Casino Royale

I loved James Bond films when I was a kid. I saw Diamonds Are Forever when I was ten and it was a pivotal moment in my life. The film excited me in ways that unleashed my creative juices. It was just so cool that I knew I wanted to make up stories like that. Of course, looking at that film now it's kind of silly, but I still think the five original Sean Connery Bond films--Doctor No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball, and You Only Live Twice--remain the gold standard for Bond films. Roger Moore was too effete for the role. By the time Pierce Brosnan inherited the role, the franchise seemed to be just another series of action films, with stuff blowing up. I'm not even sure which of the Brosnan films I've seen, as they all had interchangeable titles. I know I didn't see the one where Denise Richards plays a nuclear physicist.

So when Daniel Craig was announced as the new Bond and they would, in essence, start all over again, with the first Ian Fleming Bond tale, Casino Royale. I wasn't excited. But the positive reviews got me interested, and I saw the film on Saturday. I was very impressed. Much as Christopher Nolan did in Batman Begins, Bond has been recreated. We see him in his first mission as a Double-O agent, and much closer to how Fleming envisioned him, a "blunt instrument." We even get a hint of a characterization of the man, getting a shred of his past (he's an orphan) and seeing him have doubts about his profession. He even tells his "Bond girl" that he's in love with her.

The Bond girl this time is around is Eva Green, and it's hard to argue against the fact that she's the most beautiful actress to ever hold that role. She is an absolute vision of loveliness. She, also, has a character to play, Vesper Lynd, an accountant from MI6 that is to watch over the money that Bond uses in a high-stakes poker game.

The plot is a bit superfluous--it concerns a banker to terrorists, called Le Chiffre, who weeps blood and has a genius for numbers. Suffice it to say that we get the usual Bond structure--one set piece every twenty minutes or so, including a dazzling foot race through a construction site and a fight in a fuel truck on airport tarmac. The romantic idyll before the inevitable last act goes on a bit long, though.

There are the other usual Bond touches, such as an elaborate credits sequence and a fairly disposal song, this time by Chris Cornell. Missing are the gadgets (Q does not appear) and the quips Bond usually makes. This Bond isn't much of a comedian. But the film is a grand entertainment and I look forward to the direction they are taking the character.