Bond's no Bourne ... problem is, Bond's not Bond either

Rating: 2/10 (29 November 2006)

The latest Bond outing, Casino Royale, starring Daniel Craig in the leading role, is over-hyped rubbish. Sorry. I know it has plentiful fans and critical support, but I was thoroughly unimpressed by the whole experience.
I had high hopes for this film. After the dire Die Another Day, I couldn't see any other direction for the franchise to go, but up. How wrong I was.
In truth, the Bourne franchise, with Matt Damon as the super-cool tough guy Jason Bourne, fighting against the worst excesses of the US secret services, has knocked Bond for six. The dark, gritty froideur of Bourne and the imaginative direction from first Doug Liman and then Paul Greengrass ensured Bond looked kitsch and laboured in comparison. Bond producers were rightly concerned. Their solution, it seemed, was to emulate Bourne. Big mistake!
Bond and Bourne are based on entirely different premises. James Bond is an insider, he works for Mi6, and according to Ian Fleming, Bond is Eton-educated, a man born out of British imperialist traditions. (Although in this new version of Casino Royale, Bond is strictly State-school).
Jason Bourne is an outsider of uncertain origin - a CIA-trained killing machine who is now intent on recovering his identity. Thus, however maverick or disobedient Bond may be, he is ultimately on government pay, whereas Bourne is a social outcast, unearthing the dark and sinister secrets underpinning the State - the prime source of all the best paranoid conspiracy theories, which epitomise the uncertain, fearful world we live in today. From this point of view, Bond is pretty much stuffed.
Casino Royale is even further hampered by its lack of a decent plot-line. Yes, yes, we know this is now post 9/11 ... Judi Dench's M tells us this in the starkest terms possible. But this has little effect on plot detail it seems. Even the rise of extremist Islamic terrorism hasn't informed the new look Bond, in spite of being viewed world over as the major terrorist force of our times.
So what do we get with Casino Royale? A muddled narrative which focuses on financial fraud - namely fixing stock prices by means of sponsoring terrorist actions. Which terrorists? Well, we never learn this vital piece of information.
Our 'Bond Villain' is the terrorist money-man, Mads Mikkelson, complete with a creepy bleeding tear-duct, who has lost $150m and needs to recoup it in a poker game. Wow whoopee .... edge of the seat stuff ... I was almost crying with boredom. The plot thus revolved, seemingly, around this $150m, and Bond's sharpest card-playing tactics to prevent it falling into the wrong hands. Now I hate to be flippant - but let's face it, $150m is diddly-squat in the big scheme of things.
To be fair, the opening scenes, Bond's first kills, were fantastic. And then there was an exciting high wire crane-chase with Bond hunting down a bomb-maker in Madagascar. All good stuff. We then had a mildly riveting action sequence at Miami airport with Bond trying to save a new Skyfleet super-plane from being blown up by the bad guys. But it went dramatically downhill from there.
Bond was dispatched to Montenegro and the interminable poker game at the heart of the film - which was punctuated, mercifully, by a few bouts of unbridled violence. This sequence culminated in a much-hyped torture scene, and then there was an endless coda in Venice, when Bond discovers the true perfidy of Vesper Lynd, the slink Missy he has fallen for.
Lynd was played by the stylish French actress Eva Green, whose plummy British vowels sounded like she was gobbling clumps of broken china and had a bad cold to boot, poor dear. Plus, her natural good looks were swamped by lashings of thick black kohl.
As for Bond himself. Could Daniel Craig overcome his critics? In a word, no ... Except, yes. The critics have positively wet themselves with surprised glee, admiration and probably contrition at Craig's Bond. This universal acclaim has declared him to be the best Bond since Connery. How can this be??
I seriously wonder if I am living on an alternative planet ... Craig's Bond was mediocre, at best (and believe me, I was cheesed-off at the whiny Craig-bashing pre-Bond). His primary facial expression was a strangely screwed-up, pursed-lip 'thing' which riled me. His voice is flat and toneless and he lacked charisma. Worse still, he is humourless.
OK so we know the famous Bond 'quips' were a non-starter in this all-new, oh-so-serious Bond ... well Bond producers, scriptwriters et al, get over yourselves! We need a Bond with a 'twinkle' - even while dispatching the villains with calculated, sociopathic violence. Bond's wit is an essential ingredient. Jason Bourne, of course, does not need to be funny. That is not his style, which is born out of anguish, pain, a sense of loss. But then again, this is not Bourne. I'll just repeat that. THIS IS NOT BOURNE.
Craig, in fairness, was given precious little to work with. He is a fine actor. But in Casino Royale, the script is risible. During the interminable poker- game we actually get 'commentary' from one of the secondary characters, Mathis (Giancarlo Gianninni). And still, the game doesn't make sense.
On the plus side, the locations are magnificent. Montenegro is a combination here of the Czech Republic and Italy's spectacular Lake Como, and the Bahamas look fabulous. As a deluxe tourist brochure Casino Royale is at its very best.
I was surprised to see that Martin Campbell had directed this film so poorly. I loved Goldeneye. It was outlandish, silly, occasionally hammy, but boy, was it a thrilling ride!! But this seems far too much like good, old-fashioned audience-pleasing fun for the new look po-faced Bond.