Enjoyable, but hardly anything to go nuts over

Rating: 7/10 (4 December 2006)

To me, Bond movies are very low on the cinematic totem pole, occupying the space right above Elvis movies and right below non-Pixar CGI talking animal movies. The new Casino Royale has been hailed as a reinvention of the series, and in some ways it is. It loses most of the high-tech gadgets and takes itself a bit more seriously than its immediate, Pierce Brosnan-starring predecessors (which I'll admit are the only ones I'm really familiar with, with the single exception of Dr. No). But honestly, the differences have been exaggerated. It still relies heavily on huge action set-pieces with drawn-out chases and loud explosions. It's very much an action movie of the current generation, and in no way represents anything trailblazing, in Bond or anything else. The story may be more down to Earth and more complex (or complicated), but the action sequences are just as ludicrous as anything you'll find in your average summer blockbuster. Plus, the thing runs on forever, a ridiculous two and a half hours, and there are long stretches where I was getting rather bored (especially during the completely unbelievable and uncharacteristic sub-plot where James Bond falls in love). It does have its good points. Eva Green is chief among them, as the most interesting woman Bond has ever been involved with, and by far the best actress that I've ever seen in the series. The villain, played by Mads Mikkelsen, is also quite good, though perhaps too reminiscent in his appearance of some of the earlier Bond villains like Dr. No and Auric Goldfinger. Judi Dench is the only returning actor, and she's wonderful as always. Also Jeffrey Wright, packing a fun surprise, and good ol' Giancarlo Giannini  nice to see he's still kicking! And Daniel Craig? Well, he's great. But so was Brosnan. The filmmakers involved with Brosnan just gave him crap to work with, and I guarantee you the same thing will happen to Craig. Casino Royale is definitely better than all of Brosnan's Bond films, but only by a slight margin. Remove Denise Richards as a nuclear scientist from The World Is Not Enough (and the line "I thought Christmas only came once a year"  one of the biggest howlers of all time) and that movie would have been just as serious and dramatic as this one is, and just as good. And neither would be as good as either of the Bourne movies, and, sadly, for 2006 movies Casino Royale comes in second behind another spy thriller, Mission: Impossible III. There are similar scenes in both films where the heroes have to shock themselves to stay alive. That scene in M:I:III is a hundred times more well done than the one here. Despite my complaints, I do think the film works perfectly fine as popcorn-munching entertainment, but to suggest that it's anything more than that is frankly laughable. One last note: this film ought to have been rated R. It's too violent to be PG-13.