Bond is, well, bond

Rating: 7/10 (3 December 2011)

I'm not too familiar with the James Bond franchise, being one of those goddamn kids, so I probably went into this was the wrong expectations. All of the press for this movie is about how this is a darker, more mature and subdued version of Bond, all of which makes me really curious to see the other films to see what could make this dark and mature in comparison.
Casino Royale is less of a fluid whole and more of a set of loosely connected action set pieces: we start with a chase scene in Africa, move to the Caribbean where Bond thwarts some poorly-defined terrorists, then it's on to a high-stakes poker game, and then a final bout of betrayal while everyone checks their watch and wonders how much time is left in the movie.
And the action is pretty good, although completely over the top. The opening scene is especially inventive, and there's always a prevailing sense of tension -- even though we know, by virtue of the genre, that James Bond will survive and triumph, somehow the film makes us doubt it. The poker scenes will make anyone who knows the game spasm in their seat, but the tension is maintained effectively. Stylistically, it's very easy to respect Casino Royale.
At the same time, it's really not anything more than those action sequences -- the characters are flat repetitions of the same archetypes we've been seeing for 40+ years, and the dialogue is cringe-worthy. Of course, one doesn't go to a Bond movie for character depth, so in the end I have to give this a conditional thumbs up. It's a well-executed, mostly enjoyable blockbuster action movie, but not as sophisticated as the critics like to make it out.