Daniel Craig: Blond, Brutish, Short, and the Best Bond in Years!

Rating: 9/10 (25 November 2006)

I saw the new, gritty, pulse-pounding CASINO ROYALE (CR) on opening weekend, and *IT ROCKS!!!* I sat grinning smugly from ear to ear, my faith in Daniel Craig as the new James Bond proving well-founded as the pumped audience cheered and carried on! After seeing him in LAYER CAKE and MUNICH, I knew Craig would make an awesome 007, despite all those tiny minds out there ready to reject him as being too blond, brutish, and short. :-) CR totally reboots the Bond series. Right from its spectacular, stylish black-and-white opening sequence in which Bond earns his "license to kill" status and then some, this movie kick-starts James Bond as an ass-kicker with shades of vulnerability and reserves of ruthlessness that do both Ian Fleming and Sean Connery proud! Even my mom, who swore she'd never love another Bond after her fave Pierce Brosnan, gushed about Craig after seeing CR, and there's much to gush about. For one thing, Craig's got the rugged good looks of a Cro-Magnon Steve McQueen, with bristly blond hair and laser-sharp blue eyes that could drill right through you, plus a buff physique that's shown off delightfully when he emerges from the surf in the Bahamas. It's the male version of Ursula Andress' introductory scene in DR. NO -- yes-s-s! :-) Heck, Craig's naked body is so amazing to behold, even villain Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen, who'd be an intimidating presence even without Le Chiffre's unnerving tears of blood, the result of an old eye injury) makes approving remarks about Bond's build as he tortures him in a scene that's faithful to Fleming's original novel while improving on it at the same time. However, I didn't appreciate the decision to change the film's high-stakes baccarat game to Texas Hold 'Em poker. Maybe they thought more moviegoers would identify with a poker game, but it seems to me that the sophistication of baccarat is more appropriate for a Bond movie. Despite that quibble, in addition to balancing intensity and dry wit that deftly kids the time-honored Bond movie traditions/clichés (as opposed to the overdone, forced jokiness that's plagued the series off and on since the Roger Moore years), Craig has a humanity that I feared had been formula'd out of 007. Take Bond's ever-evolving relationship with British Treasury Agent Vesper Lynd, as played by THE DREAMERS' Eva Green. While Green doesn't quite possess the screen presence or charisma of such classic Bond leading ladies as Andress, Honor Blackman, or Jane Seymour, she and Craig still strike enough sparks to be a good match physically and emotionally, each of them hardened loners who slowly grow to love each other (the result of Oscar-winner Paul Haggis contributing to the script, perhaps?), plus I like the wry twinkle in Green's aquamarine eyes. Most of the cast is terrific, including Dame Judi Dench returning as no-nonsense spymaster M (the flinty relationship between Dench's M and Craig's Bond feels more like a battle of wills here -- wholly appropriate, since this is essentially Bond's first case as a Double-0 agent), and Giancarlo Giannini as the shifty Mathis. Jeffrey Wright, another fave in our household, has a nice moment or two as Felix Leiter, Bond's CIA contact, but overall he gets surprisingly little to do. Oh, well, maybe Wright had scenes left on the cutting room floor, or maybe he'll have more to do in subsequent Bond films. The action scenes owe more to films like RESERVOIR DOGS than previous Bond films (which should make original CASINO ROYALE fan Quentin Tarantino happy :-), and I'm not just saying that because two of these scenes take place in bathrooms! :-) There's a down-and-dirty, kinetic fleetness to CR's action scenes (with some cool and unexpected locations, including the macabre Body Worlds exhibit and the Miami Airport. Between CR and the 2002 comedy BIG TROUBLE, the Miami Airport is certainly an embattled place, at least on film! :-), especially a wild foot chase between Craig and Sebastien Foucan that takes them through a construction site and into Foucan's embassy -- and with this new, no-holds-barred Bond, if this creep thought he'd be safe in his embassy, he was kidding himself! Forget Shaft -- the new Daniel Craig version of James Bond is a bad mutherf***er! :-) Long may he reign!