Review of Casino Royale (2006) (Review)
Tuesday, 24th April 2007, 08:30

Introduction
All right, I'll put my hand up and admit I was one of the naysayers who didn't rate Daniel Craig as Bond and who reckoned the whole "dark and gritty" enterprise would sink without trace. Can we take my hat as being eaten? (It was disgusting by the way, taking ages to get even al dente).

Casino Royale is a reboot of the franchise for the late 2000s. It takes the whole Bond milieu back to day one and introduces Bond as the raw material that the legend is fashioned from.

The movie breaks the usual Bond mould by introducing the usual elements gradually over the generous running length. At 138 minutes, the movie is longer than On Her Majesty's Secret Service and yet doesn't for a second drag in the middle the same way the older film unfortunately does. Most of the familiar elements (with the exclusion of Q and Moneypenny) are all there, but not necessarily in the right order.

Casino Royale is a top notch thriller, full of spectacle and bravado like the old Bond movies, but with an edge. I'm reminded of Licence to Kill, a Bond movie that was definitely ahead of its time. The time for Casino Royale is most definitely right and the picture is a triumph for the Bond production team.

Daniel Craig is definitely the best actor to assume the mantle of Bond. Previous occupants of the role, and that includes Connery, have often played the cypher rather than the man. Craig's Bond is definitely the most human and the least comic-book hero of them all. Craig's Bond is not the practiced killing machine of the 007 legend, but he is good at what he does and you certain believe that anybody he kills stays deaded. He also nearly gets killed himself, spending much of the movie covered in healing contusions.

Eva Green is especially impressive as Bond's first heroine, combining brittle standoffishness with little-girl vulnerability that sets her head and shoulders above the Bond Women of the past. By the end of the story, the audience has to care about this woman as much as Bond does, and Eva Green has us as well as Bond wrapped around her little finger by the end of the picture.

Mads Mikkelsen has to be one of the most subtle Bond villains, and yet has much more power for that subtlety. With one lizard-like eye, he is chillingly creepy, although far from the omnipotent characters that Bond has kicked the asses of in earlier movies.

I was worried that this movie would step too far outside the established Bond envelope. If I have one nit to pick, it's that I would have preferred to see a different M, as Judi Dench's presence although always welcome connects this reboot of the Bond legend to the older movies and I personally feel a complete break from them would have been better.

I would like to make special mention of Daniel Kleinmann's title sequence, which is unusually animated rather than a succession of half-limned naked women as has been par for the course up to now. With Chris Cornell's driving theme it works particularly well and for my money is one of the most striking title sequences in the franchise.

Video
Immaculate. The movie is presented in its original theatrical aspect of 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen. There are no digital artefacts thanks to the presentation being made on two discs.



Audio
Dolby Digital 5.1. A very satisfactory, meaty mix full of spectacular directional effects. David Arnold, as ever, turns in an outstanding score that works particularly well as it incorporates the melody of the Chris Cornell theme song.



Features
On disc two, there are two very nice "Special Treats" featurettes which were shown on television around the time the movie was released. Informative and fun, they are the usual puff pieces but a little lightweight compared with the Ultimate Edition stuff we've seen with the older movies. There is also the music video (non-anamorphic) of Chris Cornell's theme tune. As that only has a DD2.0 soundtrack, you're better off with the main title rendition.

There is also the updated version of Maryam D'Abo's "Bond Girls Are Forever" featurette. Although another thing we've seen on television, its inclusion on the disc is a welcome one.

I do however feel (and I suspect most people will agree) that there is room for a future Ultimate Edition of the movie with more extras and the DTS sound mix common to the older UEs.



Conclusion
The Daily Telegraph described this as the best Bond for decades. Now, while I wouldn't sell Pierce Brosnan's contribution to the franchise short – he did the original Bond reboot in 1995 – Casino Royale is an exceptional movie and successfully reboots the franchise for the second half of the decade. Fantastic.