Casino Royale - A

I must preface this review with the confession that I'm not a die-hard Bond fan. It's hard to know where to place Bond films for me: I love spy films, but Bond is more of a superhero than a spy. I love a good action movie, and I'm willing to forego some realism in the interest of kicking tail and saving the girl, but Bond action always seems fettered by the gimmicks and one-liners that have now been satirized by films like Austin Powers. These "cheesy" elements are a part of the "cult" status of Bond films, but I've already the fanboy section of my brain to more compelling film series' like Star Wars or Lord of the Rings, but I've always enjoyed old Bond films as a good popcorn diverstion. Notice I said good Bond films, as in everything up until Sean Connery quit. Roger Moore - no, Pierce Brosnan - no, miscellaneous no-name Bonds attempting to get back to get back to Ian Fleming's original stony character - closer but still no. The main draw of Bond films for me was the classy character of James Bond. The unrealism I enjoy about Bond films is that no one is, in reality, as cool, slick and perfect as he. His gadgets and state-of-the-art weapons should feel more like attachments of his personality rather than the movie's centerpieces. In short, Bond should kick tail, not his hi-tech cars, personalized guns and micro-tracers. This is why I hated Moore's and Brosnan's inability to pull off classy. Aside from being completely anti-physical, relying on their gadgets and trickery, they just didn't fit their tuxes well. They looked, not to sound overly British, common. I was ready to see a new Bond who would revive Connery's dark-eyed cool. The choice of Daniel Craig to fill the role was controversial (a blonde Bond was not acceptable for die-hards, at least until the film came out), but it turned out to be just what the Doctor No ordered.

Craig is fantastic. His severe face you've all seen on the movie posters is exactly the kind of Bond you're going to get. He kills quickly and without ceremony, unless it's necessary. Even his one-liners are bada**. His severity is complimented by his tremendous ego, which is a central plot theme. He is a collected, suave Bond with a dark heart and a penchant for harm and destruction. Craig is the primary reason this movie works and the rest of the film kind of gets out of the way for him to work his mojo, but there are other things going for it. The bad guy, Le Chiffre, played by Mads Mikkelson, Denmark's premiere actor, is supremely creepy, and the love interest, played by the dusky Eva Green, is more than just a bombshell hanging on his arm. The love story in the movie is what most people thought was lame, but I believed it completely. Maybe I just like love stories, but Vesper's offer of a way out of the dangerous and dark world of espionage hooked me completely. The film does romanticize Bond's world to a point with fantastic action scenes and the typical womanizing, but Campbell is careful to show the pricetag attached to his life with a couple of particularly excruciating scenes of undesirable violence, one a torture scene, the other a gang-fight with some Ugandan assassins (one wielding a nasty machete). On the whole I found Bond's world well-balanced, though still not realistic. Director Martin Campbell wisely stays away from giving Bond too many gadgets, though one or two help him out at times; Bond's main weapon is his own iron will. In short a cool plot, refreshing resurgance of class and minimal gimmicks make room for a new era of Bond, i.e. Daniel Craig whose performance is so cool it's simply smashing.