James Bond for the 21st Century

Rating: 10/10 (17 November 2006)

After all the controversy Daniel Craig has proved his mettle as a Bond for the new generation of moviegoers.
Darker, more realistic in tone, "Casino Royale" is the long-awaited adaptation of Ian Fleming's first book chronicling the adventures of 007, everyone's favorite British superspy. If it weren't for the necessity of introducing the spy as though he never existed, I don't know if Craig, a fine actor in his own right, would have been so impressionable had he been in just the next in the long-running franchise. That they quite explicitly are starting over, makes more sense in terms of who Bond is and what he's about.
The film is less humorous than other movies, but a lot of the humor does stem from the sly references to the long-standing, immediately recognizable facets of what makes Bond Bond. "Shaken or stirred?" "Does it look like I give a damn?" Vesper Lynd in her introduction to Bond "I'm the Money." "And worth every Penny." Craig, in addition to turning in one of the best post-Connery Bonds, is, like Connery, an actor with considerable range. He's also got a bit of a following already. He's still a womanizer who, in this case, fancies married women, who are by nature lonely and dependent on their spouses. Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) is, in this case, everything Bond dislikes about women: cold, confident, and single--in essence, she is exactly like him. A great scene transpires where they analyze each other's character based on first impressions, nailing several qualities about each other that is symbolic of things to come. Thankfully, the scriptwriters did not have to go far to make Vesper a modern woman, as Fleming's own description of her was that she was beautiful with brains.
Mads Mikkelsen, ever the character actor, imbues the treacherous Le Chiffre with all sorts of eccentricities. Asthmatic, with an eyelid that weeps blood, he is also seen as a pawn in a much larger game. Desperate for money, and with investors out for blood, he is prepared to do whatever it takes to stay in their good graces.
The action scenes are exciting and full of amazing stuntwork, especially in the beginning, when Bond pursues a bomb-maker through a construction site. Non-actor Sebastien Foucan does some amazing acrobatic stuntwork, slipping his tall body through vents and making enormous vaults and leaps, where Bond has to improvise quite heavily to catch up with him.
Most of the movie is spent trying to figure out who James Bond is. And we are left satisfied. If the movie seems to drag a little too long, it is worth it, just to hear him say the most famous line of the whole franchise.
While Brosnan's suave portrayal of Bond as a dinosaur of the Cold War period worked well, here Craig gives us a man more atuned to modern cynicism and vulnerability, when the enemy is more elusive.