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Casino Royale (2006) Director: Martin Campbell Cast: Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Madds Mikkelsen, Judi Dench Time: 144 min. Rating: |
I walked into Casino Royale excited to be seeing a non-Bollywood film for the first time in months. When I walked out 2 hours and 20-some minutes later, I realized I had just seen a Bollywood film without the songs and dances. Is this a bad thing? Not at all. It just says that Casino Royale is about 30 minutes too long, is somewhat uneven in its pacing, and isn’t entirely sure what type of movie it wants to be.
Like Batman Begins, Casino Royale shows us the experiences that shaped Bond (Craig) into an ultra-cool, supremely studly, narrowly escaping death super-spy. Unlike most Bond films, the story doesn’t revolve around crazed egomaniacs trying to take control of the world using some outlandish doomsday device.
Of course, the plot remains rather murky in true Bond fashion: Bond and MI6 must capture (not kill) a relatively boring bad guy named Le Chiffre (Mikkelsen) who weeps blood and finances international terrorists. We’re not really sure exactly why forcing this guy to talk will save the world, but this is a Bond film, so we don’t need to ask important questions about plot logic.
What begins as an intense action film (the opening action sequences are a fabulous adrenaline rush and the first quarter of the movie is filled with non-stop excitement) quickly slows to more relaxed pace as Bond foils Le Chiffre’s complex and ludicrous scheme to make some extra money for himself by manipulating the stock market. As a result, Le Chiffre must play in an international high-stakes poker game to recoup the money he lost.
At this point, Casino Royale becomes an episode of one of those ubiquitous television poker challenges, but with slightly classier and better dressed participants. If you’re into the strategies of poker playing, you might find it interesting, but when an action film remains isolated in one location for most of its running time, it stagnates, even if the script tries to maintain the action with some random fight scenes and an interesting assassination attempt on Bond.
Mixed into the poker match is the romance story between Bond and the overly prim Vesper Lind (Green), and here the film struggles to be too many things at once because director Campbell makes a strong effort to explore the evolution of their love. (The scene when Bond and Vesper meet actually features some clever dialogue.) By the end, Campbell’s over-emphasis on the lovebirds’ perfect happiness ventures into Bollywood over-dramatization and verges on tedious.
As Bond, Daniel Craig is decent because he exudes the necessary self-assurance and cold-heartedness. However, when required to emote any other emotion, he becomes less credible, which suggests he has a limited acting range. He can’t pull off the romance, but he makes a believable action hero, although his stocky, rugged look is more suited to an Indian Jones role.
As can be expected, Judi Dench does a great job in the supporting role as M, while Eva Green is merely passable as a British government accountant. Madds Mikkelsen comes across as little more than a prop; Le Chiffre reaches just beyond one-dimensionality, and he hardly seems sinister.
The high-tech gadgets that have become a Bond film trademark are strangely low tech in Casino Royale. Early in the film, Bond uses MI6’s computer satellite imaging system to locate a resort in the Bahamas, but the system looks laughably archaic compared to Google-Earth. Even the cell phones used throughout the movie seem primitive and lack standard features such as cameras and Internet connections. What stands out most about the gadgets in this film is some of the blatant luxury-item product placements: Rolex, Austin Martin, Bentley.
As a Bond film, Casino Royale is probably the best ever because it is the most realistic Bond yet. (After a fight scene, we can actually see cuts on Bond’s knuckles.) As a mainstream movie, Casino Royale is certainly entertaining, and you won’t be taking a gamble by sitting through it, despite its excessive length and occasionally slow pacing.
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