Time Capsule Review: "Casino Royale"

I recently stumbled upon some reviews I did back in college for the La Salle Collegian. In the interest of condensing all of my reviews on this site, I've decided to upload them sporadically. I've chosen not to update them, mostly because I like the concept of reviews as time capsules for how we feel about movies at the time we first see them.

Below is a review of Casino Royale, which I originally reviewed in December of 2006. The film relaunched the James Bond series with Daniel Craig in the lead, resulting in what I believe is the greatest run on Bond movies in the franchise’s 50 plus years. Other than a ridiculous torture scene, Casino Royale is perfect, which is why you’ll see I called it the greatest Bond film (although Skyfall challenged that title six years later).

The whole movie, and really a great deal of this Daniel Craig run of
Bond films, hinges on the relationship with Vesper Lynd.

After 44 years in Hollywood, James Bond has finally received a notable makeover. Obviously, he’s changed a bit over the years, with five different actors and various levels of campiness pervading the first 20 films.
 

However, with the hiring of Daniel Craig, the sixth actor to play the super spy, Bond’s gone through his most significant changes ever. He hasn’t just gone blonde; no, with Craig drinking the martinis and wearing the tux, Bond has also made a play for three-dimensionality.

 

While it will always remain debatable if Craig’s portrayal is as good as Connery’s iconic depiction, one thing is certain: Craig is without a doubt the best actor to carry a license to kill. Connery may have an Oscar on his shelf, but he’s got a sliver of the range that Craig, a long-time character actor who’s given great performance after great performance in films like Road to Perdition, Layer Cake and Munich, brings to the table.
 

Turns out that range, which would’ve been unnecessary in many past Bond films, is of utmost importance in the latest Bond outing, Casino Royale. This is a Bond that screws up, bleeds (a lot) and gets down and dirty with his kills. He barely uses gadgets and when asked if he wants his martini shaken or stirred replies, “Do I look like I give a damn?”

 

Most importantly, although he’s a cold-blooded killer, he shows surprising sensitivity and genuinely falls in love. Craig pulls all of this off, but he can’t be given all of the credit. After all, the excellent script is what demands these things of his James Bond.

 

Like last year’s Batman Begins, Casino Royale aims to reboot the legend of its hero. The film opens very stylistically, with director Martin Campbell (who helmed Goldeneye, the best Pierce Brosnan flick) utilizing black and white, grainy film stock and obtuse camera angles, as Bond gets his first two kills to achieve double-O status.

Once the color kicks in, so does the plot. The film is divided into three acts. The first, the most Bondian by previous movie standards, has two thrilling chase scenes, and shows Bond at his smoothest, upstaging bad guys and charming one of their wives, while trotting all over the world looking to identify his mark: Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen).

Le Chiffre needs to win the pot at an exclusive poker game at the Casino Royale in Montenegro, as he recently lost a good bit of some very bad people’s money (due to the meddlings of Bond in the first act). A great poker player, Bond gets shipped to Montenegro with an accountant named Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) along for the ride.

The second act slows things down considerably, taking place mostly at the poker table. Despite minimal action, this portion is tension-packed, both at the table in interchanges between Bond and Le Chiffre, and in the fatal way Le Chiffre attempts to take Bond out of the game. The budding romance between Bond and Vesper further builds the tension.

I won’t get into the third act, other than to say it goes in an unexpected direction, showcasing a fallible Bond scraping to keep things together.

Bond hasn’t been this real since On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the last time producers attempted to humanize him with an actual love interest (as opposed to a sexual conquest). It works a lot better in this film, with Craig successfully essaying a Bond that still hasn’t learned to detach himself from life.

For her part, Green cuts out a memorable character. She’s vulnerable, conflicted and, to appease the purist, beautiful. She goes toe-to-toe with Craig in their verbal bouts, and is totally believable as the woman who could melt the heart of such a cold secret agent. She’s a big reason why the romantic relationship, and thus Bond’s conflict, works so well.

Mikkelsen does a good job showing the desperation of Le Chiffre, a man with a tell even worse than Malkovich’s in Rounders. Dame Judi Dench, the lone holdover from the Brosnan days, is given much more to do this time around as M, and she’s perfectly matched with Craig. In a smaller role, the dynamic Jeffrey Wright shows up as Felix Leiter, a mainstay in the Bond tradition. It is noteworthy that Felix and M seem to be the only two returning characters; Moneypenny and Q are nowhere in sight.

Over the years, the James Bond series has adhered to a very specific formula. While a handful of the films have been good in their own right, specifically the first few Connery films, the rest have managed to coast along on explosions, babes, charm, ridiculous schemes and gadgets.

Casino Royale screws with the formula by adding a sense of reality to the world Bond inhabits, while simultaneously adding depth to the super spy himself. It’s a welcome change of pace, and the series seems to be headed in an exciting new direction with a riveting leading man. So, if you’re looking for an action film in the midst of the holiday season, Casino Royale is the film to see. It’s the best action film of the year, and the best Bond film period. A

For the 50th Anniversary of the Series, Skyfall Offers an Excellent, Meta Take on James Bond

Skyfall focuses on Bond's relevance and his place in the shadows.

Six years ago, Casino Royale relaunched the Bond franchise amid questions of whether or not James Bond was still relevant in the Post-Bourn world. With a more realistic tone and Daniel Craig’s altered take on the super spy, the film was well received, both commercially and critically (I wrote highly of it and ultimately included it in my top 5 of 2006), seemingly putting that talking point to bed.

For Bond’s 50^th year on the silver screen, Craig returns for a third go around in the tux (following the successful, but unfairly-maligned Quantum of Solace), and this time the decision has been made to go meta, as the film itself focuses on the relevancy of Bond, as well as the entirety of MI6.

It’s an interesting direction for the series to take in the current international landscape, and the film sees Bond’s boss M (Judi Dench) comes under fire in a public inquiry after being told by bureaucrat Mallory (Ralph Fiennes) “This is a democracy. We're responsible to the people we're supposed to defend! We can't walk in the shadows anymore. There are no more shadows!” She responds with an impassioned speech in which she claims villains are attacking us from the shadows and expresses the need for an agency adept in that realm.

Judi Dench is front and center in her seventh outing as
M, and takes full advantage of the extra screen time.

It’s a great scene for Dench, whose prominence has grown throughout the last seven Bond films. Here, she’s a second lead character, and although it’s not a sexual relationship, and there are a few traditional babes on hand here, she is Skyfall’s Bond girl. M’s relationship with Bond, as well as with the villain Silva (Javier Bardem), forms the backbone of the film.

For his part, Bond too is being questioned. An early assignment gone wrong leaves Bond shot and left for dead, and after he resurfaces, he is required to prove he is fit for duty. Although M forces him through, he actually fails his exam, proving a shoddy marksman and, worse, a psychological mess.

Throughout his tenure as Bond, Craig and the filmmakers have made atypical choices in their interpretation of Bond, making him a bit of a brute and yet entirely vulnerable. Shortly after being introduced in Royale, Craig ran through a wall, and despite the cultured sense of style, he’s consistently rough around the edges with a chip on his shoulders that love interest Vesper Lynd suggested was due to his status as an orphan (a plot point that gets a lot more development here and is the origin of the film’s title).

Although he now takes his martini shaken not stirred (as opposed to not giving a damn in Royale), he has still yet to become the detached, indestructible Bond we’re used to. Skyfall marks only the second time in the 23-film series that the super spy has been shot, and it continues to show Bond having tender, real connections with women (here it’s M, but the love and pain he felt for Vesper were integral to both Royale and Quantum).

Bond’s presented as being a lesser specimen than Silva, M’s former protégée, who was cut loose for being a loose cannon and is now seeking revenge against the woman he calls “mommy.” He’s an interesting counterpart to Bond, who himself is determined to be dispensable by M during the opening reel.

For his part, Bardem proves one of the most memorable Bond villains in the series’ long history. From his bombastic entrance over halfway through the film to his painfully raw last scene, it’s hard to take your eyes off of him. Silva is an evil mastermind, but he’s also understandable, and Bardem does a good job showing just how a Bond-like agent could morph into an unstable Bond baddie. Bardem has received some awards attention for the role, and I’m hoping he garners the first acting Oscar nod for a Bond film. If Anton Chigurh wasn’t already proof enough, Silva proves nobody plays a bad guy quite like Bardem.

Javier Bardem submits a bad guy performance that can 

stand toe-to-toe with his own Anton Chigurh, Heath 

Ledger's Joker, and Christoph Waltz's Hans Landa.

Silva may be better, but the one thing going for Bond is highlighted in the last words of M’s speech during her inquiry, a quotation from Ulyssess: “Though much is taken, much abides, and though we are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are... One equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.” In fact, when asked by Silva what his hobby is, Bond’s one word answer is “resurrection.”

I realize now, I’ve come very far into this review and have merely scratched the surface of the film. It’s worth noting just how prestigious the crew is. Oscar winner Sam Mendes (American Beauty) was convinced to direct the film by Craig, who starred in the director’s Road to Perdition, and he brought along his regular cinematographer, living-legend Roger Deakins (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford). Oscar-nominee John Logan (Hugo) also joined the writing crew this time out, and Adele contributes the main theme song.

All make their mark here. Mendes shepherds everything nicely, while Deakins submits several beautiful sequences, particularly a fight that takes place entirely in silhouette against the backdrop of an LCD building in Shanghai (not only does it look great, but the scene is one of many images that plays off of all the talk of fighting in the shadows). Meanwhile, Logan has already been tasked with writing the next two entries in the series (this is the swan song for Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, who have worked on each of the last five Bond films), and Adele submits the best Bond song in years.

Before closing, I should mention, Skyfall serves as a caper to what could be called the Bond origin trilogy, resetting everything in the mold of the early Sean Connery films. It introduces us to Q (quirkily played by Ben Whishaw) and Moneypenny (an enticing Naomie Harris), and much of the film is a loving homage to those early films. The gadgets are retro, the iconic Aston Martin plays a key role, and the film proves the least Bourn-infused of the Craig era. Albert Finney even fills an important last act role that one imagines may have been originally intended for Connery (at the very least, the decision to make the character Scottish plays as a tribute to the actor). At one point in the film, Moneypenny says, “sometimes, the old ways are best” and, if Skyfall is any indication, she has an excellent point. A