Week Of November 13, 2006 - Mon / Wed / Fri

November 13, 2006

You will read "This is the best Bond film in a long time" over and over and over again in the week to come.

And the truth is, Casino Royale is the best Bond film in a long time… at least since Martin Campbell last took the helm with Goldeneye.

As the film developed, my first reaction was that it wasn't really Bond. There was even a big action sequence that I eventually realized was done with parkour, the martial art that was used with such spectacular effect in Banlieue 13. But bit by bit, there was less and less of a question that it was Bond and not any of the other action franchises that have popped up. The connective tissue is almost hard to explain, as it is so different in so many ways.

But even using the pakour, the sequence in the Bahamas was pure Bond… it's much more hand-to-hand and the stunts aren't stupid… but they are outlandish and somehow, the exterior beauty of the Bahamas off the side of a crane screams Bond and not anything else.

And that may be a big step towards answering the question. Location, location, location. Islands, exotics, airports, and cool, dark streets. (Surprisingly, the only noticeably-not-shot-on-location sequence was Miami International Airport.)

And then there is our new Bond. Daniel Craig is pretty sensational. He's a modern Billy Bigelow (or Terry Malloy, for good measure) who allows us, the audience, to underestimate him repeatedly. And when he does prevail, he does so in ways we find truly unexpected and strongly based in character. Obviously, I don't want to give you any specific examples at this point. But let's just say that he can dish it out and he can take it and if it bends it's Bond-y and if it breaks, it's not.

Craig's Bond not only has to prove himself to M & Co (not Q, as previously miswritten), but he knows it and he, in a very cheeky way, takes every opportunity to let them know he knows he's being judged and that he doesn't care.

A friend who has been associated with the Bond franchise in the past worried earlier this year that a Bond who doesn't care whether his martini is shaken or stirred is not Bond at all. And I get that. And the film could indulge us a little more in that regard. He will have to put on some snow skis in the next film or I will be disappointed. But part of what took some of the passion out of the series is that technology caught up with the effort to stay ahead of technology. Moonraker was where the shark was kinda jumped. But things were pulled back a bit after that…. until we got to the ice hotel and the invisible car the last time.

As I just wrote, I will want more Bondisms the next time. They can be done in a classy way. But this film really feels like square one, preparing for two, three and four. And that worked for me.

That brings us to the new Bond girl, Eva Green, in a role for which the studio desperately tried to find someone else. But ironically, in the end - and it is impossible to know whether Martin Campbell and credited writers Haggis, Purvis & Wade made it fit her like La Perla - Ms. Green was perfect in this role. She is an eyeful. But more importantly, she is a walking cipher. That makes her a problem in many roles. But here, she is playing reserve and invulnerability. And when she does let us in, she doesn't bring great depth to it, but she appears to be the kind of woman many of us have seen when a tough woman finally opened up. And the screenplay offers a terrific turning point for her in this regard. (One of the film's few significant flaws is a confusing bit of character positioning in the last portion of the film… but a quibble.)

The Bond Baddie is also a more classical Bond take. Played by Mads Mikkelsen, he looks exactly like a Connery-era Bond villain. In fact, his quirk, crying blood, is so subtle that it is almost non-existent. And he is not trying to achieve something insane, like world domination or the destruction of a city. Really, his driving conceit is that he is in desperate need of debt consolidation… on a level way too big for a call to Gary Coleman to help. Yeah, it's more dramatic than that… but not really. But it's enough. When lives are at stake over money, men will be driven to all kinds of extreme acts.

The late parts of the film are alternately the best of all and the worst of all. The best is the willingness to allow vulnerability and realistic human emotions. The worst is that the movie is at least 20 minutes too long and that the last huge set piece is more interesting (and less confusing) in one's head than on the screen. The best is our villain behaving like a real nasty piece of work might behave and the worst is going through a very complex sequence only to have its significance thrown out with a shrug of the shoulders immediately thereafter. The best is a twist and the worst is a character who pops up out of nowhere and seems almost comedic.

But all that said, it's a terrific Bond movie. I don't expect the film to match or surpass the gross of the last Bond film, which was a pre and post-Dalton tradition. But the domestic 120s of The World Is Not Enough and Tomorrow Never Dies (what does that title mean?) is very doable. (The last film, Die Another Day, did $161 million domestic and all four Brosnan Bonds each did over $340 million worldwide.)

It would be a shame if Sony doesn't get to be the distributor for the next run of Bond films. It feels like it would almost be like changing Bonds at this point. Like the Potter and Alien series, they are now set up to bring some really interesting directors on board, so long as they are willing to color within the lines.

Pulling 20 minutes wouldn't be hard. But aside from that, crackin' good double-o fun.

E Me.

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