Bond Month #21: Wow! What a Great Bond Film!!!

Rating: 9/10 (28 October 2013)

Before I talk about this extraordinary film, I'll give you a little background on the feeling of Bond at the time. 9/11 happened a couple of months before Die Another Day. That movie was viewed as lame and not the kind of Bond people felt was appropriate anymore. The question became, How to make Bond relevant in the post 9/11 environment? Casino Royale is the answer to this question. It is smart, tense, emotional, and above all, real. This is one of the finest in the series, so let me try to say my piece about it.
The plot comes right back to the espionage that made Bond famous, but of course with the modern twist on it. People have joked that you can put "Bond Begins" as the title, as if it was similar to Batman Begins. Well, it is his origin story, before he becomes the Bond we all know today. Heck this was the first Bond book ever written, yet somehow the 21st movie made. Hollywood politics for you, but I don't care, its a fantastic reboot.
Newly minted Agent 007 James Bond has to track down and bring to justice a broker named Le Chiffre, who supplies terrorists with money by destroying the competition. In order to bankrupt Le Chiffre and extort protection by MI6, Bond has to beat him an a poker tournament. Bond however is monitored by British banker Vesper Lynd, who Bond falls in love with, I think.
The acting in this movie is absolutely top notch. Daniel Craig, the first blond-haired Bond, is spectacular as Bond. He is the most physical and most intense Bond, but unlike Timothy Dalton, has the perfect blend of intensity and humor. He is a hard man who often doesn't like his job, but has some strange over-sense of loyalty to MI6 and M, played again by Judi Dench. Vesper joins my list of Tracy and Natalya as my absolute favorite Bond girls of all time. She is so smart and beautiful that it would be hard not to like her at all. She is also very complex and its revealed that there is more than her icy and controlled exterior. Le Chiffre is also a different kind of villain, he wants money, but that is because he is in debt and doesn't want to die. That's why his eye leaks blood, its when he feels anxious or when he is bluffing. This aspect initially seems over the top, but it seems real as it goes.
There is of course action. This action is beyond insanely amazing. We have an awesome opening with dangerously high jumps across construction cranes and rooftops, and then a great truck chase on an airport tarmac, and a huge fight in a sinking Venice house at the end. The action is truly a wonder to behold. They are nicely shot and edited, so everything is in focus.
This movie is truly amazing piece of cinema, and does what a movie should do. It presents amazingly written characters, and exquisite direction to give us an engrossing story for us to invest in. Even those who don't get poker, especially me, even those scenes give us enough understanding as to what is going on in the minds of those involved.
There are actually two scenes that I see as two of the best scenes in any movie.
1) After a brutal fight that Vesper had to become involved in, she is in shock and sits in the cold shower an tries to wash of the blood. Bond sits in and joins her, warms up the water and she puts her head in his shoulder. That is so romantic but it is not overdone at all and Craig sells a very compassionate side of Bond.
2) After the tournament, Bond and Vesper are kidnapped, and Bond is tortured. It is lifted directly from Fleming's book, but is updated to a rusty ship and a knotted rope to hit Bond's family jewels. This proved to audiences that Craig certainly had balls of steel for the role of Bond (every pun intended)
Martin Campbell came back to direct the movie and I am so happy he did. Just like GoldenEye, he had his own modern ideas of what should be done with a Bond film, and executes everything beautifully. But the writers have an amazing contribution to the story. There is actually a genuine plot twist that I won't dream of revealing and actually improves a problem I had with the original book. Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, and newcomer Paul Haggis really updated this for all audiences.
I absolutely loved this movie when I saw it in 2006, and so did a lot of critics. it will go down in history as one of the best Bonds out there.
This signaled the fresh new era of Bond, RRRIIIIGGGHHHHTTTT before Quantum of Solace comes along two years later, yeah that one was obviously coming. Brace yourselves, the review will not be kind to it.