Royale Flush

Rating: 10/10 (17 November 2006)

Finally got round to penning my review of Casino Royale. I saw it on Tuesday 14th but its taken a few days to collect my thoughts and put them together, simply because you cannot review Casino Royale as 'another Bond movie'. It is clearly the most important Bond movie since Live And Let Die, when the producers took the decision to find a serious replacement to Connery. Gone are Q (well, he died anyway and was replaced by a man who only used to be funny), invisible cars, CGI surfing, villains with big laser beams and girls who comment on how 'frisky' Bond is.
One hack in his review of Casino Royale commented on how great Craig was compared to Brosnan who was just "a fat ageing gigolo in a rented tux" which I thought was unnecessarily cruel, but after watching CR I have to admit the guy may have a point. Craig may have blond hair, be a bit short and, for some reason, looks like John Nettles in one scene but he is undeniably the best Bond since Connery, in fact he may well be the best Bond ever. He combines the serious acting credentials of Dalton (in fact he's a better actor than Dalton even) with the athleticism and panther like presence of Connery and brings his own sense of brutality to the role. Bond has never been more dangerous.
It was about 10 minutes into the movie I realised how important this really is. Bond, trapped in an embassy with an errant terrorist he has been chasing, needs to find an escape route. Roger or Pierce would have resorted to a handy gadget and either blow a hole in the wall or cut through the floor with a laser beam but Craig simply grabs this guy by the cuff of his coat and throws him head first through a plate glass window, leaps after him using the guy's body as a crash mat as he falls 20ft to the ground. He then half drags him across the ground to his escape point. The terrorist, who five minutes earlier was the coolest hardest free-running bad guy seen in years is reduced to a whimpering wreck by the sheer brutality of this new Bond. This new Bond is clearly so much more dangerous than before, but equally because of that we realise that Bond himself is in much more danger than before - Something later emphasised in a vicious torture scene.
Some people are commenting that this film doesn't feel like a Bond movie. To some extent they are right. If what constitutes a Bond movie has been refined and set in stone over the past 20-30 years, then no, it is definitely not a bond movie. But consider Dr No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger and OHMSS. For the first three there was no real formula (it was Goldfinger that set the formula - so Goldfinger is similar to the others, but at the time it was an original). They were all clearly spy thrillers with creepy villains, a dangerous but suave leading man and a girl in tow but each film stood on its own. I think Casino Royale fits perfectly with that group. The core basic elements are there but are not presented in the way we would expect given the past 30 years. What I think is most disorientating is that this is the first film since OHMSS that is actually about James Bond. Its focus is on how he handles events, how he reacts, how he responds to people. The audience has expectations of how he should react and that he doesn't react in that expected away and the following focus on that is unusual.
This Bond is much, much closer to the books. Many of the more 'domestic' scenes at the Hotel Splendide, the recuperation section, the scenes in the Bahamas and the seduction of Solange are all completely new to the film Bond but are straight out of the books.
Curiously the Bond theme makes no appearance until right at the end, but I did not miss it. It's triumphant anthemic qualities would not have worked, as it reminds us of an superhero safe from anything the villains can throw at him, which is not what this film is about So, it is the best Bond movie in years, and potentially ever - but only time can prove that