right mix of hard and soft as Vesper - it's not hard to see how she could beguile Bond. Mads Mikkelsen is intense enough to pull off the villain role even though he lacks the megalomaniacal bent evidenced by most Bond bad guys. Additional support comes from Giancarlo Giannini as Mathis, the British agent based in Montenegro, and Jeffrey Wright as old friend Felix Leiter.
It's interesting to note that the radical revising of Bond is being done by the "usual" team. It's not as if an entirely new group was brought in for the "re-boot." The producers continue to be Michael G. Wilson and Barbara (daughter of Cubby) Broccoli. The writers are Neal Purvis and Robert Wade (with an assist from Paul "he's everywhere these days" Haggis), who were involved in scripting the last two Brosnan movies. Director Martin Campbell oversaw Goldeneye with Phil Meheux as his cinematographer. And David Arnold has been composing Bond scores since he took over from John Barry in the '90s. (The title song, "You Know My Name," which Arnold co-wrote with Chris Cornell, sounds eerily like something by Barry.)
My hope is that Casino Royale has not only re-invented James Bond, but made him relevant for the 21st century. The target audience has shifted. Although there's nothing in Casino Royale that will exclude teenagers, this 007 is aimed squarely at adults. The November release date is also perfect - the film is almost too dark and serious for the kind of lighthearted, mindless fun we associate with summer blockbusters. In recent years, I have come to each new James Bond movie with a series of ingrained expectations. For the most part, the Brosnan films met them across the board. Casino Royale defies many of them, and I couldn't be happier.
The new James Bond is quick and muscular, and there is nothing remotely camp about him. He doesn�t wink; in fact, I�m not sure he even blinks. Where other men might athletically sail through a narrow window opening during a chase scene, he prefers to plow through the wall. He�s a strapping brute � young, untested, rough around the edges � and he is magnificent. Let the purists squawk: In Daniel Craig, the Bond franchise has finally found a 007 whose cruel charisma rivals that of Sean Connery.
Based on the first of Ian Fleming�s novels, ��Casino Royale�� is an origin story, and it wants very much to be this year�s ��Batman Begins�� � a movie that resets the clock to zero and tells the tale with new and becoming leanness. We�re present at the start of things: Bond gets his first Aston Martin here, is fitted for his first tuxedo, briefly considers whether one�s martini should be shaken or stirred. (His response is priceless and in keeping with the movie�s no-nonsense tone).
Other ritual aspects of the 007 mythos are missing � there�s no Q with his lethal widgets, no Miss Moneypenny, no cat-stroking villain contemplating the vaporization of South America by satellite. Frankly, ��Casino Royale�� is better off without them. If you miss the old cliches, consider whether, after 21 Bond films and countless parodies, your response is simply Pavlovian.
After a brief, gritty black-and-white opening in which the young spy earns his two kills and ascends to double-0 status, ��Casino Royale�� sets Bond on the trail of a mysterious bombing network. (The film is set in the modern day, and while it�s topical, it�s smart enough to steer clear of politics.) A gasp-inducing action sequence sends the hero after a bomber through the streets and among the construction cranes of the capital city of Madagascar, ending in an international incident that proves how much this young man still has to learn.
��You need to take your ego out of the equation,�� scolds M (Judi Dench), the head of the MI6 British spy agency, to the man she calls a ��blunt instrument,�� and this film is the story of how James Bond gains gravitas � how he becomes, in essence, the man we know from the Fleming novels and early films like ��Dr. No�� and ��From x Russia with Love.��
So while there are ��Bond girls,�� and Craig�s 007 is appreciative of their bodaciousness, there�s too much on his plate to ogle and conquer. The Madagascar bomber�s cellphone leads to a middleman in the Bahamas, who leads to an epicene European financier named Le Chiffre (Danish leading man Mads Mikkelsen), who makes his fortune shorting airline stocks after terrorist attacks he helps engineer. Behind Le Chiffre is a shadowy universe of bigger players; for once, a Bond movie acknowledges that the real world contains people scarier and grayer than Dr. Evil-style madmen.
In an effort to bankrupt Le Chiffre and leave him at the mercy of his associates � nasty pieces of work like the machete-wielding Ugandan ��freedom fighter�� played by Isaach de Bankole � MI6 sends Bond and fellow agent Vesper Lynd (Eva Green, of Bertolucci�s ��The Dreamers��) to Montenegro for a high-stakes, invitation-only gambling tournament. Bowing to current fashion (and wanting the audience to better follow the bluffing), the producers of ��Casino Royale�� have replaced the Baccarat of the original novel with Texas Hold �Em, familiar from a thousand cable shows.
The gambit works even as it instantly dates the film; the inclusion of a pretty dire rock anthem by Soundgarden/Audioslave leader Chris Cornell over the opening credits is another misstep. The director is Martin Campbell, who made the 1995 Bond film ��Golden8Eye,�� the two recent ��Zorro�� movies, and the laughable Angelina Jolie sudser ��Beyond Borders��; in his journeyman hands, ��Casino Royale�� is a stylish, wholly enjoyable piece of work that lacks the organic zing a visionary director, like Christopher Nolan on ��Batman Begins,�� can bring to the party.
It hardly matters, though, because Craig is so good. If he�s a newcomer to American mass audiences, followers of British film know the actor from gangster movies like ��Layer Cake�� and dramas such as ��Enduring Love�� and ��The Mother��; he made an impression as one of the Israeli assassins in ��Munich�� and gave startling life to killer Perry Smith in the recent ��Infamous.��
No slight to Connery, Timothy Dalton, or Pierce Brosnan, but there�s something to be said for casting an actor of depth and creative daring as Bond. Craig hardly overplays the role, but he gives us proof of the young 007�s arrogance and immaturity, shows him tempered by mistakes, and even lets him fall in love with believable reluctance followed by commitment. (Green, for her part, keeps elegant pace.)
Then a few things occur from which the James Bond we know finally emerges: wiser, harder, locked, loaded. With barely a sign of strain, Craig delivers what we least expected: a portrait of the artist as a young spy.
This is quite a long Bond film. The action is spectacular and the acting (for the most part) pretty good, and often powerfully dramatic. Daniel Craig is very likable as the new 007. In card games and car chases - he's smashing (both literally and figuratively).
But when a love interest wants more than just a fast ride, well, the film just doesn't sell the chemistry or the promise. Not that it's an easy sell, what with the entire history of Bond and this, based on Ian Fleming's first book featuring 007. Nonetheless, attempts at that sell subtract from the entertainment value of the film.
As for the plot, it teeters on ridiculous. Still, I would have recommended the picture as a great time at the cinema, were it not for the fact that the romance and duration both go long. First half -- great, second half -- not so great.
The producers, in searching for the new Bond for this 21st installment, said, "When auditioning for the role of Bond, we ask actors to do the scene in From Russia with Love, where Bond meets Tatiana Romanova for the first time, that scene has everything you want to know about a potential Bond: drama, romance, and action."
Special effects supervisor Chris Corbould, not so supportive of CGI, says, "I am passionate about the art of special effects, and I will fight tooth and nail to do something for real."
James Bond gets a hefty whack in the testes in Casino Royale, both literally and figuratively. The 21st installment of the world's longest-running movie series strips away the gadgetry to focus on action and character, introducing a younger, tougher James Bond (Daniel Craig) struggling to complete his first major mission. The target is terrorist banker Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), whom our hero must defeat in a high stakes poker game at the swanky Casino Royale in Montenegro.
First things first: Daniel Craig is not a good Bond. He's a great Bond. Specifically, he is 007 as conceived by Ian Fleming - a professional killing machine, a charming, cold-hearted patriot with a taste for luxury. Craig is the first actor to really nail 007's defining characteristic: he's an absolute swine. Following his example, Martin Campbell's film hits the ground running with a breathless chase through a building site, a sequence so impressive that the rest of the action struggles to trump it. Bond takes a tremendous battering throughout the movie. He's beaten senseless, thrown off ledges, poisoned and tortured. Even his withered heart takes a whupping when he falls for slinky treasury agent Vesper Lynd (Eva Green). It's all thrilling stuff, closer in tone to The Bourne Identity than the camp quippery of old-school Bond.
"CRAIG'S THE FIRST ACTOR TO REALLY NAIL 007"
There are a few problems. 144 minutes is dangerously long for an action flick, and audiences may be restless during the protracted romantic interludes. You could drive an Aston Martin through the holes in the plot, and Chris Cornell's theme tune is an embarassment. But these are small niggles. Casino Royale is a 1,000 watt jolt to the heart of a flagging franchise, bringing Bond kicking - and frequently screaming - back to life.
The perfect figure rises from the sea--lubricated and lubricious, like Ursula Andress in the first James Bond movie, Dr. No--and the audience lets out a little gasp of sexual admiration, the voyeur's version of applause. But this body belongs to Daniel Craig, the new 007, and with his Sisyphus shoulders and pecs so well defined they could be in Webster's, it's no surprise that the camera lingers lovingly to investigate the topography of his splendidly buff torso. If Craig spends more time with his shirt off than all previous Bonds combined, it's to make the point that this secret agent is his own sex object. In any romance he has with a shady lady, he seems to be cheating on himself.
Body talk is relevant here, because it's the most obvious hint that Casino Royale means to be a very different Bond movie. The 21st in the official series produced by the Broccoli family (two others--a spoof called Casino Royale and a freelance Sean Connery opus, Never Say Never Again--were made outside the fold), this one tries to rejuvenate a 44-year-old franchise that was showing signs of tired blood and losing its appeal to the young-male action-film demographic. The writers--Bond veterans Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, along with the ubiquitous Paul Haggis--and director Martin Campbell wanted to go harder, faster, not to stir the formula but to give it a vigorous shake.
So, in the tradition of Batman Begins and the Star Wars pre-trilogy, they went back to square one and created a baby Bond. Casino Royale was Ian Fleming's first 007 novel, and Bond here is an agent on his first big case, a rough diamond who has not yet acquired his savoir faire or taste for the double entendre. The Craig Bond might know no French at all; he's not the suave, Oxbridgian 007 of legend but the strong, silent type, almost a thug for hire, and no smoother with a sardonic quip than John Kerry. Still, he fits one description Fleming gave of his hero: "[His face was] a taciturn mask, ironical, brutal and cold."
The brutality is on display in the first scene, which hews to the previous films' text by providing a daring exploit and a minor league kill before the stylized opening credits. This time, though, the fatal confrontation is shown in monochrome and takes place in a Saw-style bathroom. The killing is grimly realistic, as if to suggest that this Bond operates in the real world of real pain and has wounds that may never heal. A later scene, with a naked Bond getting his testicles whipped, inevitably calls up Abu Ghraib atrocities (and should have earned the film an R rating instead of the indulgent PG-13 it received). Bond can take punishment and dish it out, impersonally. When asked whether it bothers him to kill people, he replies, "I wouldn't be good at my job if it did." He's a killing machine--one of Q's most sophisticated gadgets.
Along with Brutal Bond, Casino Royale offers Hyper Bond, a character more muscular and kinetic than before. So is the movie. It's not easy to freshen up the elaborate action sequences that the franchise more or less invented and that have been imitated in hundreds of movies. But Casino Royale succeeds by taking a modern form of physical activity--parkour, the urban steeplechase in which participants run up stairwells, jump across roofs and slip through transoms that was showcased to exhilarating effect in the French film District B13--and applying it to Bond's pursuit of a bad guy (parkour star S�bastien Foucan) on the high beams of a construction project. Marvelous!
Unfortunately, Casino Royale has to stick to the Fleming plot; it must also be Basic Bond. (The movie is so personality-split that 007 could refer to the number of the hero's warring personalities.) In this case, that demands not just the sneering villain (Mads Mikkelsen as Le Chiffre, banker to the terrorist �lite) and the tempting females, one blond (Ivana Milicevic) and one brunet (the criminally alluring Eva Green). It means that the focus of the plot must be ... a card game! We grant that high-stakes poker has its tension, especially if it's your hand and your multimillion-dollar stake. But dramatically there's something lacking in a movie climax that needs the hero to be holding higher cards than the villain. Luck is not fate.
But love is. And at last, toward the end of its nearly 21/2 -hr. running time, the film arrives at its final Bond: the secret agent with a vulnerable heart. Bond has one, which he wants to give to his ally in the Le Chiffre charade, Green's sympathetic Vesper Lynd. It's a nice try, throwing romance into the stew, but after all its expert exertions, Casino Royale can't rev up the melancholy mood. Which is appropriate, for this is a Bond with great body but no soul.
The latest James Bond vehicle � call him Bond, Bond 6.0 � finds the British spy leaner, meaner and a whole lot darker. Now played by an attractive bit of blond rough named Daniel Craig, Pierce Brosnan having been permanently kicked to the kerb, Her Majesty�s favorite bad boy arrives on screens with the usual complement of cool toys, smooth rides, bosomy women and high expectations. He shoots, he scores, in bed and out, taking down the bad and the beautiful as he strides purposefully into the 21st century.
It�s about time. The likable Mr. Brosnan was always more persuasive playing Bond as a metaphoric rather than an actual lady-killer, with the sort of polished affect and blow-dried good looks that these days tend to work better either on television or against the grain. Two of his best performances have been almost aggressively anti-Bond turns, first in John Boorman�s adaptation of the John le Carr� novel �The Tailor of Panama,� in which he played a dissolute spy, and, more recently, in �The Matador,� a comedy in which he played a hit man with a sizable gut and alarmingly tight bikini underwear. Mr. Brosnan did not demolish the memory of his Bond years with that pot, but he came admirably close.
Every generation gets the Bond it deserves if not necessarily desires, and with his creased face and uneasy smile, Mr. Craig fits these grim times well. As if to underscore the idea that this new Bond marks a decisive break with the contemporary iterations, �Casino Royale� opens with a black-and-white sequence that finds the spy making his first government-sanctioned kills. The inky blood soon gives way to full-blown color, but not until Bond has killed one man with his hands after a violent struggle and fatally shot a second. �Made you feel it, did he?� someone asks Bond of his first victim. Bond doesn�t answer. From the way the director, Martin Campbell, stages the action though, it�s clear that he wants to make sure we do feel it.
�Casino Royale� introduced Bond to the world in 1953. A year later it was made into a television drama with the American actor Barry Nelson as Jimmy Bond; the following decade, it was a ham-fisted spoof with David Niven as the spy and a very funny Peter Sellers as a card shark. For reasons that are too boring to repeat, when Ian Fleming sold the film rights to Bond, �Casino Royale� was not part of the deal. As a consequence the producers who held most of the rights decided to take their cue from news reports about misfired missiles, placing their bets on �Dr. No� and its missile-mad villain. The first big-screen Bond, it hit in October 1962, the same month that Fleming�s fan John F. Kennedy took the Cuban missile crisis public.
The Vatican later condemned �Dr. No� as a dangerous mixture of violence, vulgarity, sadism and sex.
Ka-ching! The film was a success, as was its relatively unknown star, Sean Connery, who balanced those descriptive notes beautifully, particularly in the first film and its even better follow-up, �From Russia With Love.�
In time Mr. Connery�s conception of the character softened, as did the series itself, and both Roger Moore and Mr. Brosnan portrayed the spy as something of a gentleman playboy. That probably helps explain why some Bond fanatics have objected so violently to Mr. Craig, who fits Fleming�s description of the character as appearing �ironical, brutal and cold� better than any actor since Mr. Connery. Mr. Craig�s Bond looks as if he has renewed his license to kill.
Like a lot of action films, the Bond franchise has always used comedy to blunt the violence and bring in big audiences. And, much like the franchise�s increasingly bloated action sequences, which always seem to involve thousands of uniformed extras scurrying around sets the size of Rhode Island, the humor eventually leached the series of its excitement, its sense of risk. Mr. Brosnan certainly looked the part when he suited up for �GoldenEye� in 1995, but by then John Woo and Quentin Tarantino had so thoroughly rearranged the DNA of the modern action film as to knock 007 back to zero. By the time the last Bond landed in 2002, Matt Damon was rearranging the genre�s elementary particles anew in �The Bourne Identity.�
�Casino Royale� doesn�t play as dirty as the Bourne films, but the whole thing moves far lower to the ground than any of the newer Bond flicks. Here what pops off the screen aren�t the exploding orange fireballs that have long been a staple of the Bond films and have been taken to new pyrotechnic levels by Hollywood producers like Jerry Bruckheimer, but some sensational stunt work and a core seriousness. Successful franchises are always serious business, yet this is the first Bond film in a long while that feels as if it were made by people who realize they have to fight for audiences� attention, not just bank on it. You see Mr. Craig sweating (and very nice sweat it is too); you sense the filmmakers doing the same.
The characteristically tangled shenanigans � as if it mattered � involve a villainous free agent named Le Chiffre (the excellent Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen), who wheels and deals using money temporarily borrowed from his equally venal clients. It�s the sort of risky global business that allows the story to jump from the Bahamas to Montenegro and other stops in between as Bond jumps from plot point to plot point, occasionally taking time out to talk into his cellphone or bed another man�s wife. Mr. Craig, whose previous credits include �Munich� and �The Mother,� walks the walk and talks the talk, and he keeps the film going even during the interminable high-stakes card game that nearly shuts it down.
If Mr. Campbell and his team haven�t reinvented the Bond film with this 21st edition, they have shaken (and stirred) it a little, chipping away some of the ritualized gentility that turned it into a waxworks. They have also surrounded Mr. Craig with estimable supporting players, including the French actress Eva Green, whose talent is actually larger than her breasts.
Like Mr. Mikkelsen, who makes weeping blood into a fine spectator sport, Ms. Green brings conviction to the film, as do Jeffrey Wright and Isaach de Bankol�. Judi Dench is back as M, of course, with her stiff lip and cunning. But even she can�t steal the show from Mr. Craig, though a human projectile by the name of S�bastien Foucan, who leads a merry and thrilling chase across Madagascar, almost does.
The verdict is in: the deliciously brooding Daniel Craig is an edgy and eclectic James Bond, deftly grabbing the reins from perennial uber-Bond Sean Connery.
No gimmicky nuclear warheads, extreme heli-skiing or Pierce Brosnan�s namby-pambies; this 007 is all business � hungry, raw and irrefutably willing to lay it down for queen and country.
This go around James is tackling the money man for the world�s most notorious terrorists. Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen) is a criminal mastermind with an unquenchable thirst for hard currency. A series of explosive events lead Bond and the creepy Le Chiffre to face off in a high-rollers poker showdown at the luxurious Casino Royale in posh Montenegro.
Aiding Bond in his quest to vanquish evil is gorgeous Treasury agent Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), a brainy beauty who will shape Bond�s heart and his future with calculated charm.
The action kicks off with a kinetic chase sequence during which Bond acrobatically pursues a mad suicide bomber through the industrialized construction of Madagascar to the Nambutu Embassy, leaping tall buildings in single bound and wielding his weapon with dexterous masculinity. From Africa to Lake Como, Prague to the Bahamas the beat is positively heart-pounding.
Craig is a glove fit for the iconic M16 agent, darker and more fallible than his predecessors as originally penned by Ian Fleming in 1953. Charismatic and resourceful, the pugilist-faced, sculpted-bodied Craig goes from swimwear to tuxedo to a bullet between the eyes with sultry versatility.
Craig�s chemistry with Green is intriguing, more playful than sexy. The real sparks fly between Craig and Judi Dench, who reprises her role as 007�s steely superior M. Their anxious exchanges are razor sharp, verbal foreplay at its most fluid. Dench is gifted with screenplay writer Paul Haggis� plum lines, a clever volley of bloody cheek and high-minded rebukes.
Body count is high courtesy of Bond�s overdeveloped trigger finger and overextend ego; the sexual liaisons kept at a minimum in order to fully develop 007�s fundamental penchant for women as disposable pleasures rather than meaningful pursuits. In the film�s only serious misstep James and Vesper turn to a tenuous love affair that ends tragically and feels insincere and meticulously manufactured.
But Craig is so thoroughly badass, so sociopathically tenacious that his every move is box-office gold. �Casino� is pure testosterone pleasure.
The risks taken by the producers of "Casino Royale," the 21st picture in the James Bond series, involved not just casting the iconic role with British actor Daniel Craig (the first Blond Bond), but also with the film's narrative and style, which deviate substantially from the previous installments, going back to the roots of the series, in 1962.
Though likely to divide critic and audiences, the new Bond saga delivers the basic goods, while trying to do something different, place emphasis on Bond's character as a young man, and stressing the romantic elements, hoping to explain his later evolution as a cool and sophisticated super spy�and womanizer.
The whole movie walks a strenuous line between being an actioner, under pressure to conform to the conventions, actions, and gadgets of the previous installments, and a new effort with a fresher take on Bond as an (anti) hero, his supervisor M, the villains and women in his life, and the whole socio-political context in which he operates.
The challenge of basing the story on Ian Fleming's first novel, which was published in 1953 at the height of the Cold War era, while updating the tale to the present, with references to 9/11 and its impact on global economy and terrorism, is met with mixed results by the screenwriters, Neal Purvis and Robert Wade (who also co-scripted "The World Is Not Enough" and "Die Another Day") and Oscar-winner Paul Haggis, who may have contributed to the dialogue, which is sharper and wittier than that in former Bond films.
The new emphasis in "Casino Royale" strips the Bond franchise back to basics by tracing his early career. The first mission of 007 leads him to Le Chiffre (the Cipher, played by Danish movie star Mads Mikkelsen), a banker to the world's terrorists. In order to stop Le Chiffre, and bring down the terrorists network, Bond must defeat his nemesis in a high-stakes poker game at Casino Royale.
Along with a new type of villain, there is also a new type of a Bond girl, Vesper Lynd (played by London-based French actress Eva Green), a beautiful Treasury official who is assigned to deliver Bond's stake for the game and watch over the government's money. What ensues is a twisty tale of love and betrayal, with nearly every character being duplicitous and two-faced. Rather shrewdly, the revelations of the characters' true identities and loyalties are disclosed in the last reel.
As Bond and Vesper go through a series of lethal attacks by Le Chiffre and his henchmen, a mutual attraction develops between the couple, leading them both into further danger and events that will forever shape Bond's life, professional career, and sexual politics.
I deliberately start my review with a skeleton of the narrative, so that I can put it aside, because this "Casino Royale" is more character than plot-driven, an element that might disappoint the franchise's hardcore fans. This chapter contains a lesser number of explosions, chases, and action set pieces than those seen in the previous Bond pictures.
Overly long (running time is 144 minutes) and deliberately paced, particularly the second half, which depicts one prolonged poker game, "Casino Royale" displays tension between the routine elements of a James Bond picture and the attempt to do something utterly new. Whether this tension is positive or negative would largely depend on the viewers' expectations and open-mindedness to a "new" kind of Bond experience that in many ways is deliberately old-fashioned.
The old-fashioned quality recalls the first two or three Bond films, particularly "Dr. No" and "From Russia With Love," movies for which both star Craig and director Martin Campbell have professed fondness. A layer of modernist treatment is then placed on the narrative in its contemporaneous references to the post 9/11 state of affairs, specifically the global economy (a clue: stocks prices are at stake).
This duality is most evident in the villain's character, Le Chiffre, a man with no real name, an amoral criminal mastermind with a thirst for hard currency. Deviating from the usual Bond heavies, Le Chiffre is not a megalomaniac madman looking to take over or blow the world. With the exception of his eyes (each a different color), Le Chiffre comes across as a smart, elegant, civilized, and soft-spoken villain, very much in the mold of Hitchcock's suave villains (played by the likes of James Mason or Tony Perkins).
To achieve the film's dual quality, helmer Campbell, who had introduced Pierce Brosnan in his Bond debut in the 1995 "GoldenEye," has shrewdly cast all the roles with accomplished actors that form a truly international ensemble, consisting of Italian Giancarlo Giannini in the crucial role of Mathis, Bond's associate, and the very American Jeffrey Wright, as Felix Leiter, a mysterious CIA agent who offers to help Bond buy back into the poker game.
But the movie belongs to Daniel Craig, who gives a stunning, utterly compelling performance as the new international man of mystery. Displaying screen charisma, cool attitude, and the devilish adventurism of the young Steve McQueen (to whom he bears strong physical resemblance), Craig draws on his impressive theater and screen experience, approaching the role as an actor. Tough, reckless, and muscular, Craig is the best Bond actor since Sean Connery, who had originated and defined the role. (At this point, Craig is committed to two more Bond pictures).
Indicative of the effort to present a new Bond is the fact that the iconic line, "Bond, the name is James Bond," is the last line of the picture. Craig's Bond still drinks Martinis, but you can take the following exchange as characteristic of his cool rawness. Asked by a bartender, "Shaken or stirred, sir?" Bond's laconic reply is, "Do I look like I care?"
You may also find the new picture self-reflexive, showing a healthy dosage of humor in its choice to display Craig's Bond in a sexy black swimsuit, while emerging out of the water--not once but twice--a clear reference to the iconic image of Ursula Andress in her white bikini in "Dr. No."
At 38, flaunting a shapely body that has been formed extensively in a gym (Craig did many of his challenging stunts), Craig is the kind of actor who looks equally comfy in a tuxedo, west suit, and a silk robe, all of which he sports in the movie with great panache. Gliding up and down, the camera caresses him lovingly, and he knows that.
Characteristic of the narrative's fine balancing acts are the secondary characters, prominent among which is Vesper, Bond's love interest. As interpreted by Eva Green, she comes across as a smart, bright, and educated woman, not just a bimbo or sex object. Vesper not only features more prominently as a character, but she's constructed as a noirish femme fatale, with idiosyncratic quirks and an agenda of her own (that can't be revealed here).
In her fifth appearance as M, Judi Dench gives a strong, witty performance as Bond's tough supervisor, the head of MI6, the British Secret Service. Like Vesper's, M's role seems largely expanded, compared to her previous appearances. For one thing, this may be the first Bond picture in which M is seen outdoors, and she has three or four crucial scenes with her employee, in one of which he breaks into her house.
Don't get me wrong, there are two other women that are in the familiar mold of the Bond franchise. The beautiful Italian actress Caterina Murino plays Solange, the alluring, discontented wife of Dimitrios, one of Le Chiffre's associates, with whom Bond has an affair, leading to one of the film's most brutal sights, when Solange is tortured and killed.
Solange is introduced in a campy way, wearing a skin-tight bathing suit while riding a white horse on the beach....
There's also the blonde Valenca (Sarajevo-born Ivana Milicevic), who plays Le Chiffre's cool and glamorous girlfriend. Like the women in previous Bond films, she's mostly a decorative figure with one or two lines of dialogue.
Though it provides an opportunity for at least two elaborate chase scenes, the terrorist plot is not entirely convincing, partly due to the fact that it's not well integrated into the main text. Far more important is the detailed relationship between Bond and the new villain, Le Chiffre, which occupies at least half of the movie, including a brutal torture scene, in which Craig is beaten in the nude.
It will be interesting to see how the public reacts to the long poker scene (at least half an hour of screen time), which inevitably pays tribute to Steve McQueen's famous poker scene in "The Thomas Crown Affair" (1968). In "Casino Royale," the poker game lacks the erotic charge of McQueen's picture (the women, Vesper and Valenca, are in the background). But it takes concentration and some knowledge of poker to truly enjoy this prolonged sequence, during which Bond goes through a near-lethal cardiac arrest.
Despite the plot revelations made, the last reel is rather weak, and it feels as if the picture has too many endings--or doesn't know when and how to end--yet another indication of wanting to continue the Bond legacy and at the same time deviate from it.
A vet of good and bad romantic adventures ("The Mark of Zorro" film series among them), Campbell also shows problem with giving "Casino Royale" the proper pacing and rhythm, some of which derives from the nature of the story. Hence, the poker game is necessarily deliberately paced, with long silence sequences in which the camera, zeroing in on the players' faces and gestures, does the job.
However, quite often, the chase scenes (one, well-staged in the beginning of the picture, the other less so toward the end) and other action set-pieces appear out of nowhere, as if done out of obligation to fulfill audiences' expectations based on the previous installments of the franchise.
Despite the problems, at the very end, when Craig delivers the iconic line, "Bond, the name is James Bond," though you still hear Connery's signature rendition in your imagination, you realize that a new Bond--and a new star--is born in the shape of Daniel Craig. If my reading is correct, Craig here to stay for a long long time.
It�s been four years since the last new 007 screen adventure - make that seven if you wish, as some of us do, to ignore �Die Another Day� - and that is too long a time for the average Bond fan. For a while, the growing years between films seemed to be fueled by chaos behind the scenes, until it was revealed that the series� producers were taking some time to go back to the character�s roots. And so �Casino Royale,� the twenty-first �official� James Bond movie, would finally bring an adaptation of Ian Fleming�s very first James Bond novel to the MGM/UA series. More importantly, we would get a new actor in the legendary role, and the story would be an origin piece that tells of the superspy�s initial assignment.
This decision is not uncommon to EON Productions, the company behind the franchise; the series has repeatedly been viewed as having gone �off track,� which is then followed by a bit of serious revamping. The mediocre response to �The Man with the Golden Gun� sent producers looking to go bigger and better for �The Spy Who Loved Me.� �Moonraker,� which earned cries of �too much� after it shot Bond into outer space, was followed by �For Your Eyes Only,� which scaled back the gadgets and challenged Roger Moore to play up a darker angle of the character. When the series seemed lost forever following a mix of public apathy toward the Timothy Dalton years and financial and legal troubles at the studio, everything untangled just in time for a series resurrection with �Goldeneye,� which wound up being the best adventure film of the 1990s.
And now comes �Casino Royale,� which offers arguably the biggest revamp in the series� history. It goes so far in its efforts to undo the Brosnan-era excesses that it goes back to the very roots of the character, to the heart of Fleming�s own work: a dark, brooding, lonely killer caught up in a world of cold violence. This is a gloominess seldom seen in the film series; only �On Her Majesty�s Secret Service� and �Licence To Kill� match it, although it should be noted that while those two titles are wildly popular among diehard Bond fans (myself included), both continue to fail to gain the recognition among the general public.
To counter such a risk and ensure a more positive public reaction, the producers have brought back Martin Campbell, director of �Goldeneye,� to helm this latest entry. It�s a wise choice. In �Goldeneye,� Campbell effortlessly balanced slam-bang action sequences with a heavier emotional quotient, and with �Casino Royale,� Campbell repeats his success. This modern Bond may pack in the drama, but it also crackles with a collection of action set pieces truly worthy of a franchise known best for its action set pieces. In one scene, Bond chases a baddie across a construction site, climbing straight up I-beams and leaping across cranes along the way. In another, his efforts to trail a villain leads to his racing to stop a gas tanker from crashing into a grounded (but fully fueled) jumbo jet. And then there�s the action finale, which includes a brutal fight inside a Venetian house that�s sinking deeper into the canal, flooding with every punch.
As for that drama. Eager to maintain a sense of depth to the character and the story, the producers hired Oscar-winning screenwriter Paul Haggis (�Million Dollar Baby,� �Crash�) to polish the script from Bond vets Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, who in turn had remained closer to Fleming�s novel than almost any previous adaptation. The franchise tradition was to borrow the title and little else. But here, after years of original works, the return to Fleming is more than lip service; it�s full-fledged use of the source material.
This is not to say it�s a direct adaptation - it is, after all, updated to modern times, very loosely so at times - but it is an adaptation of the core of the work. The structure and tone remain despite the many changes and upgrades. In other words, yes, Bond fans, we really do get the torture scene of which Fleming was so fond. And yes, Bond�s hardened heart will bring him to growl �the bitch is dead� in one key moment.
If Bond movies reflect the times, then �Casino Royale� shows us in a dreary world indeed. �Die Another Day� made slight mention to being in a post-9/11 society, but only barely; �Casino Royale� uses the era as a central point. Our villain, Le Chiffre (beautifully played with cold menace by Danish star Mads Mikkelsen) is no longer an agent of SMERSH, but a banker for the world�s terrorists. Gone are the days of fictionalized bad guys like SPECTRE, groups that would hold the world ransom or other such nonsense. Le Chiffre is the face of a truer horror, borderless organizations bent on destruction and fear.
There is, of course, a James Bond bend to this idea: Le Chiffre�s plan is to get stinking rich by selling his stock in an airline he knows is about to become the victim of a terrorist attack. Still, knowing the reasons behind such a possible attack does not lessen its impact, and the filmmakers know this. They use our collective 9/11 anxiety to ramp up the tension in that airport scene, the one with 007 furiously trying to stop the baddie before he bombs the plane. Campbell gets this scene working on the surface as simply a brilliant action sequence - the stunts are amazing, the increasing tension timed to perfection - but allows our emotions to help another level boil underneath what we�re watching.
Ah, but this is only the beginning, for we haven�t even arrived at Casino Royale yet. And there is the heart of the story: Le Chiffre, having lost millions of his clients� cash, has entered a high stakes poker game at the Montenegro resort, and Bond has been assigned the task of defeating him not with bullets but with cards. If Le Chiffre were to lose the game, his clients would be out to kill him, and he�d have no other choice but to seek asylum in England, where the government can learn much about the people whose money he handles.
This is, of course, not a very action-packed premise, but it is oozing with old school espionage thrills. (Geoffrey Wright and Giancarlo Giannini play shadowy types that help elevate the film to becoming a delicious throwback yarn. Meanwhile, Bond himself has no gadgets at his disposal, save for cell phones, the internet, and a medical kit. The rest is on-the-fly spy survival.) It�s the story of government intelligence working to manipulate more indirectly. Bond being Bond, however, he prefers a more direct approach, and the screenplay finds the right balance of the two. While the cards fall (Texas hold-�em replaces baccarat as the game of choice, which may disappoint fans hoping the series would keep with tradition and away from current trends, yet it must be said that this replacement game does work better on screen, as there�s more to watch), Bond and Le Chiffre try to outwit each other, resulting in plenty of action away from the table, in between rounds. The poker action seen here is far more riveting than any card game has a right to be.
Alongside these scenes, we get a genuine love story. Vesper Lynd (the lovely Eva Green of �Kingdom of Heaven�) is the British agent working alongside Bond, a handler of sorts watching over his use of government money. They connect from the start, not because Bond is the smooth ladies� man we�ve come to love (although he does use romance for his own advantage earlier in the picture), but because they have a sincere connection. As the days roll on, the two grow into a couple, and who knows, maybe Bond will go so far as to resign from the service once his task is over, happy to live the rest of his days with his new love? Then again, if that were true, we wouldn�t have a Bond franchise. Expect this relationship to be more complex than most of 007�s flings.
In fact, it�s this story that intends to show us how Bond became Bond. Not in a prequel kind of way, but in a bit of story unfolding that allows for great character depth often unseen in Bond movies. Although the Dalton and Brosnan eras aimed to get more personal with their leading men (I�m reminded of an exchange in �Goldeneye,� in which Bond tells Natalya his coldness keeps him alive, to which she replies, �No, it�s what keeps you alone�), it�s in �Casino Royale� that we hit the deepest core yet to the character, revealing to us exactly why he trusts no one and refuses to fall in love.
Yet the film wisely refuses to play the prequel card, understanding that the Bond franchise has little continuity anyway, and while you can read it as the reasons behind Bond�s other cinematic actions, it mainly plays instead purely as the story of a dark man turned darker. The script does supply a few self-referential gags throughout (usually involving his trademark vodka martinis, while one bit involving his trying on a tuxedo is particularly inspired), but it�s much more subdued than the back-to-square-one reboot might otherwise imply.
One genius move, however, in treating this like an origin tale: David Arnold�s excellent musical score offers up a trademark big, brassy soundtrack, yet, in the musical equivalent of a wink and a nod, refuses to include the James Bond theme (outside of a few very subtle notes here and there) until one key scene, when the familiar melody is finally let loose with a fury. Arnold has long been a key part of the series� success, his music (he scored the last three Bond pictures) mixing tributes to the past with a welcoming of modern sounds. His work here is no exception, another top notch effort. And yes, the theme song, a lusty rocker penned by Arnold and Audioslave frontman Chris Cornell, is one of the better Bond themes in recent memory.
And now, at last, it�s time to discuss Bond himself. As you probably already know, Daniel Craig, the longtime British television veteran best known to American audiences as the star of the gangster thriller �Layer Cake� and as a co-star in such titles as �Munich� and �Road to Perdition,� has replaced Pierce Brosnan as 007. The announcement split fans - some of them did not like the idea of a blonde Bond, while the more reasonable ones realized that Craig�s badass screen persona and wicked stare made him an excellent choice for a darker, broodier hero. In his debut performance as the world�s most famous secret agent, Craig proves his detractors wrong, easily delivering the suave charm and man-of-action ferocity the character requires. His ice blue eyes pierce the screen and overwhelm the audience, and as the film progresses, it becomes so very clear that we are witnessing the arrival of the next big movie star.
The role of Bond in �Casino Royale� requires more from Craig than previous Bond roles have demanded of their respective stars. It�s demanding both physically and emotionally. Here is a James Bond who goes through an incredible amount of pain, and not once does Craig cause us to doubt the realism of the moment, whether he�s struggling to undo the effects of a fast-action poison or racing at full speed - on foot! - to catch the bad guys. (Indeed, 007 seems to do more running here than in all the other Bond movies combined. That shows him as a true man of action: Baddie getting away? Better start sprinting!) Craig�s icy exterior is the perfect match for his character�s inner coldness; here is a Bond who, when asked how he�d like his martini, can actually get away with responding �Do I look like I give a damn?� Later, when the film warms up and Bond falls in love, Craig shows a 007 whose heart has melted. When he�s kidnapped and tortured, we see a sinister Bond, provoking his captors with cruel jokes and dirty laughs. James Bond is not a role often associated with intense, multifaceted performances, yet Craig delivers just that here.
If you�re asking me to rank Craig in relation to his predecessors, however, I can�t oblige. It�d be like asking a parent to name a favorite child. What I can say, however, is that Craig is more than worthy of the role, and the final scene of �Casino Royale� will leave every fan itching like mad in anticipation for the next Bond movie, to see more of Craig staring down that gun barrel.
So yes, James Bond has returned, in truest spirit. This is the Bond movie Bond fans (and non-fans, too) are bound to love, giving us everything we want out of a Bond movie, and more. As a thrilling mix of action, suspense, drama, emotion, �Casino Royale� ranks among the very best of Bonds, and among the very best movies of the year.
At one point in CASINO ROYALE, the 21st official entry in the Bond franchise, the villain of the piece (Mads Mikkelsen) sets to work torturing 007 with little more than a rattan chair and a length of rope. The simple things, he opines, are the most effective. And so it is with this new take on the cinematic Bond. Where other contemporary action films raise the stakes with special effects that are all flash and no dazzle, this installment, like its star, Daniel Craig, carries the action with its smarts and its sinewy agility.
Based on the 1953 Ian Fleming book that started the series, the film carries the taut zeitgeist of those times, as in paranoia, while being set very much in the present. Gone are the cartoonish plots and most of the whiz-bang gizmos, though he does get to keep the Aston-Martin. This Bond doesn�t need them. From the first scene, showing how he earned the 00 designation and the license to kill, to the first chase scene done on foot as an extended acrobatic exercise over buildings, and hanging precariously from cranes very, very high in the air, as he doggedly pursues a bad guy, this Bond is focused, efficient, never stymied for long in pursuit of his goal, and mesmerizing while he�s doing it. Unfortunately, this particular goal, while achieved, turns into a public relations nightmare for the British government, causing M (Judi Dench who plays starchy but with a soft spot for her bad boy) to long for the Cold War when an agent who botched a job did the decent thing and defected. Times being what they are, she sends Bond off on a vacation instead to think about the mess he�s made. And Bond, being who he is, continues pursuing that ci-mentioned villain, a banker to terrorists with patent-leather hair, the personality of an iceberg, and an unfortunate tendency to shed tears of blood that have nothing to do with sentiment of any kind.
The venues are the classic Bond locales: Venice, Madagascar, The Bahamas, and Montenegro, where all the intrigue leads to a high-stakes poker game at the eponymous casino with Bond facing off against the banker, who would like Bond dead, and the banker�s unhappy clients who would like him dead. The script is crackling with an unusually logical, if convoluted, plot, lots of suspense and neat twists, and direction that keeps everything racing along without losing the audience in the rush. While special effects aren�t the draw here, there are more than a few that are more than just eye-popping, they actually advance the story. Or at least underscore it.
Craig with his tightly-coiled intensity and rampant charisma injects a welcome dose of serious testosterone back into the franchise, the likes of which haven�t been seen since the Sean Connery days. This Bond isn�t just suave, he�s also got a chip on his shoulder, an uber-warrior still just a scooch rough around the spy edges, which Craig exploits to the fullest, creating the most fully realized Bond ever, guarded, cynical, but also susceptible to the charms of Vesper (Eva Green), the stunning accountant, of all things, sent to keep an eye on all that gambling money, who can match him in smarts, cynicism, and barbed ripostes. Their first meeting, where the conversation is each summing the other up with remarkable and clear-eyed accuracy starts the sexual tension off with a, you will pardon the expression, bang, and leads to the first believable, even sweet, love story in the Bond opus.
CASINO ROYALE doesn�t just work as a Bond film. It doesn�t just work as an action film. It works as a first-rate piece of filmmaking that elevates the popcorn flick into something that works on an emotional level as well.
After a typically exciting pre-credits sequence, Casino Royale -- like almost all James Bond films before it -- employs the tried-and-true image guaranteed to raise the pulses of Bond fans all across the globe. The dapper agent strolls into the frame, whirls around and fires directly at the circular camera eye while the classic 007 theme plays on the soundtrack. Only ...
Where's the music? Monty Norman's familiar riff does show up during the end credits, but it's conspicuously missing from the beginning. Producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson insisted that the franchise would largely be starting from scratch with this, the 21st film, but let's face it: Not employing that beloved tune was a serious miscalculation.
Fortunately, it's about the only one. In most other respects, Casino Royale ranks among the best Bond films produced over the past 44 years -- it's just a shade away from being worthy enough to breathe the rarefied air of Goldfinger, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, The Spy Who Loved Me and the criminally underrated For Your Eyes Only. It easily swats aside the Pierce Brosnan Bond flicks, while new star Daniel Craig vies with Timothy Dalton for second place as the screen's best 007 (it's doubtful Sean Connery will ever relinquish the gold).
Casino Royale was actually the first Bond book penned by Ian Fleming, so it's fitting that it serves as the source material for this refashioning of the series. (The previous Casino Royale picture was a feeble 1967 spoof starring Peter Sellers, David Niven and Woody Allen.) Basically, this new film wipes away the previous 20 installments by going back to when James Bond was first promoted by M (Judi Dench, the only holdover from the Brosnan years) to the level of a double-oh agent with a license to kill. Bond's first mission of import is to enter a poker tournament being held in Montenegro's Casino Royale, where he's to prevent Eurotrash villain Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), a personal financier of the world's terrorist organizations, from emerging victorious and collecting the sizable pot. Aiding him in his assignment is Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), a treasury agent who proves to be Bond's match in the verbal sparring department.
The character of Vesper Lynd -- one of the sharpest women in the Bond oeuvre -- is just one of the many pleasing touches on view in this slam-bang chapter. The most notable differences can be found in the secret agent himself: As intensely played by Craig, this James Bond isn't a suave playboy quick with the quip and bathed in an air of immortality but rather a sometimes rough-hewn bruiser who makes mistakes, usually keeps his sense of humor in check, and, because he's just starting out, possesses more flashes of empathy than we're used to seeing in our cold-as-ice hero.
Forsaking the special effects that ended up dominating the series (too often, it was hard to differentiate a Brosnan Bond from a video game), Casino Royale relies more on stunt work and mano-a-mano skirmishes, confrontations that are up close and personal. This results in a couple of terrific action scenes, one involving a foot chase across a construction site. Even the more staid sequences, such as the actual poker tournament, crackle with a level of excitement missing from most of the recent installments.
Casino Royale is so successful in its determination to jump-start the series by any means necessary that it tampers with winning formulas left and right. When a bartender asks Bond if he prefers his martini shaken or stirred, the surly agent snaps back, "Do I really look like I give a damn?" Blasphemous? Perhaps. But also bloody invigorating.