Casino Royale Review

As the lights dimmed in the theater and the audience stopped discussing the 20 movies in the series that came before it and how this movie, “Casino Royale,” was going to change, for better or worse, the look of James Bond, the entire audience waited for a white dot to appear at the right hand side of the screen and move across to the middle, following a well dressed man who would then turn and shoot at the dot which by this time had clearly become a gun barrel. It didn’t matter how he did it (every Bond has shot differently, Connery was more of a jump, Brosnan turned dead pan) it just mattered that he did. But there was no white dot, and there was no Bond crossing the screen, because at the beginning of this film there is no Bond, there is only James.

And yet “Casino Royale” is still full of the Bond je ne sais quois. That feeling that has kept the franchise separate and in many cases above the rest of the action fodder. And the key ingredient to it is the man playing Bond. Connery defined it, Lazenby tried his best, Moore had it, Dalton didn’t and Brosnan brought it back, but Craig absolutely nails it. It wouldn’t matter if he was as ugly as Jaws, but it helps he’s not, and it doesn’t matter that he’s blonde (his eyes are the closets to Flemings’ original character description anyways) he epitomizes Bond. He’s cool, violent, contemptuous and down right mean, and you love him for every second of it.

And every second is to love. If Bond isn’t chasing a thug, played by Sebastian Foucan one of the preeminent free runners in the world, through a construction site in one of the most intense and death defying action sequences in years then he’s playing a nerve racking high stakes poker game in a black tux, coolly eyeing Bond villain Le Chiffre (Mads Mikklesen) with as much confidence as Connery had when he first announced himself as “Bond, James Bond” while lighting a cigarette over the baccarat table. Sure it’s poker this time and not baccarat but the times have changed and so has the high stakes game of choice, but Bond still plays it well. And of course if he isn’t doing those things he’s with a beautiful woman, except with Craig, unlike later Moore films, you understand why they’ve fallen under his spell.

The point being that all those fears, those naysayers, all the people who kicked and screamed that it wasn’t Bond anymore - they’re wrong. It’s more Bond than it’s been since “Goldeneye.” He’s back again and leaving us wanting more. But next time there better be a white dot.