Bond in the beginning

Rating: 5/10 (1 May 2007)

Everyone knows what a James Bond movie should be like, with spectacular special effects, evil villains and Bond's suave sexiness. A host of actors have played the role with different emphasis, and the last Bond movie I saw, featuring an invisible car, was fun but very close to parody (the difference between it and the 'Austen Powers' Bond-spoofs was really quite small). In fact, Mike Myers was not the first to spoof Bond: the rights to Ian Fleming's first Bond novel, 'Casino Royale', were separate from his later novels and the story was filmed independently from the rest of the Bond movies to comic effect. Now we get an "offical" 'Casino Royale', and a new Bond to boot. Daniel Craig is the least suave Bond to date, he seems to have inner demons, and the story has been filmed with Bond cast as an inexperienced young agent: the soundtrack reflects this, denying us the familiar Bond theme until its hero has earned it at the end of the movie. There's also a darker note to the plot (although it's disappointingly softened in the debrief). Unfortunately, the gambling scenes are desperately dull (think 'The Cincinatti Kid' for evidence that they can be done better) and the movie as a whole is neither fish nor fowl: you can't quite take it seriously as a thriller, and there are fewer campy laughs than in the rest of the series. But the public seems to like it, and so this rather ludicrous franchise continues into a new age.