Casino Royale
By Nick Manteris · 0 Comments · Leave a Comment
When Daniel Craig was picked as the newest Bond I didn’t really care because the previous several films in the series were terrible (how can you mess up something that already sucks?) and Layer Cake (which undoubtedly must have been the reason Craig was hired) was actually a pretty good film. Casino Royale is an even better film and seemed to imply that the people in charge knew what they were doing. Miraculously, two of the three writers were carried over from the recent string of formulaic Bond films, and somehow, with the addition of an overrated third writer, they managed to make things work. It’s apparently the only one of the major movies that is directly adapted from one of the novels and the darker storyline is supposedly much more in line with Fleming’s original vision.
The weakest link in Casino Royale is the ridiculous crane-jumping scene in the middle of an otherwise good parkour chase, but with that small exception I liked everything else in the film…especially Eva Green. (In the interest of full disclosure I should mention that I have had a crush on Eva Green since slightly before I saw The Dreamers.) The interactions between Bond and Vesper were wonderful and I don’t have any trouble at all believing that he could fall for her. (But, again, I’m biased.) Daniel Craig isn’t as suave or as debonair as my imagined version of an ideal James Bond, but his portrayal is gritty and realistic and he brings a raw intensity to the character that is a welcome change from the clichéd direction that the series was taking. By the end of the film there is a development that really enhances his character…an arc that was only possible because of the decision to reboot the series.
