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James Bond
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| Review: Daniel Craig gets 007 back to basics in ‘Casino Royale’ (B+) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| By Craig Outhier, Get Out | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| November 15, 2006 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
In “Casino Royale” — a winning back-to-basics franchise reboot along the lines of “Batman Begins” — director Martin Campbell and newly minted 007 Daniel Craig explore Bond’s origins as a pitiless assassin and his opportunistic attitude toward the opposite sex. The character’s 21st outing (22nd if you count the non-Broccoli-family-produced “Never Say Never Again”) is also his most vigorously psychological, a stripped-down, torqued-up character study as lean and angular as the fair-haired leading man himself. The movie certainly feels more businesslike than previous installments, starting with the opening credits sequence, uncharacteristically thin in the nude-female-silhouette department. The black-and-white prologue is unusual, too: We find Bond in Prague as a MI6 pledge, racking up his first kills before his superior, Q (Judi Dench), initiates him as a full-fledged 00 agent. Craig — who won the role based on his electric performance as a burned-out coke dealer in “Layer Cake” (2005) — has a desperate, piercing handsomeness that fits this incarnation of Bond perfectly. Bestowed with his license to kill, Bond is like a teenage boy with his first box of condoms, flippantly dispatching an unarmed bomb-maker in Madagascar and touching off an international furor in the process. “One less bomber in the world,” he says, waving aside the furious objections of his boss. Told to lay low, Bond follows a text-message trail to the Bahamas to find the bomber’s handler. Casing the card rooms and seducing the sultry Italian wife (Caterina Murino) of a terrorist bagman, we see the flip side of Bond’s murderous contempt: the gamesman who relishes cuckolding the other guy. “You’re not my type,” he tells a would-be conquest. “Smart?” she asks. Quoth Bond: “Single.” Bond’s dirty work leads to a pulse-pounding chase sequence on a Miami airstrip and later — per the title — a ritzy casino in Montenegro, where a notorious underworld money launderer named Le Chiffre (Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen) has set up a $10 million buy-in Texas Hold ’em poker tournament. As the best poker player in MI6, it’s up to 007 — accompanied by whip-smart accountant Vesper Lynd (Eva Green from “The Dreamers”) — to bust the bad guy. Along the way, Bond gets his first fitted tuxedo, orders his first martini and has his first encounter with CIA counterpart Felix Leiter. For the most part, his exploits are blessedly gadget- and product-placement-free, though he does conspicuously drive a Ford sedan at one point. More importantly, Bond undertakes an emotional journey that speaks volumes about the armor-coated loner he later becomes. It’s a Bond fan’s Bond movie, and a fine hint of many spent bullet casings and mussed bedsheets to come. >> Rated PG-13 (intense sequences of violent action, a scene of torture, sexual content and nudity), 144 minutes. Grade: B+ Contact Craig Outhier by email, or phone (480) 898-5683 |
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Reader comments (1)
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Patrick
I saw some 007 movies But this is the best I would rate this movie A GOOD JOB HATS OFF Suggest removal of this commentDecember 18, 2006