A Royale Without Cheese?

Over the many years of narrative film history, there is no denying that the fictional characters who have been portrayed by some of the best actors to have existed, have been equally as important in making up a film as a Director constructed their own work. While there may be others who favour other fictional characters to go on their own list such as Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver to The Joker from The Dark Knight and Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean etc, I think I can speak for everyone in that the characters for my money are an integral part to a films success and recognition. One fictional character that I would imagine would be on their top list of characters is surely James Bond since the character and the array of films bring a lot of cinematic quality to the audiences’ with the tense espionage tales that have glamorous ladies, cheesy villains and classy cars interwoven within it. What I think makes James Bond stand-out from a lot of other characters, especially individuals that have a multitude of films that they themselves are in, is that he’s a character that has always been drastically changed and varied and in the end, that change has successfully paid off and is still going to this day. When it comes to Martin Campbell’s 2006 version of the ‘new’ Bond in Casino Royale, it not only is different and successful, it’s a film that drastically outmatches some of the previous film iterations of Bond, especially the hit-or-miss Pierce Brosnan versions. While it does have a slight problem with the pacing an structure of the story near towards the end,Casino Royale is a worthy re-boot of the Bond franchise as it has all the Bond cinematic inserts that you would expect which are done in a sophisticated and contemporary fashion. 

After being recently promoted to ’00’ status, Casino Royale introduces James Bond (Daniel Craig) taking on his first mission in which he faces off against a mysterious private banker/poker player Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen). Along with the beautiful agent in Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), the MI6 helper named Mathis (Giancarlo Giannini) and ‘M’ (Judi Dench), Bond takes part in a high stakes poker game one which is attended by Le Chiffre in order for him to recover a huge sum of his clients’ money he lost in a failed plot that the British spy took down. By playing through such a tense poker game that has him nearly dying, 007 will not only discover the threatening organisation behind his enemy, he’ll also learn that in the end, he can’t truly trust on anyone…

Now to start with, even though this was a brand new James Bond film, in terms of the actor who was playing him and the general outlook of the film expectedly looking contemporary and for the most part revolves around a lengthy but watch-able and tense poker game, it has to be said that the actual action/fight sequences look far more brutal than any other Bond interation, which is a good thing. Don’t get me wrong, Director Martin Campbell does do the right thing in hallmarking back to the original James Bond stereotypes with the ‘chase’ scenes and the noire espionage, but what can be appreciated very much is the way Bond finally looks to be battered and bruised which does make it more realistic than the ‘B-Movie’ stylistic that older Bond film used to adopt. You feel every punch and every tumble that Bond goes through and for this film to be firstly released as a 12 on DVD/Video is remarkable considering that at some point Bond does in fact get whip-lashed directly on to his private parts which clearly is too graphic for a 12 year old child to witness.

With that action which I have kind of hinted at, comes really good build up to the poker-game in Casino Royale. The narrative relatively builds up a consistent pace in terms of telling us who the villain is and what they plan to do in the end etc. I can honestly tell, I never enjoyed a card game more in Casino Royale than anything else. It’s definitely a roller-coaster ride once the poker game begins as it has near death experience for both Bond and the villain and it does in a way build up the relationship that Bond and Vesper have which I divulge in a later bit later. One complaint I do have of the structure of the film in particular, is how after the poker game, everything just falls flat and you do consider why this film has a length time of 144 minutes. Due to the fact that the poker-game between Bond and Le Chiffre pretty much covers the majority of the running time and rightly so since it offers so much emotional tension while you’re watching, the rest of the film in terms of the mood does genuinely feel flat and uninteresting. The only real thing to take away from the 20 minutes is the conclusion of the relationship between Bond and Vesper and the fact that it concludes with a somewhat dubious cliff-hanger which is prompting another film.

With this being a film that had a different overall look from other Bond iterations, it would be a crime not to mention the characterisation and the acting performances of Daniel Craig especially. For my own upbringing towards the Bond film, the only actor at the time that was performing as Bond in the latest films was of course Pierce Brosnan who came before Craig and for my money, Craig is a much better Bond in every aspect. The one thing that I joke and hate about Brosnan’s performances is how much his accent changes from being typically British to an American who is trying to impersonate a British MI6 spy. Being that Casino Royale is really the first Bond film that really branches away from the ‘B-Movie’ typical things that past Bond films have done and really pushes for something that is more realistic, I would say the performance of Daniel Craig as Bond contributes heavily towards this realistic mentality that Casino Royale and future films go for. What is appreciative about what Craig does with the role is how he has this perfect blend of being your typical Bond figure in a nice suit and being swarve with the good-looking woman, and being someone who is gritty and buff when it comes to the action scenes which involves him going on roof-tops and disarming the villains especially in this film. What is always good to see with a Bond performance as well is the chemistry between the ‘Bond Women’ and how there is both a sexual but emotional attachment between the two roles. This is certainly the case between Craig and Eva Green who plays Vesper Lynd who I have to admit, with her ‘classic’ look-set-up does go on the list of one of the sexiest looking Bond Women. What’s more is that without spoiling much of the plot, Vesper is a character that is complicated in every right way for the narrative to go and for Eva Green to play not only a sexy but complicated character in terms of the story is a stand-out. The last thing to talk about the characterisation of the film is the villain and how I also think it plays a contributing role to try and show of a more gritty and realistic version of Bond. Again, he’s an example of a construct that is straying away from typical Bond stereotypes and not being a villain that is over the top in terms of what he’s doing essentially.

No one can argue really that James Bond films will always remain to be an action British film franchise that is appreciated for it’s ever much re-branding of the story and character. With the arrival of Casino Royale in 2006, we not only have a ‘new’ look of Bond in terms of the contemporary look and the characterisation, we also have potentially one of the best Bond films to ever grace the silver screen. Sure the pacing near towards of the film is something that comes into question of whether you need it or not, but you can’t really argue and complain when Daniel Craig puts in a performance that perhaps puts him near the top of the tree regarding the best actors to play the noticeable role and is a James Bond film that for once, aims to be as realistic and as classy as possible and in the end, sweetens the deal with the idea of another film with Daniel Craig…

And on that note, it’s time to end. As always everyone, thank you for reading and enjoying my latest film review. If you liked what you have read about this review or have an opinion on this James Bond film or anything related, feel free to drop a comment down below. I am sorry if this review was a bit short this week. There were University things that I have to attend to so I hope you guys can understand if this review wasn’t good in terms of the quality. Anywho, thank you once again for joining me in reviewing Casino Royale. As always, I’ll see you all next week with another Blog Post. Until then, TAKE CARE!! 🙂

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ – Alex Rabbitte