Bond Begins

Rating: 8/10 (30 November 2006)

"Casino Royale" attempts to do for James Bond what last year's "Batman Begins" did for the Dark Knight. For the most part, it succeeds.
Although the twenty-first film in the long running 007 series, "Casino Royale" is based on Ian Fleming's first novel. This film aims to reboot the Bond franchise by stripping it of its tired formula and returning the character to his literary roots. It introduces Daniel Craig as the coldest, toughest, and most ruthless Bond since Sean Connery's 1962 debut in "Dr. No".
Despite the new lead actor and truer to Fleming approach, there are some curious throwbacks to the old series. The most obvious and perplexing is the return of Judi Dench as M. This is supposed to be the first double-o mission for Craig's Bond, yet he reports to Pierce Brosnan's old boss. Why the filmmakers didn't recast the role with a Bernard Lee (who perfectly embodied Fleming's M) type is baffling and creates a paradox between the previous series and the new one.
The film has a lengthy prologue before Bond actually reaches Casino Royale, meaning both the location and the book's plot. While this section contains some exciting action scenes, it's hard to follow and somewhat superfluous. Here Bond is piecing together who the terrorists are and what they're up to - the kind of thing a briefing in M's office would usually tell us.
But once Bond receives his orders to go up against the villain Le Chiffre, the film really kicks into high gear. For the most part this is Bond as Fleming wrote him. Bond is tortured as in the book. The violence is realistic and appears painful. James Bond probably loses more blood in this movie than in the previous twenty combined.
By the film's final scene, Daniel Craig proves the naysayers wrong. Daniel Craig _is_ James Bond, and the best since Connery. In that final scene he's not only wearing the same kind of three-piece suit Connery wore in "Goldfinger", he's also doing a damn good job of filling his shoes.
8/10