Entertainment HomeDVD review : Casino Royale .
by: Anthony Chatfield
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I’ve always been a huge fan of James Bond. The campy, over the top suave secret agent was the epitome of coolness from the time I was old enough to watch Sean Connery’s black and white firsts. The one liners, the tuxedos, and the martinis (shaken not stirred) all made 007 one of the coolest secret agents in film, and for 20 films he more or less remained the same slick secret agent, slowly but surely growing more and more stagnant with the years.
By the time Pierce Brosnan hung up his tuxedo, the series had become something of a cliché. Everything in a James Bond flick could be figured out before you watched it. There would be a love interest, a femme fatale with a suggestive name, an evil nemesis with ridiculous plans of world domination, and multiple near death escapes from impossible situations. The climax would regularly be filled with slick one liners and Bond making out with his love interest on their way to a secluded beach paradise.
The formula worked, but after 20 films even the most diehard Bond fans began to grow weary. And so, when Brosnan left, the studio decided to try something different. Instead of casting yet another suave, raven haired Britain, they went with the gruff, gangster playing blond, Daniel Craig.
It seemed like a poor move, but only a few minutes into Casino Royale you’ll see that they could not have picked a better bond, and never have they made a better Bond film.
Casino Royale is a film that doesn’t try to follow a formula. Rather it tries to show a man struggling with the weight of his new responsibility, learning how to be a double-0 agent and occasionally scattering in a few subtle references to the Bond we know and love in past franchises.
Daniel Craig’s gritty, down to earth approach to the Bond character is exactly what the film needed, as instead of a suave, machine gun toting secret agent with a smile and pass key to leave it all behind, we’re given a man with a rash sense of urgency, unwilling to follow protocol, making mistake after mistake, and no matter how incredibly talented he might be, show’s a strikingly human side.
I’ll liken it to the manner in which the new superhero films have found such ample success with both critics and audiences. An audience wants a character with problems; desires, family, things they can lose. When we’re presented with an indestructible superhero with no faults, the film can do little to make you any more invested than you were when the film started. The same can be said of Bond. He had become a modern day superhero, idealized to the point of icon, in which he could do no wrong, and he would always succeed.
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Casino Royale takes all of that away and makes Bond human again. As a film, the new Bond is magnificently shot. Gone are the overabundant chromes and neon of recent Bond flicks, replaced with the Mediterranean backdrop of Casino Royale and the exploits that lead Bond there. Also gone are the outrageous villains with plans of world domination.
Our villain here is not only a simple con artist, he is in trouble of his own, threatened by the men whose money he took in the first place. Motivated by his own fear and a certain childlike arrogance, Le Chiffre, is a realistic hero, who by actually managing a stab at Bond, proves a perfect foil, not only in his arrogance, but in his humanity. These are not super humans. They are men with exceptional talents, and endless foibles. And ultimately, the greatest downfall of any of Casino Royale’s many characters is love. Whether it is the promise of love, or the protection thereof, love drives these men and women in a way unlike any Bond film before.
By being something completely different, by throwing out the old formula and starting fresh from the source material, a tactic that has worked very well of late for other mediums, the Bond franchise has returned and its returned with a vengeance. I think Daniel Craig might be around for a little while.
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About The Author
I'm a self avowed unemployed writer, working on semi-constant basis to try and overcome the need to go and work a real job. I've written more than 200 articles and reviews and am constantly scouring the internet for any and all excuses and methods to make myself less dependent on corporate pay days. Visit my website at TheChatfield.com
Movie Trailer: Casino Royale
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