"The name's Bond, James Bond." After a four year gap between films, everyone was eager to see what newly cast Daniel Craig would bring to the table, and he certainly didn't disappoint in giving us a visceral, unrelenting Agent 007 bent on accomplishing his objective no matter what the cost. Five years on from Casino Royale's box office success, the impact of Craig's first outing as Bond has lessened marginally, but it's still a film with plenty of strengths and an overriding sense of being a modern update. Casino Royale opens in black-and-white as a MI6 agent who leaked private information ascends a skyscraper, only to find Bond sitting in his apartment. It's revealed that James isn't even a 00 Agent yet, with two kills required to get that status, at which point the less-suave, more dangerous spy revealed he has already killed the informant's agent, at which point the MI6 rogue says not to worry as the second kill is...before he finishes, he's dead by 007's hand, and Craig remarks "Yes, considerably", shooting at a near-dead adversary and starting the famed gun-barrel sequence. It's scenes like this that show the intensity and pace to which the series has now evolved under Pinewood Studios, moving the film forward at an immense pace which many casual viewers will undoubtedly find difficult to follow. This says something given the movie's two-hour running time, also highlighting just how much is packed into it, however sometimes bigger does not mean better, and Casino Royale especially stumbles at its halfway point with a lack of substantial setpieces after the exhilarating rooftop chase pretty much opening the flick. Nevertheless, there's a great cast to match in the reboot aside from Craig including Judi Dench's consistently remarkable portrayal of M and Eva Green's romantic Vesper Lynd. Sadly bar perhaps Daniel Craig as Bond, there's no-one to lay a scratch on the Batman reboot Batman Begins released the year before, and as such Casino Royale struggles to pack as much of a punch as that inspired comic-book revamp. All the same, the final scenes in Venice are undeniably effective, not to mention the cliff-hanger as we see the mysterious Mr White shot in the leg, only for Craig to walk out of the shadows and say "The name's Bond, James Bond" in a fine ascension into the role. If Daniel Craig's first outing as Agent 007 could have been somewhat shorter and more well-rounded rather than placing too much time on a poker game everyone knows the outcome of it would have been one for the ages; as it is, Casino Royale is a fun, if flawed reboot that deserves another viewing.
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Sunday, 13 February 2011
Classics: Casino Royale (2006, R: 8/10)
"The name's Bond, James Bond." After a four year gap between films, everyone was eager to see what newly cast Daniel Craig would bring to the table, and he certainly didn't disappoint in giving us a visceral, unrelenting Agent 007 bent on accomplishing his objective no matter what the cost. Five years on from Casino Royale's box office success, the impact of Craig's first outing as Bond has lessened marginally, but it's still a film with plenty of strengths and an overriding sense of being a modern update. Casino Royale opens in black-and-white as a MI6 agent who leaked private information ascends a skyscraper, only to find Bond sitting in his apartment. It's revealed that James isn't even a 00 Agent yet, with two kills required to get that status, at which point the less-suave, more dangerous spy revealed he has already killed the informant's agent, at which point the MI6 rogue says not to worry as the second kill is...before he finishes, he's dead by 007's hand, and Craig remarks "Yes, considerably", shooting at a near-dead adversary and starting the famed gun-barrel sequence. It's scenes like this that show the intensity and pace to which the series has now evolved under Pinewood Studios, moving the film forward at an immense pace which many casual viewers will undoubtedly find difficult to follow. This says something given the movie's two-hour running time, also highlighting just how much is packed into it, however sometimes bigger does not mean better, and Casino Royale especially stumbles at its halfway point with a lack of substantial setpieces after the exhilarating rooftop chase pretty much opening the flick. Nevertheless, there's a great cast to match in the reboot aside from Craig including Judi Dench's consistently remarkable portrayal of M and Eva Green's romantic Vesper Lynd. Sadly bar perhaps Daniel Craig as Bond, there's no-one to lay a scratch on the Batman reboot Batman Begins released the year before, and as such Casino Royale struggles to pack as much of a punch as that inspired comic-book revamp. All the same, the final scenes in Venice are undeniably effective, not to mention the cliff-hanger as we see the mysterious Mr White shot in the leg, only for Craig to walk out of the shadows and say "The name's Bond, James Bond" in a fine ascension into the role. If Daniel Craig's first outing as Agent 007 could have been somewhat shorter and more well-rounded rather than placing too much time on a poker game everyone knows the outcome of it would have been one for the ages; as it is, Casino Royale is a fun, if flawed reboot that deserves another viewing.
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