Review: Casino Royale

[Kenny Shovel]

I don't have time to write a long review, so I'll just throw down a few quick thoughts for those thinking of going to see the new bond film 'Casino Royale'.

Firstly, this is the best action film I’ve seen for a long time, probably the best bond film by some way, and Daniel Craig may end up being the franchises best leading man as well.

The film does indeed differ from its predecessors, but is still very much Bond. If anything the thing that stops this film from being even better is the constant comparisons you find yourself making whilst watching. In my case this was increased by having recently read the original novel. This turned out to be a mistake, as whilst the film differs in many respects from the book, I was forewarned of a number of the plot twists.

There was a lot of pressure on Daniel Craig when he took over as Bond, and a lot of rather foolish criticism, and ill-informed talk about him not being up to the physical side of the role. Quite the opposite turns out to be the truth. As for all his credentials as the most ‘heavyweight’ Bond, in terms of acting talent, it’s in the actions sequences where he is truly outstanding. Not only has Craig bulked up for the role, but he plays a Bond with an almost Terminator attitude to getting the job done. Craig’s Bond is relentless, and the first hour of the film, which is mostly action, sees very little dialogue, but a more exacting physical performance than any of his predecessors turned in.

Whilst some of the lessor characters have the 2-D quality of Bond films of old, the main protagonists are much more developed. The relationship between Bond and the two leading ladies, M and Vesper Lynne are given more screen time than usual. This leads to some excellent scenes between Daniel Craig, Judi Dench and Eva Green. Stripped of most of the corny one-liners, the dialogue has much more depth than in previous films, whilst still retaining enough humour to remind you of past glories.

Thankfully the plot is much more fleshed out than the novel it was based on, whilst retaining some of the darker side of the job that Fleming wrote about. My only real criticism is that the Casino scenes do slow things down, leading to the makers feeling the need to up the action a little too much at the end of the film. Personally I ‘d have preferred them to really take a risk with the ‘new Bond’ and finish in a much more low-key manner, concentrating on the consequences of what has happened to the main characters. But in the end I guess they played things down as much as they could.

All in all this is an excellent film and I’m looking forward to see what Craig does with the character next.

K-S

 

[Shade]

I'm looking forward to seeing this: which is more than I can say for any other Bond film (er, indeed, I've only seen one other one). I've admired Daniel Craig since Our Friends in the North, so the pre-emptive internet criticism pissed me off no end (though I see the main anti-Craig website has now closed down). What was their problem exactly? That Craig could actually act and therefore might be in danger of producing a 3D portrayal of Bond? Pah.

Anyway, no more to say as I haven't seen it yet, but will probably do so this weekend. Oh and Kenny: please, for the sake of my poor weakened heart, don't use the words Eva Green and stripped together ever again. Unless circumstances literally require it.

 

[Kenny Shovel]

The actress who plays Solitaire is probably the one most likely to set the hearts of teenage boys racing. Which goes to show you what they know about women.
The first scene with Eva Green, not an actress I knew much about, had me thinking 'ok, sophisticated looking girl, not sure why Bond would go for her though'. By the end of the film you know. She - character and actress - are totally beguiling.

 

[Shade]

Well no, I don't know much about Eva Green either, though I feel myself to be on very familiar terms with her anatomy after seeing Bertolucci's The Dreamers (which was something of a teenage boyish response on my own part, I suppose). I gather though that she is cued up for the next Bond film as well, which would be first, wouldn't it?

 

[Fantasy Moon]

I'm not much of a Bond fan, but I do find myself wishing to go see this movie after watching the trailers.

Since I have only seen A View To A Kill all the way through, I don't think I will suffer from making constant comparisons. The only reason I've seen that particular movie was because I was going through a Christopher Walken phase at the time.

 

[mehastings]

I'm not much of a Bond fan, but I do find myself wishing to go see this movie after watching the trailers.

Me too. I've never been all that into Bond, in fact I usually do everything I can to avoid the 24 hour Bond Marathon they have every Thanksgiving. One year I went so far as to hide the plug to the cable box. I can't figure out what it is that makes me want to see this movie. No doubt part of it is Daniel Craig, but an actor isn't enough to draw me. I suppose the trailers are just well done. Either way I'll probably be going to this one soon.

 

[unKeMPt]

In imagining the series into a world in which actions have consequences and dismissing the former discrete romantization of violence, I have to say the film has a lot in common with Michael Mann's "Miami Vice" that came out earlier this year.

 

[Flor]

I'm looking forward to seeing this: which is more than I can say for any other Bond film (er, indeed, I've only seen one other one).

so glad to read this as I've never seen any of them

 

[Stewart]

Sometimes it's hard when a series replaces one actor with another - it's the angst before seeing for yourself how the new boy (or girl) will interpret the character, how they will play the role. With something like Doctor Who, which sees one incarnation after the other, the actor is given free range to make the character their own, entirely independent (in the here and now) of those who have gone before. But, with James Bond, the actor slipping into the shoes of his predecessor tends to have his character already there for him; it's just a matter of how he plays it. And Daniel Craig plays it to perfection.

In an interesting move on the Bond franchise, Casino Royale throws out everything that has gone before and begins anew, much in the same way that Ian Fleming's novel of the same name started the series. So, by tossing out the old, there is a measure of retroactive continuity put in place (Judi Dench's M is now Bond's first superior as a double O, Bond meets Felix Leiter for the first time, and the Aston Martin of old makes its first appearance in the Bahamas). By starting anew on the series the makers have been given licence to kill off some stalwarts of previous films: cheesy lines, megalomaniacs with secret underground lairs, women with suggestive names, and the often over the top gadgetry of Q.

The story sticks close to the original novel but with some changes and a whole lot more tacked on. The alterations are wise considerations given that the book was set during the Cold War while the film is contemporary. And the additions are wholly satisfying in that they give more depth to the back story, bringing in international terrorism and some dodgy dealing to a story that revolved around a tedious game of cards, with little else.

Here, in 2006, Bond has been promoted to Double O and is on his first mission which is to investigate a potential act of terrorism. He's out in Madagascar finding out some information while elsewhere in the world - Uganda, to be exact - bigshot financier, Le Chiffre, is taking the funds from a resistance army to safety so that it can be accessed elsewhere in the world. But, rather than just do what he says, he's using it to short the stock in an airline company of which an act of terrorism he knows about is planned. When Bond, after working his way through a list of pawns, routs this Le Chiffre loses the cash and in order to regain it, organises an exclusive poker tournament in Montenegro with a buy in of ten million. From here Bond is sent, alongside treasury agent, Vesper Lynd, to ensure that Le Chiffre does not succeed in the tournament. From there, the movie practically drips those expected staples of the series in abundance, namely action and double crosses.

Bond, in this movie, is a darker prospect than we've seen before. He's truly a man on a mission, an agent with his focus almost exclusively for the task at hand. He's still got an eye for the ladies - the married ones, at least - and he's probably more appealing to them too: Craig's muscular physique is certainly a step aside from Connery's wandering chest rug. It somehow makes the stunts he gets up to more believable. Well, probable.

As the love interest, Eva Green does extremely well. I have to say that I don't know her from previous films (then again, it's my first Daniel Craig film too) but the writers have certainly given her a better character than previous incumbents of the Bond girl title. There's depth to Vesper Lynd and the interplay between her and Bond in various scenes works extremely well. Her final scene in the movie, without wishing to spoil anything, is truly beautiful.

Le Chiffre, on the other hand, is an interesting bad guy for Bond to face. Firstly, he's not a megalomaniac intent on destroying the world from his underwater base. He's a banker, plain and simple. He's given the traditional bad guy trait (a scarred eye that weeps blood) so that you know he's not batting for the same team as Bond. And there's not much else to him. While we get to know many details about him, I can't help but feel there's more we could have learned about him in order to make for a truly menacing baddie. While he may not be fully three dimensional, at least he's believable.

I have to say that I warmed to the opening credits as I watched them. I thought they were kitsch and not in the spirit of the film I was expecting, but the more I watched them I thought they were attractive enough if not reflective of the time period. The accompanying track I found to be lacking in identity but then I think I prefer the sassier songs of old - predominantly those by top Welshies, Jones and Bassey.

And the action. Oh, the action! The film begins properly in Madagascar with with a stunning parkour scene on a building site, taking a chase both high and low. Other highlights include a fight in a stairwell, a high octane drive airside in a Miami airport, and a shooting session in a dilapidated Venetian building. The action upon which the film centres itself, however, is a poker game which, for this non player, was tedious at times. The producers themselves seemed to know how tedious it was by adding in small extraneous scenes to break up the monotony of chips slinging back and forth. Still, at least they didn't stoop to explaining the rules of poker in much the same way Fleming, in the novel, had Bond waxing to Lynd for pages on the rules and tricks of baccarat.

All in all, it's certainly a welcome change to the Bond franchise but it has a few moments that let it down. Aside from the surplus scenes during the poker game, there's an extended romance between our hero and Vesper Lynd that drags. Given the running time of the movie I wonder if some of these should really have ended up on the cutting room floor or, even better, tightened in the script. The other thing is the capacity for pedantry. I found myself wondering where Bond's aches and pains and scars had gone between scenes, especially when he sits down at a table seemingly unharmed having had his face bloodied a moment before. Or the time when, during recuperation, he gets out of his wheelchair and is ready to rock and roll with Vesper in bed. Silly things like that.

It's refreshing as a Bond movie as much as it is to see Craig play a different agent from one we're used to. The script is relatively tight and humour, such as there is, comes at the right times. It's good to see the characters given some depth and I hope that future movies will begin to take that and add a greater degree of continuity to the franchise than has been seen before. As a Bond film, it's top notch but as a standalone film it's needing a few tweaks to the formula to be truly outstanding.

 

[Gem]

Kenny Shovel & Stewart, excellent reviews.
Since you've both covered everything between you, I'll just quickly say;
I'm a Bond fan and have therefore enjoyed pretty much every Bond movie but with Casino Royale I not only enjoyed it, I liked it too.
I don't have any complaints with the film - but my fellow cinema-goer wasn't very happy with the torture scene, he needed a strong drink afterwards to stop him muttering "there was no way any man would be in a state to make quips at a time like that".

 

[Stewart]

"there was no way any man would be in a state to make quips at a time like that".

Very true. But it came at a time when the movie was heading off into dark territory. It was the first snigger from the audience I heard, essentially lightening the mood.

 

[Fenster]

As a long-time Bond fan (it all started when I watched For Your Eyes Only on broadcast TV one night when I was 10 or 11) I am not sure what to make of this new film. Watching it last night I got the sense I would have to see it in the theater at least once more before really forming an opinion on it.

Personally, I really liked Pierce Brosnan as Bond and feel he got a bum rap on being released from the series as part of the reboot. As I recall, he was complaining about the series getting too far away from its roots. Goldeneye was great and is my current favorite Bond film, but then the producers went right back to the Goldfinger model with its follow up, the so-so entry Tomorrow Never Dies. The World Is Not Enough was better and, IMHO, quite underrated. Die Another Day got off to a good start, with Bond being subjected to 18 months in a torture camp, but then the film went over the top with the suggestion that plastic surgery could transform a Korean into an Englishman and a car that could become invisible.

However, I recognize that a new actor was probably necessary to "reboot" the franchise. If they saw Brosnan, audiences would probably have expected Q, Moneypenny and all the ilk (though it's entirely possible those characters will return in future entries).

And, unlike some of my fellow Bondphiles, I never had a problem with Daniel Craig. Yes, he's blond, but sandy blond, not Owen Wilson blond. And he's an excellent actor. I must admit, though, that while he is muscular, he's a bit too short and stocky, and his rugged good looks are a bit too rugged. Then again, even Fleming noted that Bond often felt like an outsider, so perhaps it's fitting that Craig's Bond sticks out a bit in a room full of "gentlemen."

My primary complaint is that the film is still fairly over the top. (POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD, in case there's anyone reading this who hasn't yet seen the film.) If the primary problem with the Brosnan entries was that Bond was becoming an "invincible superhero", you're not really doing anything to refute that notion when the new film's first 20 minutes feature Bond running up the arm of a construction crane like he's jogging a flight of stairs. And then the chase at the airport...

Then again, I've reconciled myself to the fact that the Bond of the Ian Fleming books and the movie Bond will never be quite the same character, though at times the two can merge together nicely (see Goldeneye, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, From Russia With Love, and Timothy Dalton's films), as well as in different scenes of this new film.

Well, I'm done rambling for now, though I'll probably write more after seeing the movie again. Oh, and Fantasy Moon - if the only other Bond film you've seen is A View To A Kill, I can't blame you for being skittish. That film is, IMHO, the WORST entry in the entire series. Try some of the earlier Connery films and you'll have a much better idea what all the fuss was about.

 

[beer good]

Saw this yesterday, and I was actually pretty impressed. I had more or less given up on Bond - Brosnan wasn't exactly BAD in the one movie I saw of his, but the movies had gotten progressively sillier ("License To Kill" the obvious exception) to the point where they could not be taken seriously as anything else but "Bond movies". They existed in a universe of their own, where you came for the gadgetry and stayed for the explosions - where they had once been sexy, from the 80s onwards they seemed positively chaste compared to, oh, say, "Basic Instinct".

"Casino Royale" is far from a masterpiece, but it's both grittier, more realistic and more interesting than anything since Roger Moore, IMO. (Not necessarily more entertaining, though.) We actually have character development for one of the most static characters in fiction, and you have scenes like

Spoiler

the one where Bond has killed two men with his own two hands, rushes back to his hotel room, strips off his VERY bloody clothes and tries to wash up while he gulps down whisky with a slightly shaky hand - you'd NEVER see a scene like that in a Connery movie. And the torture scene was so beautifully anti-Bond they even had Le Chiffre make a crack about it; why do you need laser guns, wild sharks or golden paint when you can simply tie a guy up and hit him in the balls?

The movie is still very much a Bond movie, and while it does make for some of the funnier moments in the movie, I'm not sure the numerous nods to earlier films do it any favours in the long run; the movie is so intent on breaking with tradition that it doesn't set up its OWN identity as well as it might have done.

Spoiler

I mean, the "Shaken or stirred?" "I don't give a damn" line is funny, but ONLY if you've watched every other Bond movie.

And like Stewart, I agree that the Bond/Vesper romance dragged a bit.

Spoiler

I mean, we KNOW she has to either die or betray him and die before the end of the movie, especially when he starts talking about retirement, and from there on it just becomes a looong wait to see exactly how she does it.

But I liked it, and especially the ending;

Spoiler

we have the famous introduction line, and THEN and only then the classic James Bond Theme kicks in;

the whole movie has led up to that point; James Bond is in the house, he's become the charming but emotionally detached and just sliiiiiiightly psycho professional murderer he's always supposed to have been, and it's going to be really interesting to see how dark they dare make him in the following movies.

 

[Catalyst]

I saw this on Friday and i really liked it. I felt the other films were headin in the same direction as Batman - annoying, picture book colourful with silly one liners all the way through.
This one was far more grittier Daniel Craig was fabulous, though he pouted a lot lol. I to felt the romance storyline dragged on a bit and the result was a bit weak. There didnt seem to be a solid storyline, which was ok i suppose as it seemed to be more about the progression of Bond as a 007 agent, rather than the actual bad guy good guy story.
There was too much advertising too! Bond doesnt drive a Ford!!

 

[Fenster]

There was too much advertising too! Bond doesnt drive a Ford!!

I remember when Tomorrow Never Dies came out, The Onion had a headline about it that read: "Two-Hour Luxury Goods Commercial Also A Spy Film".

 

[Bovine_Belle]

The product promotion is totally blatant. I've never read the book though, so maybe someone does actually ask Bond what sort of watch he wears.

I liked the film - although thinking back on it the bit in Venice sticks with me as being particularly silly.

 

[galoosh33]

I saw the film, it's so good. Definitely the best Bond movie I've seen (well I only saw about 5 so..)

I also find myself listening a lot to Chris Cornell's 'You Know My Name', which the theme song for the movie. Also really good...

 

[dcommerceman]

Casino Royale could have been superb if acted by the ex - James Bond, Pierce Brosnam. He's the perfect spy. Cool, sexy and someone who oozes it. Just looking at the guy speak, perform, walk, and in action makes me say "Perfect!" Unlike Mr. Daniel Craig who look less like a spy and more like a gay-007!

 

[Fenster]

Unlike Mr. Daniel Craig who look less like a spy and more like a gay-007!

I don't know if I'd go that far, but I agree that Brosnan looks the part much more than Craig. I'm not talking about the blond hair - Bond is supposed to be tall, which Brosnan is; Craig is short and stocky.

Unfortunately, the producers probably thought that if people saw Brosnan in the ads they'd say, "Oh great, another gimmicky, gadget-filled Bond film" and not take it as seriously. It wasn't Brosnan's fault that the producers were getting so carried away with that junk, but he wound up taking the fall for it.

They got the series off to such a good re-start with Goldeneye, and then immediately followed it up with Tomorrow Never Dies, another lousy Goldfinger rip-off.