Casino Royale is easily best James Bond film, and it also the best film I have ever seen about espionage and secret agents. At times, it is more like a drama than an action film, though it still manages to be one of the more exciting thrillers of recent years.
It also the smartest of all the Bond films, and the one that seems least calculated to appeal to the lower strata of the audience. Roger Ebert accurately commented that James Bond is really every teenage boys fantasy- he gets lots of women, alcohol, guns, sports cars and cool gadgets. He gets the first four of those things in this picture (the movie’s more realistic take gets rid of gadgetry), but for the first time he has to deal with the consequences of those actions as an adult would in real life. The violence he commits on a regular basis begins to take a toll the agent (who in this picture attains the status of 007 at the very beginning), and he finds that he’s looking for a single, monogamous relationship, because if he keeps doing this job, there’s not going to much left of him.
And that’s what the picture is really about- how Bond (here played by Daniel Craig) struggles to remain a person despite the acts of violence he commits and is sometimes forced to watch. Strangely enough, we have the effective of liking him even more. There a scene towards the end of the film where we see for the first time in this 21 film series that Bond is a hero because he actually puts on the line for his cause.
Every time a new actor plays Bond the reviewer is obliged to compare him to the previous incarnations, but that’s really pointless here because Craig is playing a different type of character than the five previous Bonds. The rest were essentially playing superheroes, Craig is playing a real person and he does it damn well.
The story of the film of the film is not that different from the rest of the series- Bond is pursuing a terrorist financier and through plot machinations is required to win an epic poker game. Along with the way he is assisted by Bond girl Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), who works for the British treasury and Rene Mathis (Giancarlo Giannini), of dubious allegiance. The romance between Bond and Lynd does not play out at all like expected, and the presence of Green and Giannini in the cast indicate the seriousness which this production was undertaken.
There are still action sequences and shootouts, but aside from an early chase that goes on too long, there is a real feeling of suspense, really for the first time in the series. The poker game is very well done too, though I kind of which the screenwriters had kept the more European and cooler baccarat of the novel.
Casino Royale is a movie that people who wouldn’t enjoy the usual Bond picture will be drawn in by, and there are still the elements that will be appreciated by the hardcore fans. Only the immaturity is taken out, which means so much else is let in.
Casino Royale (2006)