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by The Chocolate Lady

• Rating:

• A
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• A

Welcome to the world of fighting international espionage with England's famous MI6 and their newest "double 0" agent, one Mr. Bond, James Bond that is. After mangling his first 007 assignment, MI6 decides to take advantage of his expert poker skills and enter him into a high-stakes game to try to win away the hundred million dollars that otherwise would end up in hands of the evil Le Chiffre, financier to global terrorists. This is the story of the new movie "Casino Royale" and here is my opinion of it (and I apologize in advance that it won't be a short one).

First, I have to say that this is one excellent reboot of the Bond franchise. The action scenes are compelling and without all those extraordinary and unbelievable gadgets, that Bond is so famous for (which some might see as a bad thing, but not having John Cleese doing his horrendous Q parody was a huge relief to me). Here Bond has to use his wits and his own physical abilities to do what needs doing. Some of the stunts in the chases were so beautifully done, they bordered on being inhuman, but stopped short of looking CGI fake. What's more, it seems that Daniel Craig has both the smarts and the physical strength to pull these off. Mind you, not without getting some bumps, bruises and bashes. Which is another thing that most people have noted this Craig's Bond is far more human than his predecessors were. When you cut him, he does in fact bleed. In addition, what is a Bond movie without a good car chase and/or a good car wreck? Well, CR has some of that, too just so we car-chase/wreck-lovers won't feel neglected. In CR, when Bond wrecks a car, he really WRECKS it utterly!

As for the story, this original Ian Fleming first novel received updating to the 21st century with almost no feelings that we need to stretch our imaginations too far to believe it. We get references to 9/11 and playing the stock market to launder and increase the funds meant for the "freedom fighters" to use to buy all those fun weapons so they can wreck havoc on governments, armies and innocent citizens alike. There is even some nostalgia for the Cold War included ah, for that simpler time when it could all be boiled down to western democracy versus eastern communism.

The script they made from this story includes no small amount of humour as well. The humour here seems to be in three main categories. The first is sexual innuendo, for which Bond is so famous. No small amount of chuckles comes from Bond trying to suggest a tryst or even in the midst of one. The next one is the "laughing in the face of death" humour. These are where Bond witnesses something, has just escaped from, or is in a difficult situation and tries to make light of it. For instance, when Le Chiffre is torturing Bond and despite his obvious agony and assumed impossible situation, Bond tells Le Chiffre that he's amused that the world will know that the last thing his enemy did before he died, was scratch Bond's balls! The last category of humour is in the tributes to past Bond films. References to other films abound here, and inserted for their comedic value. One nice one is where Bond is talking to M's male assistant and the words that get special emphasis in the conversation are "money" and "penny" a wink to the fact that the character Moneypenny does not appear in this film.

Speaking of other characters, of course we have some luscious Bond girls, some dastardly villains as well as Bond's iron willed boss, M. As far as Bond girls go, we get a very short showing from Italian born Caterina Murino as Solange, but quite a bit of Eva Green playing Vesper Lynd. The villains are numerous in this film and I might be spoiling some of the movie if I mention them all however, the most famous one is Le Chiffre and he was played by Danish film star Mads Mikkelsen. Finally, we get Dame Judi Dench back as M. Of these performances, I have to say that Judi is at the top of her form; Eva comes off okay if a touch on the 'soft' side for my taste. We don't get enough of Caterina but her small part was very impressively done. Mads is a very good bad guy, but I found him a bit bland for my taste, despite the bloody tears.

Director Martin Campbell returns to the Bond franchise after his very successful work on Brosnan's first outing as Bond in Goldeneye. Campbell's forte is in finding something fresh with well-worn subject matter. It is no surprise that what got people back to watching Bond when Brosnan came in, is exactly what will get people back to watching Bond with Craig. Campbell has a 'let's shake things up' attitude, and doesn't settle for repeating successes of previous directors. In both movies, he pushes the envelope in the action scenes and tries to nudge Bond into someone just a bit more three-dimensional than he was before. He also knows how to make his viewers drool for the next installment.

By the way, I'm sure it was Campbell's idea to make the pre-credits opening scenes look very film noir' in almost black & white with a flash-back look to them. Gone is the first high-action chase where Bond barely gets away alive while miraculously completing his mission. I didn't really mind this at all, since this scene sets up the background for James' two kills so that he can be promoted to double-0 status. Very well done, if you ask me.

We shouldn't forget how we are treated to all those exotic settings included in Bond films, and this one delivers in spades. Bond is an international jet-setter here going to Uganda, the Bahamas, Montenegro, Venice, and of course, the good old UK (and I'm sure I'm missing a few others). The overhead scenery shots are as perfectly opulent or gritty as they need to be, and more. In fact, I understand that they made Montenegro look far more luscious than it really is. Too bad, since that did entice me to want to take a trip there.

So with all these plusses, you may be wondering why am I not giving this a full five stars. Well, to be perfectly honest, this film isn't perfect. The biggest problem with this film is its length. It is just extremely long. I can think of several places where this movie could have been cut down, and I think it would have added to this film's intensity. The scenes of Bond's recovery and all the lovey-dovey business with Vesper afterwards, are downright excessive. What's more, this seems incongruous for either character to behave so romantically or emotionally attached.

Yes, I enjoyed much of the action scenes, but I got the feeling that some of them were put in there just so that they could be duplicated in the video game version of this film. Many of these were overly long and drawn out, and could have been concluded much faster with the same effect. And while Craig does get bumped and bruised quite a bit in this film, he seems to have just a bit too much super-human recovery skills. Not that he's without a scratch throughout the film like some previous Bonds, but that his injuries do seem to heal a bit faster than most people's would. That's not the worst thing in the world, however.

I should admit that while I was originally prejudiced against Daniel Craig as Bond, I was pleasantly surprised that he did so well in this part. However, just like Brosnan in his Bond debut in "Goldeneye", Craig didn't seem totally comfortable in James's skin as I would have wished. Of course, I can forgive him this since it is his first outing in the part, but that wasn't my biggest problem with Daniel here. Aside from Craig being blond (which I don't think is appropriate for a Bond since Ian Fleming wrote him as being dark), I didn't find Craig to be either sexy enough or suave enough especially when he's put into his tuxedo. Yes, there are some very sexy shots of Craig especially when the camera took full advantage of his steely blue eyes, and chiselled physique but these mostly came through when he was messed up, casually dressed or undressed! He just didn't do it for me when he was dressed up, clean and fancy. This followed through into his sexual encounters and I'm afraid that when Craig gazed or kissed the girl, I didn't get that stomach flutter that a really good on-screen chemistry can give me.

This particular niggle may also be because of the problems I had with the Bond girls here. Solange isn't on the screen enough to really "cook" with Bond, so that little bit seemed a bit superfluous. With Vesper, however, there's plenty of film time for them to develop a spark. The problem is, Vesper's character has been written to be a more submissive Bond girl, of the type that was in the earlier movies. Bond girls started being more pro-active with "Licence to Kill" and reached their pinnacle with Michelle Yeoh in "Tomorrow Never Dies" with Halle Berry in "Die Another Day" equalling that level. I think making Vesper so soft was a huge step backwards for this franchise. We're in the 21st Century now, people. Women aren't just swooning pretty baubles that hang around the handsome guy's neck anymore, but Vesper is almost only that except that she's not completely stupid, and does say "no" to Bond instead of "well okay" when he needs her the most. There's one scene where Vesper tries to hide her true feelings from Bond which was such a classic example of ham acting that I'm shocked that Campbell let it through. Then there were all those giggles from her while they're in bed - come on! Thankfully they stopped short of giving Vesper an "Oh, James" line in this film, but only just. It really is a shame that the bar that has been steadily raising since "Licence to Kill", has been lowered back to the standard of "The Living Daylights" and before, with Eva Green's Vesper. Still, although this Bond girl fell short in strength, she at least provided appropriate eye-candy and was thankfully more believably intelligent than Denise Richards' atrocious Dr. Christmas Jones (nuclear physicist my a* - she probably couldn't even spell it!).

My last problems with this film are small ones. Firstly, the theme song "You Know My Name" by Chris Cornell is boring, to say the least. I can't for the life of me remember any of it, and I've even seen the guy perform it on Jay Leno. And that title - please, this is supposed to be a film about 007 before anyone knows who he is, so what's that all about? This was sung in front of a very pedestrian 1960s looking opening credits that did away with all the silhouettes of undulating female bodies we've all become so fond of. And then the shooting into the gun barrel bit was done differently and looked (as it apparently was) very fake and silly. Finally, we hardly get to hear any of the famous original James Bond theme music throughout the movie in the background, and they didn't even give it to us for the opening gun barrel sequence. Yes, we do hear some variations on the theme, but most of the jazz instrumental is gone. My question is "why"? These are things that are Bond signature bits, they don't need updating and could easily have remained without detracting from this being a reboot. Of course, these are small things, that can be overlooked, at least partially.

But after all is said and done, the truth is, this is still a very good film, despite all the drawbacks. Craig has the ability to be a really great Bond (albeit a blond one), he can do the action bits and cold-hearted licensed killer stuff perfectly. He's human enough to get beaten up and wear his bruises like a badge, but doesn't let them get in his way for long. He just needs to work a bit on the suave dressed up part and the on-screen sexual chemistry. The action scenes were edge of your seat', settings perfectly filmed, stunts amazing, special effects superb and whatever CGI they used was undetectable. Because of all that, I can't not recommend you see this film. If you do, I really think you'll enjoy yourself and like me, you'll be looking forward to the next installment.

Learn more about this author, The Chocolate Lady.

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