Casino Royale. Directed by Martin Campbell. Starring Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Judith Dench (a Brit “dame” now determined to call herself “Judi” in eerie juxtaposition of the folksy and snobby), Giancarlo Giannini (used to was Italian pretty boy now safely and without doubt beyond that phase of his career and looking to all the world like morte on a panino).
When Roger Moore’s Bond James Bond tells his tailor in what? …Live and Let Die that “I’ll take a couple pair of those double-knits,” we knew it was all over. For the Savile Row (variously spelt) Bond James Bond of the original Ian Fleming novels, the Brit twit’s wetdream of a Cold Warrior not just the execution arm of Western Civilization but its cultural ambassador, too (Swiss watch from Rolex, Krau German automatic from Walther, British sports coupe from Aston-Martin, and on and on not to mention the nubile, overstuffed houris from just about everywhere, ecumenical in their insistent lubricity and homogeneous in their poutiness), would sooner have had his martini stirred than be caught dead in (ptui!) synthetic fabric or brogans that weighed less than six pounds apiece. So it is here that the “new” Bond James bond announces his disenfranchisement from the franchise (the one that spawned 20-some successful that is money-making flicks and a cult following around the flockin’ world so goes without saying that it incumbs upon Hollywood boneheads to “modernize” the formula) by sporting an “Oh-mee-gah” as he calls his timepiece and blasting away with a high-cap black pistol of the gangsta persuasion and by undoing his black tie right in front of God and everybody on the poster. We had it coming, I suppose: if we hadn’ta won the Cold War, we could still be foodling around with the Rooshans and the Chinese and… oh.. oh… We still are? We did win, didn’t we? We are the kings of the world, aren’t we? Well, all right, then… and not have to settle for druggies and the pathetic (only a few million of them and ground zero, if you catch my drift, about the size of Delaware) North Koreans (last Pierce Brosnan outing) and like that there. Anyhow. It’s the New Way. This isn’t a bad flick… it’s just not a James Bond flick.
Daniel Craig is a watchable guy, who(m) you should watch in Layer Cake, a kind of Snatch/Lock Stock darkling comedy about the Brit underworld (who knew?) and a petty miscreant loser put upon (like Jason Statham of Snatch, first of unsettling new breed of pumped-up British guys like Vinnie Jones of X-Men: Last Stand and now Craig) by a crime lord, sent on a dubious quest. Equally dubious here is the quest the newbie Bond James Bond gets sent on or rather launches himself on since he’s essentially a rogue in this one as sharply isolated from his base and the imperious M (Judi with an –i Dench gravitating imperiously as a hostile and menacing did I say imperious? M unlike the sort of vaguely officious and avuncular M of the we-broke-Ultra days) as from the sinister but elegant baddies of the ilk you have to wear a tux to assassinate flavor. This Bond James Bond’s world is dark and solitary and brutal. No throw away tee hees. No benign Rooshans. No Moneypenny. No Q. This Bond James Bond hasn’t got the “non-attributable” thing down; he’s a “blunt instrument” in M’s (searing blue) eyes and that’s about the only double entendre (French for “Is that a blunt instrument in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”) you’re gonna entendre. Even the high cheekbones, pouty lips, tight prom gown Exchequeress (Eva Green, who can pout you to within an inch of your life if she wants, décolletée down to here) can’t seem to manage the icy c’mere-no-c’mere-no-itude of the earlier Bond girls and comes off as just plain ol’ vanilla unfriendly even though she does manage to umph umph Bond James Bond’s blunt instrument until his (searing blue) eyes bug out (those eyes, enhanced electronically maybe, do seem to glow out of the shadows from a world where everything important gets done at night: assassinations, break-ins, complicated Euro card games…oh, wait a minute… that’s not baccarat—variously spelt—it’s plain ol’ downhome Texas hold ‘em they’re playing in the toney Czech “royale” casino, same kind like you fall asleep watching on teevee… and of course, umph umph umphety umph).
Anyhow. There is no real story to Casino Royale. Big deal is that Bond James Bond is after another one (the first one, according to the New Kerygma here) of those global truants with a plan, le chiffre (French for “sinuous lips vaguely East-Euro accent traces of small pox uptown cardgame guy”) but can only tackle him on the playing tables of Szcchszcnh, which is in someplace vaguely East-Euro where all the swells now hang out. And since we’ve come to “hang out,” better brace yourself for the ouch! …retribution for winning his millions scene where, by an irony of fate that brought a collective wince upon the (male) audience in the theater where I saw the movie, le chiffre he too also for his part contrives to umph umph Bond James Bond’s blunt instrument (his part, so to speak) until his (searing blue) eyes bug out. With a carpet whacker in the book, by the way did I say ouch?
Again: This isn’t a bad flick. Craig, who stalks away from an arena littered with corpses (a canal full of, too) leaving the promise that we’ll see him again and likely not much sweeter, does workmanlike …um, er work. Like the up-fitting of Batman and now Superman, though, it just doesn’t sit right. It’s brooding, sour, ugly, no fun. A blunt instrument, in a word.
Note: Okay… two words.