Casino Royale
Armed with a licence to kill, Secret Agent James Bond sets out on his
first mission as 007 and must defeat a weapons dealer in a high stakes
game of poker at Casino Royale, but things are not what they seem.
Director:
Martin CampbellWriters:
Neal Purvis (screenplay), Robert Wade (screenplay), 2 more credits »Stars:
Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Judi Dench | See full cast and crew »Storyline
James Bond goes on his first ever mission as a 00. Le Chiffre is a
banker to the world's terrorists. He is participating in a poker game at
Montenegro, where he must win back his money, in order to stay safe
among the terrorist market. The boss of MI6, known simply as M sends
Bond, along with Vesper Lynd to attend this game and prevent Le Chiffre
from winning. Bond, using help from Felix Leiter, Mathis and having
Vesper pose as his partner, enters the most important poker game in his
already dangerous career. But if Bond defeats Le Chiffre, will he and
Vesper Lynd remain safe?
User Reviews
"Millenium" series James Bond - top-of-the-line!
In the original Bond
series, only a handful of films really attempted to touch base with the
novels of Ian Fleming. "Dr. No" showed the Fleming feeling for character
and action, but introduced elements to the plot that detracted from the
'hard-boiled' spy story that Fleming thought he was writing;
"Thunderball" came close, but that was because Fleming developed the
story on commission for the film. "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" had
the book's plot pretty down pat, and was made in a kind of 'grand
adventure' style, but of course it suffered from the choice of Lazenby -
a professional model, not an actor - as Bond. "The Living Daylights"
showed the producers' interest in returning to the roots, but Dalton was
uncomfortable playing Bond, and uncomfortable with the wisecracks which
had become part of the character's schtick - and which were really
badly written for the Dalton films. "Goldeneye" was admirable attempt to
update the Fleming milieu for the end of the Cold War, but left the
character himself as yet without an 'updated' definition.
The
decision to make a 21st Century version of Fleming's first Bond novel -
and, beyond the update, to remain true to the novel, sans comic patter,
sans sci-fi techno-schtick, sans major rewrite of the basic plot -
promised to present Bond fans of all ages with a direct challenge. Do we
want the hard-boiled spy Fleming first envisioned - patterned after
Chandler's Philip Marlowe and W. Somerset Maughm's Ashenden ("or: The
British Agent")? Or would we really rather have the suave stand-up
comedian and Playboy magazine contributor introduced by Broccoli,
Maibaum, Young, and company, in the second Connery film, "From Russia
With Love"?
Well, the votes are still being tallied on that.
As
someone who came to Bond reading "Goldfinger" at the tender age of
twelve (the phrase "round, firm, pointed breasts" has been an
inspiration to me since), the closer the films came to the sense of the
novels, the happier I was.
So of course, this version of Bond is a
joyous surprise for me - my youthful daydreams have been vindicated and
at last fully satisfied. There are indeed elements added to the plot,
but they are completely congruent with it. There is the use of current
technology, but no techno-schtick - i.e., no Q. and no "gadgets". There
are the luscious Bond babes (2 - the minimum Bond requirement), but
there is no attempt to reduce them to photogenic sex-toys.
Fleming's
plot actually requires the film's addition of some heavy action
sequences (all done very snappy, with a brutally realistic edge),
because the novel is very claustrophobic; the original TV version of the
story (1955, with Barry Nelson as 'Jimmy Bond'), only used three indoor
sets, because it could - except for the car chase and an attempted
bombing at an outdoor café, Fleming's novel took place almost entirely
within Bond's hotel suite and the gaming room. The film's opening this
novel out to the world is actually quite welcome, and does not affect
the central plot or its theme.
The character of Bond presented in
this film may disappoint followers of the original films, but the news
is, this is FLEMING's Bond - an orphan uncertain of his own identity, a
disillusioned romantic trying hard to pretend he's incapable of
emotions, a middle class, middle-brow, middle-level management type who
just happens to kill people for a living. But he does it extremely well.
The
other problem some general viewers may have is the level of violence in
the film; having determined to film the novel realistically, director
Martin Campbell has decided to ditch the 'B-movie' violence of most of
the earlier films, and present us the violence with a hard 'British
neo-noir' edge to it. Given the romantic plot twist toward the end, this
would be a perfect date movie - except that the violence left some of
the female viewers in the theater I attended clearly unsettled. That's
not necessarily a bad thing, it just is part of the gestalt of the
film's experience.
Cambell's direction is very good; the writing
is crisp; production values are very high; the photography is stunning.
Some of the stunt work is truly remarkable, worthy competition for
Jackie Chan. The acting is rock-solid and believable for these
characters. There is plenty of muscle for the action-film fan, and some
real brains for the more general viewer to ponder later.
This
film is best viewed with minimal reliance on knowledge of the previous
series. In fact, it functions perfectly well as a 'one-off', a film
without a series.
But of course, the ending invites a sequel. In
Godzilla terms, Connery and Moore having given us the 'showa' Bond,
Dalton and Brosnan the "Heisei" Bond, we now have the "Millenium" series
James Bond - not a prequel nor even a 'reboot', but, really, an
entirely new series about the same character. It is probably too much to
hope for, but maybe they can make the sequels just as good as this.
As a genre film it never quite lifts above its genre; so normally I would only give it "nine stars" as a film.
However, as a film within its genre, it is top-of-the-line - so it gets a ten.