Now that I’m “done” with the book, I’m trying to catch up on any number of things, high among them movies I missed (also I must also go to the DMV today, and I just couldn’t be more excited). Last weekend I watched Casino Royale on pay-per-view. And, I must say, I thought it was great. This is old news to many (and most who care), but what the heck herewith a new, year-old mini-review.
Much like Batman Begins, they decided to re-launch the character. I think this was a brilliant and necessary move. They clearly wanted to make Bond grittier under Brosnan and Dalton, but it seems they couldn’t pull it off. Two reasons come to mind: Dalton and Brosnan are too pretty. They are Bonds in the Roger Moore mold, asked to act like Sean Connery. Second, the producers couldn’t let go of the cliches. I don’t blame them. If you raked in hundreds of millions worldwide off of the same gimmicks in every movie, you’d be hard-pressed to let them go. Every sequel is plagued by the need to give the audience what they came to see. But Bond is the mother-of-all sequels in that it’s well into the double-digits. And the producers had a very good run of it with their familiar cliches.
Which is why they deserve all the more credit for chucking them in Casino Royale. Among the cast-offs: most of the gadgets, the lectures from Q about returning the toys in one piece, the banter with long-suffering Moneypenny and they even poked fun of his shaken-not-stirred martini. Also, they introduced a contemporary fad without it seeming unbelievably stupid (remember the video games in Never Say Never Again?). The chase scene early in the movie was a bit outlandish, but it worked. And it was an example of parkour, an urban gymnastic sport we’ve talked about around here before, that’s very popular around the world (here’s a parkour video for those interested). There were glitches in the movie of course (the love interest’s sudden turnaround should have been more implausible to Bond), but they nonetheless pulled off a Bond simultaneously tougher and more vulnerable than any before, with the possible exception of Connery, who was a different kind of tough for a different age. For the first time in ages, I’m looking forward to seeing the next bond movie.