You Won't Mind Trying This Kind Of "BOND-age"...

Rating: 9/10 (27 November 2006)

My thoughts on the recent 'reboot' of the 007 franchise...
I have been following the fascinating career of Daniel Craig for some time now; from his brief appearance as a male accessory for Angelina Jolie's Lara Croft, to the more recent LAYER CAKE, which even contains a scene that seemed to be an impromptu screen test for the Bond role.
Knowing what Craig's capacities were prior to his selection for CASINO ROYALE, I was looking forward to seeing what he would do with this iconic role, unlike the naysayers and knit-picking traditionalists who decried every aspect of his selection, from Craig's hair-coloring and height to the size of his ears and head (???). Now having seen the resulting product, I hope this will shut the lot of them up for good, (though I know that wish is impossible to have granted.)
So what we have here is a Bond as rough-hewn, hard and nearly as blank as a block of granite. He's not even near as finished as the super-spy we recognize him from past exploits, but awaiting the physical and emotional experiences that will sculpt and mold his future persona as perfectly as the hard body that Craig obviously spent a lot of time working on prior to snagging the part.
One of his 'sculptors', to his good fortune (and ours) is his Service boss, 'M', played here again by Dame Judi Dench. A lot has been made of their relationship in CASINO, with 'M' scolding and bringing him to heel as if he were a naughty schoolboy who just happened to have a license to kill and she was the stern headmistress. It's pretty obvious that the complainants are not paying attention. It's a new day, a new Bond and a new beginning, so for her to address him as if she'd known him for years would be completely anachronistic to the entire scenario.
The stage is set in the pulse-pounding black-and-white opening, when Bond makes the two kills required to attain his 'OO' status. He's young to the game, cocky and impetuous, but definitely not 'green'. He's a budding virtuoso of violence...a death-dealer-in-training who still doesn't recognize how dangerous it is to enjoy your work a little too much. The days when he delivers the 'coup de grace' to an unlucky assailant with a quick quip and a quaff of a perfectly shaken martini have not yet arrived. And it's the events that unfold here that will set him on the path.
The Purvis/Wade script (with an able assist from Paul Haggis) doesn't skimp on the action sequences during his development, however. The scenes where he tracks down terrorist quarry in Uganda are as heart-stopping as anything that's been done before, and it's a testament to his conditioning, quick wits and fortitude that Bond can even keep up with the "parkour"-prone criminal Mollaka (Sebastien Foucan).
Where CASINO excels, however, is showing the duality that not surprisingly existed in Bond's personality at the very beginning of his exploits. Even as he romances the wife of one of the main villain's flunkies because he considers 'dating' married women to be less complicated, his capacity for vulnerability and compassion are revealed as he develops a doomed romance with the ravishing Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), a government operative sent to bankroll James in a high-stakes poker bout in Montenegro, where the villain of the piece, Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen) is trying to raise money for terrorist-bound capital.
Although she's also there to keep an eye on the unpredictable agent, and she is very much his intellectual and sexual equal, keeping James reigned in is a bigger job that Vesper expected to handle. Especially when romantic sparks begin to fly, and the fans are flamed further - as they are in a pivotal scene in a shower after a particularly brutal fight sequence, when James consoles his traumatized chaperone, who has never been exposed to the baser aspects of her chosen profession.
This radical shift from rapscallion to romantic has not been explored since ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE, and Craig handles it beautifully. He has no problem making his infatuation believable, or the inevitable heartbreak when the affair takes a classically tragic turn (as must any romantically-tinged relationship Bond has.)
Fortunately he's backed by a cast that mostly rises to his level. Mikkelsen's Le Chiffre is creepily charismatic without being ridiculously megalomaniacal, in the tradition of most Bond baddies, (mercilessly spoofed by Mike Myers in the AUSTIN POWERS films), and only goes just looney enough in the proper setting...during a sadomasochistic torture sequence lifted faithfully from the original novel.
Renowned Italian actor Giancarlo Giannini is perfectly placed in his role as Bond's oily contact at the Montenegro casino where much of the action takes place, and Jeffrey Wright makes a brief but very meaningful appearance as Bond's friend at the CIA, Felix Leiter.
Director Martin Campbell hasn't been part of the franchise since GOLDENEYE, but with the handsome job he does here mounting the rebirth of Fleming's iconic character, here's hoping he'll be back to helm subsequent entries into the "new" series.
Though the running time could've been trimmed back a bit (perhaps during the poker sequences), this is one Bond picture that definitely soars, possibly over most of the ones before it.
Welcome back, James. We've missed you terribly.