Film Reviews

Casino Royale

• Rating:
• Director: Martin Campbell
• Starring: Daniel Craig
• Details: UK / 144mins (12A).

21 movies in and Bond goes back to basics, as the high-tech gadgets, the cool cars, the witty one-liners and the scantily-clad women are trimmed back in Casino Royale's more 'realistic' approach. There is also no tour around the bad guy's complex; Bond himself is colder, more emotionally detached than his predecessors, and when asked does he want his martini shaken or stirred, the reply is "Do I look like I give a damn?" However, just when the new Bond has a chance to set its stall out and totally reinvent the series, the producers balk, and slip back into the usual formula, happily singing the old adage 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' all the way to the bank. Casino Royale introduces Bond (Craig) before he attains '00' status, but after two successful assassinations he is granted a mission to Madagascar to spy on a terrorist. Bond takes the mission into his own hands and follows a lead to the Bahamas, before moving on to Montenegro where he engages in a high stakes poker game with the criminal banker Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), who hopes to raise cash to fund his underworld activities. The opening five minutes heighten expectations, showing a ruthless Bond despatch a bad guy in a bathroom with a fight scene that has more in common with the Bourne movies than previous Bonds, but then it slowly sinks back into its old ways. When they do try to be different, they are knowingly so - Bond's quips are referred to as poor pick-up lines and Le Chiffre tells us that complicated torture methods are a waste of time. Any attempt to delve further into the dark soul of the lethal assassin gets only the odd flippant remark from those around him; "You're cold", "You're emotionally dead", "Do you feel anything?" frustrate as Bond never has any answers, and we never get any closer to the man inside. Craig does the job asked of him and is the high point of the film - filling out (ahem) the tux like he's an old hand at this, more in tune with the heartless spy of the novels and his Bond is the only Bond I can remember screaming in pain. Not bad - but don't expect Casino Royale to be totally different to what has gone before.

Review by Gavin Burke