Casino Royale

Bond is finally back after a four-year hiatus and he’s gone through a lot of changes. In an effort to shy away from the gadgets and special effects that burdened the previous films (when Bond was played by Pierce Brosnan), producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson have gone back to the original novel by Ian Fleming and recast Bond with the tough-as-nails Daniel Craig. The result is the best film in the series since On Her Majesty’s Secret Service almost 40 years ago. Although the film has its fair share of action sequences, the main plot focuses on a card game at the Casino Royale in Montenegro where Bond must pit his skills against a terrorist financier name Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen). He’s aided by the beautiful Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), a representative of Her Majesty’s Treasury and the first Bond Girl to actually bring some complexity to the table. A hint of realism, grossly missing from many of the previous entries in the series, is ever present in Casino Royale. Le Chiffre is not a villain bent on world domination, but simply a man who cannot afford to lose his money. Similarly, Bond is no longer a suave superman but an actual human being with vulnerabilities. When he gets into a fight, it feels as though things are actually at stake. Whereas Brosnan was essentially a more intense version of Roger Moore, Craig is closer to the intense version of Timothy Dalton and gives us the best portrayal of James Bond since Sean Connery. The franchise is back on track with a vengeance, and Craig proves that he’s the right man for the job.

Directed by Martin Campbell.
Written by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Paul Haggis.
Starring Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen, Jeffrey Wright, Giancarlo Giannini, Caterina Murino, Tobias Menzies and Judi Dench.

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violent action, a scene of torture, sexual content and nudity. 144 min.

****½ so says The Fish