“High Stakes Bond With a Rising Star”

From the first frame of the opening sequence—a brilliant, casino-themed montage where guns shoot spades, featureless victims bleed small red hearts and a person falling to his death shatters into a pile of cards upon impact—it’s clear that this isn’t your father’s Bond movie. Incidentally, this is also the first Bond film in memory that doesn’t showcase silhouetted naked women in the opener. The firsts don’t stop there; Casino Royale, based on the novel of the same name by Ian Fleming, chronologically predates all of the previous Bond films, making it a prequel of sorts. As such, we are retrospectively introduced to some Bond’s most recognizable touchstones; we discover how Bond comes to own his Aston Martin, learn how he creates the phrase, “shaken, not stirred,” and witness his first utterance of that iconic line, “Bond, James Bond.”

When Daniel Craig (Layer Cake) was confirmed as the new Bond, I was more than just a little skeptical; however, my misgivings were wholly unfounded. With all due respect to Connery and the rest of the gang, Craig, pound for pound, might just be the best Bond ever. He’s certainly more ripped than any former 007, judging from the scene where Bond emerges from the ocean with a premium six-pack—a tableau that parallels Halle Berry’s entrance in Die Another Day. Where Pierce Brosnan’s Bond would have quipped, finessed or negotiated his way out of a fight, Craig’s Bond bulldozes anyone who poses a threat to him. As such, the new Bond is scrappier than his predecessors and takes the quickest route to dispatching his enemies a la 24’s Jack Bauer. What’s refreshing—for an action hero archetype—is that this Bond occasionally makes mistakes (like when he gives himself up by clumsily tailing a bad guy), albeit, not fatal ones.

The stunt work, fight scenes and action sequences in Casino Royale are some of the finest in the entire series and are certainly above par when compared to your garden variety action picture. Some of the movie’s best action scenes include an explosive car chase at Miami International Airport, an all-out, hand-to-hand slugfest in a hotel stairwell and a frenetic shootout inside a pontoon-fortified Venetian building. However, all of those scenes pale in comparison to the opening, skyscraper scaffolding sequence in Madagascar where Bond pursues a bomb-toting, free running terrorist who scales walls like Spider-Man and bounces over and around obstacles like a monkey on speed. The scene easily qualifies as the finest action sequence I’ve ever seen…if it fails to get your heart racing, you have no pulse.

For poker lovers, roughly a quarter of the movie focuses on a high stakes Texas hold ‘em tournament in Montenegro. However, even if you don’t know the difference between a straight and a flush (or a straight flush), you’ll still enjoy the psychological warfare employed by the players along with the refined trash talking that randomly bounces around the table like a pinball. Here’s the scenario: If Bond wins, he will financially cripple an international terrorist organization…if he looses, Her Majesty will have just funded said terrorist group.

For female viewers, the movie also features a friction-filled romance between Bond and hard-to-get Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), an accountant sent to keep an eye on Bond and distract the other players with her slender frame, dangerous curves and bedazzling red dress. There’s a wonderful scene where Bond and Vesper engage in a war of words on a train bound for Montenegro. Fraught with sexual tension, double entendres and some of the best repartee I’ve heard since Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint patented the lascivious train ride in Hitchcock’s classic North by Northwest, the scene kicks the romance subplot into high gear, and sets the stage for the twisty and tragic climax.

What makes this Bond superior to its forebears is the sure-handed directing by Martin Campbell and the superlative script penned by Academy-award winning screenwriter, Paul Haggis (Million Dollar Baby). The movie has great supporting characters including Judi Dench, who reprises her role as M and Mads Mikkelsen as a heartless villain, Le Chiffre, a man who bleeds from his blind right eye when angered.

Casino Royale is the best Bond to date, and not just because of its up-to-date FX or its new star; this is a more modern and mature Bond, unshackled by the usual silliness involving hi-tech gadgets and gizmos. With a film this superior, odds are we’ll be seeing Bond…Craig’s Bond again very soon.

Rating: 3

Tags: Action, Crime, Thriller