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NOBODY’S DONE IT BETTER
CASINO ROYALE (PG-13) The bst time Bond
went dark for a while, the world ended up with
Pierce Brosnan, who brought back the glibness
lacking in the Timothy Oalton regime. However,
Brosnan's Bond, without resorting to Roger
Moore's jokiness, by his third outing, was saddled
with the series' worst Bond mots, The World
Is Not Enough's climactic single entendre, “I
thought Christmas only coifles once a year" (re
ferring to nuclear scientist. Dr. Christmas Jones,
of course). For all Brosnan's box office success,
his four films were lacking something distinctly
Bondian. The talents and abilities (getting laid,
judo chops, foiling megalomaniacal attempts
to rule the world) of this aging, globetrotting
super-spy—M (Dame Judi Dench) once called
him a "dinosaur, a relic of the Cold War"—were
being wasted on subpar villainy and bad jokes.
(I appreciated Tomorrow Never Dies' media mogul
trying to stir up World War III, but can't recall
what nefariousness Robert Carlyle or that Korean
baddie were up to.) For all his flippancy, Moore's
seven Bonds benefited from the tensions of U.S.-
Soviet relations and the decent writing of Tom
ting evening wear clings in all the right places.
Unfortunately, the usually detached Bond—he
prefers married women for their disposability—
also clings to Lynd. Falling in love for only the
second time on film (his 1969 marriage didn't
end well), Bond considers early retirement (not
the forced variety) before the reality of his line
of work hits him square in the heart.
This Bond, a reset of the 40-year-old cin
ematic franchise, is as explosive as the high-
octane Brosnan films, dark as the Daltons (but
not so monastic), and heartrending as On Her
Majesty's.... I'll need another film to confirm.
my assessment, but Craig is the best Bond since
Connery; he exemplifies the Bond of Fleming's
novels. Writers Neil Purvis, Robert Wade and Paul
Haggis (Crash) rewrite the secret agent as we
know him. and assuming subsequent films can
sustain the beefed-up muscularity, I like what
they have done. Stripping 007 of 40 years of
formulaic baggage—Moneypenny, Q and his gad
gets, quips, etc.—and cutting a bespoke Bond
from whole cloth was a risky but valuable alloca
tion of time and resources (perhaps wrongly, I
Eva Green. Daniel Craig and Caterma Murmo
Mankiewicz and Richard Maibaum (think The Spy
Who Loved Me, third on my list of Bond films).
Moore may have come as off a rich kid playing
spy games, but at least he—and consequently
the audience—had fun (I don't care what any
body says, Moonroker is not that bad; plus, I
really dig Lois Chiles' Holly Goodhead). George
Lazenby gets a pass in any discussion due to the
brevity of his stint; however, his was the first
Bond to show true emotion, and On Her Majesty’s
Secret Service ranks second because o f its heart,
not to mention that kickass bobsled sequence.
No matter which Bond if your personal fave, Sean
Connery unarguably set the standard. Every one
of the other Bonds pales in comparison.
How well does new 007 Daniel Craig wear the
famed tux? Chronicling Bond's first assignment
as a Double 0, the second big-screen incarnation
of Ian Fleming's first Bond novel. Casino Royale,
charts very highly, and so does its new Bond.
Newly promoted. Bond is tasked with fighting
the world's war on terror. After muffing a mission
in Madagascar (after filmdom's sweetest foot
chase ever. Bond is caught on camera shoot
ing an unarmed suspect). Bond ventures from
the Bahamas to Miami to Montenegro fn order
to lop off terrorism's financial arm. Using his
superior cardsharp skills, the secret agent must
deal terrorist banker Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen,
Denmark's answer to Rufus Sewell) the fatal
hand in a S 10-million game of poker. With such
a massive amount of terrorist funds at stake,
Bond is accompanied by Vesper Lynd (Eva Green,
Kingdom of Heaven), a gorgeous representative
of the Treasury Department to whom form-fit-
attribute Bond's newfound depth of character
to the skill of Oscar-winning tailor Haggis, not
Purvis and Wade, both of whom were responsible
for Bond's two previous outings). This Bond is
a badass. Gone are the frivolous, featherweight
Bonds of Moore and Brosnan. Brutal, cold and
calculating, Craig as Bond sets his steely blue
eyes on a target and is unrelenting in his pur
suit. Before the opening credits (disappointingly
lacking in naked women). Bond gets the two kills
he needs for Double 0 status—and its accompa
nying license to kill—in monochromatic, angular,
noirish fashion (looking to be Bond's new Guy
Hamilton, director Martin Campbell crafts an
even more stylish, streamlined, if longer, film
than Goldeneye) by outlasting a major beating
to drown his opponent. This new Bond is estab
lished as MI6's Timex, not their Amiga. He takes
a licking and another licking and another licking
and keeps on ticking. Every fight in Casino Royale
includes the most vicious fisticuffs ever seen in
a Bond film. The physicality of the free-running
stunts is exhaustingly exciting. Still, Bond is no
longer a veteran of the Double 0 ranks, and he
fails to perform with anything nearing his usually
slick perfection. Feckless arrogance nearly dooms
every mission. But what Bond lacks in subtlety,
he more than makes up for in <heer detertnina-
tion. I don't know where the Bond franchise
is headed (I prefer updating previously filmed
Fleming novels to crafting original stories). I do
know nobody's done it better than Casino Royale
and Daniel Craig in a long, long time.
Drew Wheeler
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