|
Director: Martin Campbell
Cast: Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Judi Dench, Mads Mikkelsen, Jeffrey Wright, Giancarlo Giannini
Duration: 144 minutes
The introduction of a new James Bond always
gives rise to scepticism, and one of the major problems of Bond's 21st official
cinematic adventure is that the scepticism remains when the final credits roll.
Some will pick on the easy target: Daniel Craig, the new physical incarnation of
Bond. Craig, a blond-haired, blue-eyed Brit, is not the type we typically
associate with 007, and backlash against his casting sprang immediately upon his
connection to the role. Honestly, it's petty, since it's what he does with role
that's important, not how he looks. Craig is actually a great choice for the
new Bond persona of Casino Royale; it's the new spin on the character
from screenwriters Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, and Paul Haggis that leaves
doubts. Their Bond is more low-rent thug than suave cosmopolitan—more
government assassin than super spy. He is, essentially, without personality,
and it is to Craig's credit that he tries his best to instill some charm into a
charmless role. Since the film is an obvious attempt to restart the franchise
from the beginning (actually using Ian Fleming's first Bond novel as its
inspiration) and the character is just starting to develop, the decision makes
sense, but the movie suffers because of it nonetheless.
The flick opens with Bond acquiring his "00"
status by killing two men. Somewhere in Africa, a man with one useful eye named
Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen) takes some money from so-called freedom fighters.
Bond, meanwhile, is in Madagascar, tracking down terrorist Mollaka (Sebastien
Foucan) to retrieve information from him. After an extended chase that leads
him to kill Mollaka and blow up part of a foreign embassy, Bond is obviously not
on MI6 leader M's (Judi Dench) best side. Bond decides to decipher information
retrieved from the terrorist on his own and makes his way to the Bahamas as a
rogue agent. There Bond finds Alex Dimitrios (Simon Abkarian), who helps with
the execution of terrorist activities, and his wife Solange (Caterina Murino).
After some wooing of Solange, Bond discovers Dimitrios' plans involving the
destruction of a new jet airliner in Miami. That plan, of course, is thwarted
by 007, and Bond is back slightly on M's good side, leading her to let him join
a high-stakes, no-limit hold-'em poker game run by Le Chiffre at the Casino
Royale in Montenegro. The catch: Bond must answer to the Treasury Department's
liaison Vesper Lynd (Eva Green).
Clearly, a lot is happening in the plot, and as
per usual, most of it makes little to no sense. Occasionally, the script's
weaving and winding, double-cross-filled plot is frustrating and sloppy,
especially when Bond seems to have an extrasensory knowledge of who the real
villains are before any evidence arises. A good chunk of the story revolves
around the poker game, and director Martin Campbell never achieves any
worthwhile tension in these scenes. There's one of the movie's four action
sequences, a chase in a stairwell, randomly thrown in the middle of the poker
plot to spice things up, but it feels forced. The other action sequences fare
much better. Instead of the gadget-heavy, exaggerated action to which we've
become accustomed, the sequences here are based slightly more in reality. The
lengthy chase in Madagascar succeeds the most, with Bond and Mollaka running and
climbing up the steel of a construction site. Another has Bond hanging on for
dear life to a truck rigged to explode as a terrorist attempts to knock him
off. The climax is a shoot-out in a building collapsing into the canals of
Venice, which provides an added dynamic to what could be pretty standard stuff.
Other than the story's weak points, there's also
the problem that, while Le Chiffre has a creepy gimmick in the form of tear
ducts that bleed, Bond's arch-nemesis finds himself at the mercy of other,
lesser characters more than once. He's a generic villain and, at best, a mild
threat to our hero. One distressing scene has Le Chiffre torturing Bond (it
involves a nude Bond, strapped to a chair with no bottom, and a length of rope),
and while it gives the villain a bit more menace, the scene is more intriguing
for the fact that Bond shows inklings of masochism. The notion is one of the
better character moments for a Bond who hardly talks, especially early in the
film, and it gives Craig one of many chances to allude to Bond's darker side.
This brooding Bond is sometimes refreshing, but there might be too much of it
here. It's a wise move to show Bond in love here to balance his character, and
Eva Green is positively stunning in the role. Throughout the course of the
movie, there are hints of the charismatic character we've become used to, but by
the end, Bond seems to be on his way to a permanent stay in the shadows of his
pain.
Where this new vision of the
series is heading could have promise, and it's good this is not a prequel. A
character like Bond should already be pretty well-defined after 20 movies, and
an origin story is almost a trivial exercise, really. It doesn't have to be, of
course, but that's what Casino Royale ultimately feels like.
Videos:
Trailer:
Backstage in London:
Canadian TV Review:
DVD Extras:
Interactive menus, Scene access, Enhanced for WideScreen TV, Subtitles (English, Hindi), Subtitles for hard of hearing (English), Other documentaries ('Becoming Bond', 'James Bond for Real', 'Death in Venice', 'Bond Girls Are Forever', News Wraps), Bonus tracks (Chris Cornell - 'You Know My Name')
Links:
Daniel Craig section at UKHotMovies.com: includes biography, picture gallery and wallpapers
Who is the best Bond? - article comparing all the James Bonds
| 
