Casino Royale
The Bond films up through Pierce Brosnan had conformed into a lockstep mentality that had made them almost intolerable, with the same ol evil plots, cookie cutter villains and Bond Girls, and the nearly OCD tendency of the scripts to stick in the characters of Q and Moneypenny even if there was almost nothing for them to do. It got so bad that even Brosnan had publicly complained about the process, so the producers finally chose to fire him and start the series fresh with a literal reboot, bringing in a new Bond with Daniel Craig but oddly keeping Judi Dench around as M, even if her role contradicts her supposed first meeting with Bond in Goldeneye. Craig in the role at times comes off as a hardass prick, but the new way of thinking and doing things becomes readily apparent early on with arguably the most exhausting foot chase in movie history as the newly promoted 007 Bond (having just recently been a low level government hitman who had made an important kill) pursues a very athletic terrorist through the streets of Madagascar. Certain elements from the original Ian Fleming novel are retained and even enhanced, such as Mads Mikkelsen doing a very good job as the terrorist banker Le Chiffre, and Eva Green staking out her territory as duplicitous female agent Vesper Lynd, while not having the charisma of the best Bond Girls, striking a fine line between the liberated modern woman and the somewhat submissive types from the classic era, all while maintaining a crackling chemistry with Craig himself. The plot involves Le Chiffre losing all the terrorism money on a bad stock investment, then vowing to win it back in a high stakes Texas Hold Em Poker Tournament worth $150 million, which persuades MI6 to send in Bond to outplay him and also helps re-introduce the one time major Bond ally Felix Leiter as played by Jeffrey Wright. Certainly the level of brutality has been upped for the series, as mandated by Craig’s portrayal and seen in bits including a brutal torture scene where Bond literally has his balls whipped mercilessly. Certainly some inspiration was taken from the Bourne movies with the usages of shakycam and quickly edited fight scenes, but some of the pacing can be a bit lax, especially with a 2 hour 24 minute running time (the longest Bond film on record). The real brass tack though, is how does Craig measure up (so far) to the Bonds of the past? Though he seems to lack Connery’s smoothness, Moore’s charm, and Brosnan’s charisma, it would seem reasonable that he shares some characteristics with Dalton’s ruthless, cold-blooded incarnation, while bringing an almost animalistic quality to the tuxedos and martinis, kind of a sophisticated brute, a charming Neanderthal so to speak, who will carry forward for the current time, and like the others, make this most iconic of movie characters all his own…
8/10