Casino Royale

It’s been four years since the last James Bond movie marred the silver screen, the longest break between films since the six-year wait for “GoldenEye.” I guess whenever the powers that be decide to cast a new actor as Britain’s favorite secret agent with a license to kill, they are forced to take a little extra time.
“Casino Royale” is the twenty-first James Bond film, though you’d never realize it because up until now they have all been the same thing, give or take a certain amount of quality. Each time a Bond movie comes out, it seems, it is compared to “Godfinger” the third film in the series and the gold standard, no pun intended.
There has been a lot of controversy about this latest addition, specifically about the casting of blond hair and blue-eyed actor Daniel Craig in the lead. He is the sixth to step into the role and many people were not happy at the idea of relinquishing the “tall, dark, and handsome” Bond they’ve come to know.
Before I really start picking this movie apart it is important to point out that for a long time I have been an avid hater of James Bond. Not Ian Fleming’s 007, I hated the silver screen version of Bond. He was always so full of himself and outlandish, and worst of all he wasn’t cool. Being cool means that you don’t have to try at it. James Bond was always trying too hard, until now.
How amazing that after twenty movies, approximately 45 hours of James Bond shooting things, running, and womanizing, there’s still enough talent out there to not only resurrect the nearly dead career of 007, but give us one of the best Bond films to date.
There is almost no explanation for why it’s taken twenty-one films to finally get to Fleming’s first James Bond novel; after all they’ve made films out of the other thirteen original books. Even now that it’s here, the story and setting of Casino Royale has been modified to fit the present day.
The whole film is a fresh updated approach at James Bond; updated and improved. Gone are the increasingly ridiculous gadgets that have always been a staple of the Bond legacy. Gone are the megalomaniac villains bent on world destruction and/or domination. Most importantly, gone is the smug obnoxious Agent 007 that somehow evolved from the decent guy Sean Connery portrayed in the first four films.
Dame Judi Dench reprises the role of M, ever weary of Bond’s method of getting the job done. She is the only remaining cast member from the previous films and it seems that this time around she is particularly sharp in her role, most likely due to the markedly improved dialogue she delivers with such impeccable timing and tone.
Daniel Craig gives us a younger less experienced Bond that is just starting his career, and must overcome a number of doubts concerning his ability to do his job efficiently. To say that he is the best Bond since Sean Connery is not enough. Craig is the first and only actor to really bring to life Fleming’s Bond, and doing so sets himself apart from the previous five Bonds so that comparison is not really an option, for now. He is scheduled to return for Bond 22, so perhaps after he has spent more time as the character he can be realistically compared to the likes of Connery, though I wouldn’t hold your breath, he has already brought more personality to the character than the other five combined.
“Casino Royale” may have reworked a lot of traditional Bond elements, but rest assured, there are still the gorgeous women to accompany Bond in his daring escapades. Eva Green joins the cast as Vesper Lynd, a treasury agent and Bond’s counterpart in his mission. They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but as far as I can see, Eva Green is hands down the most beautiful Bond Girl ever to grace the screen. She’s not to shabby when it comes to the witty banter with Bond, either.
The Villain is a banker to many terrorists of the world, a man called Le Chiffre, played by Mads Mikkelsen. Besides having the frightful condition of weeping tears and relying heavily on his inhaler, this Bond antagonist will most likely go down in film history for his truly awful method of torturing Bond that must be seen to be believed.
The cast is superb, but, as it ought to be, Craig’s Bond stands out as the movie’s strongest character. What makes this movie different from its predecessors is the fact that it is not created solely as an excuse for action scenes and beautiful women. Paul Haggis, known for his work on “Million Dollar Baby” and “Crash,” wrote the screenplay for “Casino Royale,” and between his skill and Fleming’s original vision the movie has turned out to be a story about the characters, what they feel and how they act, rather than how many people they can kill in a two hour feature.
The movie tells the story of the origin of James Bond, and after seeing it the audience has a much better idea of what makes him tick, so to speak. It is a terrific film, completely apart from the other twenty available. Because there are so many Bond films, measuring their quality becomes a process of comparing them to the previous ones. It’s no Best Picture contender, but in terms of a Bond film it is a total success and for years to come it will be the Bond film to beat.

I like having a Blog because, even if no one reads them, I can at least qualify my reviews rather than just stamping a grade on them. as I tried to point out in the end of my review up there, I measure Bond movies, or comic book movies, or war movies, or whatever genre of movies, by different standards. I mean there's the basic stuff that makes a quality movie, but there's different stuff for different types. I don't really care if it seems like a grade that's too high for a mere action movie, this was the best Bond I've ever seen and by the standards of a Bond movie it was pretty much perfect!

A