Casino Royale

November 21, 2006 at 6:01 pm | Posted in Reviews | 11 Comments

“…I understand that double-0s have very short life expectancy, so your mistake will be short-lived”

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The Good: Top of the range acting, fantastic script, great action sequences and fantastically made from start to finish.
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The Bad: Some Bond enthusiasts may not like the very innovative feel. Plot feels very slightly rushed toward the end.
—— The Bond franchise as everyone knows it has come to an end. It’s the truth. What started as a film about a psychotic guy with one arm being chased by Sean Connery all those years ago has come to an end in 2006. It’s finished. It’s over. The franchise is dead…but Bond is very much alive and kicking. I think it would be wise to introduce a few words here, that will be repeated throughout: “rough, edgy, gritty, realistic”

Casino Royale brings it back to basics. Bond’s first 2 kills to give him a double-0 status, and his first ever mission as 007. Obviously, this makes it the first book ever written, and since all the other ones have been expended, who knows what they’re going to do with Bond 22? But, let’s put that aside for just now, and focus on the new Bond. Because that’s what it is. This is no longer Sean Connery’s “positively shocking’ character, nor is it Pierce Brosnan’s ‘Sorry! Forgot to knock!’; this is the new Bond. This is Daniel Craig’s “rough, edgy, gritty and, at times, disconcertingly realistic” MI6 agent, who puts his life on the line.

Casino Royale sees Daniel Craig as James Bond, attempting to win a game of poker (£10 million buy-in) with the help of treasury official, Vesper Lynd (fantastic performance here from Eva Green) in order to try and hem international terrorist, Le Chiffre (brilliantly portrayed by Madds Mikkelsen), into co-operating with British security services. The plot seems plain at first, but by the end has twisted itself in a few circles, ultimately cilminating in an emotionally polished fifteen minutes, and a truly emphatic ending. I have, in fact, played the last 2 minutes over in my head several times, just to enjoy it again.

I think it’s unfair to compare Craig’s performance to any of the 0ther Bonds’, simply because they are fulfilling different roles. Connery, Moore, Dalton, Brosnan and…that other one all played the suave English gentleman-of-steel who melted women’s hearts and pulled off insane stunts to classy music. Gone is that character, in is the new take. “Rough, edgy, gritty and realistic”.
Craig is absolutely fantastic. I think they’d have had one hell of a job finding someone as infinitely suited to the role as he is. Absolutely brilliant stuff here. From the very opening scene, the look in his eye, his robust little stature, his whole demeanour just oozes with that unique charisma that is inferred by all the previous Bonds…Yet this is a new take on it. He’s not dark haired, he doesn’t have a smooth-as-silk smile; he’s “rough, edgy, gritty and realistic”. It’s in this new take that Bond is lost, but in that charisma that he is found again. He’s a different Bond, but he still has the aura that is unique to Bond, and it is that which stops Casino Royale from not being a Bond movie, and just ‘some spy film’.
The other performances are, to say the least, note-worthy. Madds Mikkelsen is fantastic as the man of numbers, Le Chiffre. His logical plain of thinking isn’t only expressed in his poker playing (“You have a 17.2% chance of a straight”), but also his outlook on things. His blood-weeping eye is just a defect of the tear duct, “Nothing sinister”; and he doesn’t believe in God, but in a ‘reasonable rate of return’. Sure, it’s quite two-dimensional, but it’s a massive step up from “I want to take over the world”. He’s in it for money, and keeping himself out of trouble, to him, everything else is collateral. Eva Green is equally excellent as the more fleshed out character if Vesper Lynd. Yes, she’s the Bond girl, but she’s not a one night stand, and the slow-building love interest between Bond and her makes you well aware of it.

Speaking of which, upmost kudos to the writers. Casino Royale‘s script is another major factor that sets it apart. The odd tongue-in-cheek nod to the older Bond films (watch for him being asked how he likes his Martini) is there, but so is characterisation of Bond that goes beyond all the other films put together…multiplied by ten. They really dissected him pretty damn well in this one, exploiting him externally as a rough-n-tough secret agent, but exposing his internal vulnerability as well, the likes of which was only really prodded at when his wife is killed in Her Majesty’s Secret Service…Even then though, you’d be over stating the point if you said they were character building; since getting him to marry someone, then making him sad when they’re shot dead is a little bit cheaper than the devices used in this film.
Bond just wouldn’t be complete solely with this emotionally-provoking edge however, and there’s explosions and chases a-plenty (as well as a down-right disturbing torture scene) all of which are just as, if not better than anything seen before in a Bond movie…most likely because they have that slight hint of the fact that the people are in genuine peril. Unlike the other films, you’ll noticeably see Bond’s appearance getting beat up; bruised knuckles, scratches, cuts…all of them show up, contrasting the constantly prestine presentation of the older films.

Is it really that different? Yes. This is the new generation of Bond. “Rough, edgy, gritty and realistic”. It’s the biggest trasnformation from Die Another Day, not just because it isn’t absolutely abomnible, but it is an entire new take on the same character. The last 20 minutes set up fantastically for just about every aspect of Bond you’ve come to know, and for that already-announced 22nd film. Frankly, if Casino Royale is anything to go by, I can’t wait.

—Out of Five—