The longest Bond Movie so far, running 144 minutes, the 21st Movie in its series, Casino Royale, reminds us of the actual James Bond from Ian Flemming’s Novel. Bond is back to Square One with muscle, wits than gadgets, just pure business. This movie is the start of the actual Bond, with Daniel Craig (the 6th actor) as James Bond, he starts off with his first hit, first mistake, first dressing down. He even don’t care how his Martini is made, well out of his Shaken, not Stirred Vodka Martini. Casino Royale marked the end of the 4 year wait ever since the last Bond Movie - Die Another Day with Pierce Brosnan.
Like all sexy Bond girls, Vesper Lynd (played by French actress Eva Green) is sizzlingly sexy, utterly cool, meticulously calculating and downright sleek. Well, we don’t hear the James Bond musical theme save at the end where it beats with the rise and fall of tensions, emotions and climax. The locales are awesome - from Prague to Venice to Miami to Lake Como to the Bahamas. Keep your eyes on the chase sequence around the African construction site, the fight sequence aboard a runaway fuel truck on an airport tarmac, the shootout in a collapsing Venice, Italy, canal building and a grueling torture sequence. Well, this is perhaps the actual James Bond a bit farther away from the modern day Gadget ready Bond.
You’ll enjoy the movie as much as I did and if you haven’t seen it yet, try the Trailers or check out your release dates. The world wide web is also abound with Casino Royale Reviews. It may be noted that this is Sony’s first James Bond after they purchased MGM and is directed by Martin Campbell who also directed GoldenEye.
UPDATED EXTENDED REVIEW
Well, I decided to do an extended review of Casino Royale. While discussing about James Bond the next day (we saw the movie on 16th November, a day prior to the official release date), many friends who were Bond fans do not really feel it bond-like. Hmmm, the license to thril of James Bond have been way extended from the original Ian Fleming’s creation to the modern day James Bond - Pierce Brosnan, et al and yes, they are sleek, stylish, charming, sophisticated. The License to Thrill has been done away with in Casino Royale. To some, it definitely do not feel like a Bond Film they had expected, no gadgets, no physics defying stunts, no laser beams from Omega Seamaster watch to cut train floors, activate/deactivate magnetic bombs, no self carrying string attached utility belt. Martin Campbell indeed did a renewed hell of a good job as he did with GoldenEye, just this time much truly Bond, the real Bond. All other franchise got their clock reset - Superman Returns, Batman Begins - so thus our James Bond needed one - Casino Royale.
Daniel Craig gave an amazing performance to the 1953 adaptation of Ian Fleming’s original James Bond Novel, which laid the groundwork for Bond who was actually not the really charming, sophisticated Bond that we saw in Sean Connery, Pierce Brosnan. The MGM, Columbia Pictures and Albert R. Broccoli franchise did a good job in spite of the fact that the title is that of a Comedy from 1967 - Casino Royale.
Right from his first hit of the accomplish to the Russian who gave off secret informations, James was hot-tampered, extremely arrogant and have been allegedly bestowed the double-0 status a little early. On his pursuit of the main Villain, a underworld financer/banker Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), Bond gave us a no-time-to-breath kinetic chase sequence in Madagascar to the Nambutu Embassy right at the start of the movie. That action sequence has Bond racing, on foot, in pursuit of a bomb maker played by Sebastien Foucan. Foucon darts, leaps and bounds all around a construction site with Bond on his tail. Well, it ended up with Bond blowing up the Nambutu Embassy along with the guy who was supposed to be taken alive.
M (Judi Dench) contemplate of increasing body count due to Bond’s overdeveloped trigger finger and over-extended ego and have scolded Bond, “You need to take your ego out of the equation”. There is no Q with his lethal widgets, no Miss Moneypenny, nonetheless, we have Vesper Lynd, who have been well taught of what a Double-0 like James Bond is, “007’s fundamental penchant for women as disposable pleasures rather than meaningful pursuits”. This time, James Bond is the rough guy with a grim sense of humor who has not yet discovered himself as the charming, sophisticated, cool agent. He is not so comfortable in a tuxedo, he is more of the newly recruit who has made his way into upper-class circles but retains some residual coarseness that will never smooth out. His Aston Marton is not even from Q but a prize he won at a Poker game, he got the victim’s wife too.
Casino Royale is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for intense sequences of violent action, a scene of torture, sexual content and nudity and is given a U/A certificate in India, elsewhere it was Singapore:PG, Ireland:15A, Sweden:15, Norway:15, UK:12A, Canada:14A, Finland:K-15, Australia:M.
References
- Casino Royale Review Podcast from Mick LaSalle.
- How James Bond Works
Comments 1
Thanks Rajeshwar for the clarifications on my blog. Yes I could guess most of the things while watching the movie but I feel the second view will clear most of the things.
Your comments has confirmed by guesses thanks.
Posted 18 Nov 2006 at 1:34 am ¶Post a Comment