Casino Royale: I admit that the last time I saw James Bond in action in “Die Another Day”, it seemed like the swerve back into “Moonraker” territory and that spacemen shooting lasers at one another was not far off (again). Disbelief was not just suspended, it was kicked in the jimmy. But I took heart when I saw who they cast as the new Bond. Daniel Craig I’ve enjoyed in other movies like “Layer Cake”, and felt he was a stronger actor than Brosnan, even if he didn’t have the suave edge and the brown hair. After watching the movie this past weekend, I wasn’t disappointed. This is not your standard Bond film. There are minimal gimmicks, no reality-straining plot twists, no forced quips. We get Bond at the beginning of his career at 007, seeing how much he can get away with and not caring who he has to kill or what he has to do in the name of forwarding the Queen’s interests around the world, up to and including attacking the embassies of other countries, bedding down various married ladies, and free running after a suspect through a construction site (the suspect is actually played by parkour developer Sebastien Foucan; if you don’t know what parkour is…read a book!). Craig’s Bond is meaner, leaner, more assassin and soldier than gentleman spy. He doesn’t have cars that shoot missles, crocodile submarines, or wristwatch dartguns. He’s got a Walther PPK with a silencer and a willingness to crack skulls on sinks. He doesn’t even know how he likes his martinis. But it’s a mighty entertaining ride. Bond is on the trail of terrorists, and crosses paths with terror financier Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen, who played Tristram in “King Arthur”). Le Chiffre needs money to finance various terror enterprises, so he hosts a high stakes card game in Montenegro to make a quick 100 million dollars to get his enterprises back on track. Bond buys his way into the game (or rather Her Majesty’s government does) and mayhem ensues, including the destruction of a beautiful Aston Martin DBS and Bond’s testicles being brutalized (no, I didn’t make that part up). Mikkelsen is good and it doesn’t hurt that he looks all the effete European with scarred eye and thin upper lip. The Bond girl this time around is Eva Green (from “Kingdom of Heaven”) as Vesper Lynd, representative of the department of the treasury, sent along to safeguard Her Majesty’s investment in the card game. We also get the umpteenth Felix Leither (whose been Black, White, and in-between) in the from of actor Jeffrey Wright (so Felix is Black again!). And while the film does have one too many climaxes (the final tally is 3), this is easily the best Bond film I’ve seen in a great long while and is probably in my top 2 or 3 of his films ever. I look forward to more Daniel Craig as Bond. Woodchuck sez, “Check it out.”
No comments:
Post a Comment