Casino Royale

Author's Rating:  

Changing lead actors on a franchise as old and established as the 007 series is a matter of periodic anxiety for both the producers and the viewers. 2006's "Casino Royale" is Daniel Craig's debut as the latest and very different James Bond. Viewers will form their own conclusions on how well Craig meets expectations; this reviewer suspects a breakout along generational lines.

The movie opens with a black and white retrospective sequence showing Bond earning his "00" status with two successful kills. The first one, a messy fight in a bathroom, sets the tone for the movie. The action is relentless, gritty, and in-your-face. Bad guys die in ugly ways; this young Bond is a very physical, relentless thug with an ego and only the merest veneer of charm and wit.

Bond is off on a series of adventures that will carry him through Madagascar, the Bahamas, Miami, and ultimately to Montenegro in pursuit of a mysterious financier of terrorism named Le Chiffre. Le Chiffre has speculated with other people's money and now must make good his debts by winning a high stakes poker game at the Casino Royale. "M", reprised by Judi Dench, sends Bond, backed by MI-6's local operative and by beautiful Treasury representative Vesper Lynd, to put Le Chiffre out of business by bankrupting him in the game.

The poker game becomes a fight to the death, proceeding both at the table and in hotel corridors and back alleys. Bond's job will be complicated by his feelings for Vesper Lynd; he will find an unexpected friend and two unexpected betrayals. The conclusion of the movie is an obvious scene-setter for the next Jame Bond production.

"Casino Royale" features lots of tough, frantic, exciting action sequences. However, at two hours and 24 minutes, the film badly needs streamlining. The plot, already confusing, is very nearly obscured by all the violence, at least some of which is redundant. Once upon a time, Sean Connery managed to combine both physical menace and charm in the same role; one hopes the producers will allow Daniel Craig to evolve in the same direction in his next outing.

"Casino Royale" is highly recommended as an entertaining action movie and a promising offering in the James Bond series.
Jul 05, 2008

Author's Rating:  

Not since the glory days of "Goldfinger" and "Thunderball" has a 007 film received the kind of sterling reviews that greeted 2006's "Casino Royale." Roger Ebert gave it a whopping four stars, and Entertainment Weekly recently included it in a countdown of the best movies of the past 25 years.

Is it that good?

Although it was produced by EON productions, the same company founded by Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman in 1961 to produce the Bond films and now in the hands of Broccoli's daughter Barbara and stepson Michael Wilson, "Casino Royale" is what's known as a "rebooting" in the same vein as Warner Bros.' "Batman Begins." Based on Ian Fleming's first Bond novel published in 1953, it begins with Bond earning his double agent status then embarking on his first mission. However, the film has a contemporary setting with Bond and his cohorts using laptop computers and cell phones. In other words, 007's previous adventures against such adversaries as Dr. No, Goldfinger, and Ernst Stavro Blofeld have yet to take place. Does this mean that remakes are in the offing?

Daniel Craig, the sixth Bond of the official series, also represents a break with the past. He brings to mind Steve McQueen more than Sean Connery. You get the impression that Craig's Bond could hold his own in a fight with Connery but feel less confident, intimidated by Connery's cooler, more sophisticated manner. On the other hand, he would probably mock Roger Moore's gentlemanly agent and regard Pierce Brosnan as more playboy than killer. Craig's Bond is more of an alley cat, more at home in the gutter than the casino at which he stares down the villainous LeChiffre. He may be heroic, but he's far from fearless. He perspires and faces death with genuine terror. When he tosses off a witticism, as he rarely does, it's not with the nonchalance we have come to expect but with a sigh of relief, a means of breaking the tension. When this Bond's car flips over multiple times, he's bloody and barely conscious as his enemies drag him from the vehicle for a hair raising session of torture. Roger Moore would have calmly climbed out of the car, tightened the knot in his tie, and moved on.

The critical acclaim accorded this new Bond is justified. It's an all-together excellent show, but I can't help but detect a certain amount of condescension toward the earlier films, as if to suggest this one is superior and more innovative than the more fantasy oriented adventures that, with few exceptions, preceded it. It is nothing of the sort. While the earlier Bond films with their megalomaniacal madmen plotting the takeover of the world did grow stale after a time, they were innovative when first released and grew tired only after being endlessly recycled in later chapters in the series and by the imitations that sprang up in the wake of "Bondmania."

In the `60s, when Bond reigned supreme as the world's biggest box-office draw, his only competition came from the lesser spies given life to cash in on 007's success. Now, of course, we have Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Batman, Superman, Spider Man, et al, special effects heavy films that never would have made it to the big screen had Bond not arrived there first. But unlike them, Bond doesn't need the gimmicks and the fancy hardware and can stand apart from them. He has a secret weapon more effective than anything that Q could provide. He has Ian Fleming whose original conception of Bond has only rarely made it to the screen intact. Now he has. This isn't a better Bond, though, only a different one, as interesting in his own way as the previous 007s were in theirs.

Brian W. Fairbanks


Jun 24, 2008