It may have been the scene in 2002's ""Die Another Day"" when James Bond tried to outrun beams of solar energy, or perhaps when he eluded capture with his invisible car, that it became impossible to ignore how the venerable series was starting to rot. Few agree on the Pierce Brosnan-era of Bond flicks—some say he's the best since the Bond we measure all Bonds by, Sean Connery, while others claim he doesn't even stack up to Timothy Dalton—but they got us revved up about the franchise again. It's not that the Brosnan movies weren't fun, but after ""Goldeneye"" got our attention, they got sloppy fast, with ""Die Another Day"" approaching a level of camp unmatched since ""Moonraker."" When Bond becomes a full-blown cartoon, it's time to go back to the well, and the latest 007 adventure, ""Casino Royale,"" is a very promising step in a different, but gratifying, direction.
First off, this is not the jovial, whip-smart womanizer Connery, Roger Moore and Brosnan have portrayed; this Bond is a callous, reckless hired gun whose efficiency frequently supersedes his intellect. Our new Bond kills without remorse, botches objectives, blows his cover, pisses off M (Judi Dench) and doesn't hesitate to drink martinis prepared by the shadowy, mysterious blonde in the corner. Hell, he hasn't even figured out how he likes his martinis yet. Clearly influenced by the clever origin story machinations of ""Batman Begins"" and the visceral, almost disturbingly sudden violence of the Jason Bourne movies, ""Casino Royale"" is the first time a Bond movie has delved beneath the treasured 007 persona.
It's a tricky character to pull off—George Lazenby and Timothy Dalton's ""serious Bonds"" were greeted with disappointment—but Daniel Craig is forceful and brilliant. Craig is unquestionably the best Bond since Connery.
Bond purists may balk at the idea that ""Casino Royale"" lacks the gadgets and the sleaze that the series is famous for, but Craig makes up for it by performing physical feats that trump anything his predecessors could've done. In the first half hour, we are given a chase setpiece that, as hyperbolic as it may sound, is the most exhilarating action sequence of any Bond movie, and maybe the best in any movie in released this young century. The movie's other action scenes are exciting and deftly executed as well, but they do not measure up to that first showstopper.
This is also, unfortunately, true of ""Casino Royale"" as a whole. In the invigorating, virtually perfect first half, Craig commands your attention, the action does not let up, our secondary Bond girl is a knockout (as portrayed by ""Maria Full of Grace's"" Oscar-nominated Catalina Moreno) and the central poker game is about as high-stakes as they come. The villain, Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelson), a banker in cahoots with terrorists, isn't flashy but he's cut from the same cloth as Philip Seymour Hoffman's Owen Davian in ""Mission: Impossible III""—no frills, no extraneous pontificating, just cold, simple and brutally to the point. In short, this is an updated James Bond that holds true to the character Ian Fleming starting writing about in 1953, and it's unbelievably awesome.
But at some point around the halfway mark, ""Casino Royale"" makes us wonder if it will be able to maintain the level of intensity. The poker game is compelling, but after the frontloaded action scenes, we're primed for a whopper of a finale that never really comes. The primary Bond girl, a treasury official named Vesper Lynd (the exceedingly gorgeous Eva Green of ""The Dreamers"" and ""Kingdom of Heaven""), is one of the best in the franchise's history, but her function in the Bond legacy is too obvious from the outset. Most of the film's drawn-out final third concerns Vesper, and as important as this is in molding Craig into the Bond we know and love, it drags and is not entirely redeemed by the excellent final showdown. Until this, the relationship between Vesper and Bond is superb, characterized by guarded, almost hostile flirtation (these scenes, which were written by Paul Haggis, showcase his script-doctoring skill). The final third is quite disappointing, especially considering how enjoyable the Vesper-Bond interaction is for most of the film, and by the time we get to the wholly satisfying final scene, ""Casino Royale"" has descended from the best Bond movie ever to, ultimately, a bloated near-masterpiece.
James Bond is the ultimate vicarious male fantasy—a suave, globetrotting hero who doesn't just get the girl, he gets all of them—but that doesn't mean the character can't be humanized. ""Casino Royale"" offers a glimpse of the underlying sadness behind the character without forgetting how to be a piece of wonderfully ecstatic action filmmaking. It may not jive with Bond traditionalists, but it works smashingly as a Bond prequel, expertly laying the groundwork for an intense, brutal Bond for the 21st century. It's too early (and borderline blasphemous) to tell now, but if Craig's future Bond films are as fantastic as ""Casino Royale's"" many strong points, he will eventually eclipse Connery. Just wait and see.
