Amph 60+ Years of James Bond 007

Hey, be fair - LTK opened in a summer when it faced competition from Lethal Weapon 2, Batman, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Its marketing campaign was underwhelming because the title was changed due to confusion with US test groups (Licence Revoked).

You're suggesting the gross reflects a general disdain for the film, but the reality is too many blockbusters came out that had friendlier ratings in the US.

 

So many things to criticize about DAD, I'll try to add another one: stunt work has been a big part of what's made the bond movies special: car chases, fights (both one-on-one and on a grand, YOLT finale scale), etc. DAD abandons stunt work for CGI in the most abysmal way, from the opening surfing scene through the invisible car chase right through to the blimp fight finale. I can think of one other Bond movie that tried to go heavy on special effects, and we know how poorly Moonraker turned out.

 

Wasn't the ice car chase done with stunt drivers? I'm sure I saw a feature where the director was talking about the challenge of driving on ice with heavy cars and not sliding about all over the place or falling through the ice.

But yes in most aspects the CGI was over-done, I suppose that was likely given they had a giant laser satellite thing


And surely DAF is Connery's "Moonraker".

 

I think there is something else to be said here, though. This whole obsession is atypical of other major franchises. For instance, those who are fans of Sherlock Holmes largely enjoy him doing just what the franchise describes: solving mysteries as a freelance detective. People watch Batman because they want to see a vigilante crime fighter in a giant bat costume. James Bond seems rather unique in the level of palpable desire for him to deviate from his basic job of high level espionage.

 

The movies have established a type of James Bond that up until recently (and at the beginning) was generally quite different from the source material. Many people seemed to enjoy this movie version of Bond so it was kept pretty much the same throughout (even darker attempts like Dalton still had to use Gadgets and throw out the one-liners), it's good that Craig's movies have managed to satisfy both those who like what movie Bond offers and those who want something closer to Fleming's character.
Few adaptations are exact though, some things simply aren't cinematic or there are ways to do things bigger & better on film. As long as a character and story is identifiable to the source material I don't see why deviations can't be made that will draw in viewers.
Look at the recent Sherlock Holmes movies, they made the characters into an action hero but still retained the essence of what Conan Doyle created. The trouble is going too far, and in some instances with Bond that did happen.

 

There is plenty of textual evidence in the Holmes books as detailed by people way smarter than I that Holmes actually was quite the unarmed pugilist. That the new films played up that aspect; that the new movies have reverted to the "more novelesque" aspects while making, on a ratio basis, less money than any of the previous "gadget heavy" movies may not be an indicator (it may just be that with current prices, they may not be able to make thta kind of ROI again) but then again... it may be.

 

Probably because when it's personal, we get some of the character shining through?

 

But isn't that sort of bizarre? That sort of tension between "doing their job" and "revealing character attributes" doesn't exist for any of the other characters above, nor are there really any I can think of.

More to the point, I don't see why it would need to apply to Bond. He doesn't inhabit a world of espionage that really requires sublimating his personality. That is, it's not as if he does long stints undercover. He often identifies himself freely as James Bond, and is usually just going to kill someone or thwart their plans. It's not at all clear to me why he couldn't be himself why doing this.

 

The idea is that giving him personal stakes in the mission -- which he usually approaches dispassionately and professionally -- can reveal additional depths to his character, showing us a no-holds-barred, passionately invested Bond. Bond usually keeps his emotions restrained; missions with personal stakes can allow them to bubble to the surface. Revenge also generally means that Bond will be acting even more ruthlessly badass than usual. I don't think the fandom has that great a hankering for revenge movies -- just some interest in the idea.

On the topic of Brosnan's legacy, I've already made clear my thoughts from a fan's perspective. But what is interesting is that I think Craig's success in the role is leading to a diminishment of Brosnan's legacy in the public's eye. I grew up during Brosnan's heyday -- Licence to Kill came out only a year after I was born, and Casino Royale didn't come out until I was in college -- and it certainly seemed to me at the time that Brosnan was pretty well-regarded as Bond among the general public. Dalton and Lazenby didn't have any real traction, leaving Brosnan in a kind of trinity with Connery and Moore. They were the classic Bonds, and Brosnan was the modern Bond, starring in highly successful, well-received blockbusters. We can argue differently, but to the general public, Brosnan was well-liked, and even if Die Another Day sent him off with some of the bloom off the rose, he still had the excessively popular GoldenEye to his credit. The public thought that his successor had big shoes to fill.

And had he been followed by someone who flopped with the public, or even a fellow middle-of-the-road Bond who looked the part and tossed off one-liners right, Brosnan would probably have stayed in the public mind as a great modern Bond, or at least his legacy would have weakened more slowly. But Craig came along with movies that were a thousand times better than Brosnan's and firmly established himself as a modern Bond who could genuinely stand up alongside Connery (and to the niche, Dalton) as iconic. In the face of that, Brosnan now seems kind of . . . forgettable. Once you've seen Casino Royale and Skyfall, Tomorrow Never Dies and The World Is Not Enough look more embarrassing than anything. I'm sure there will still be people who keep fond memories of Brosnan as their childhood Bond or whatever, but being followed by such a superior successor hurts Brosnan in the long term, I think. He doesn't really have much of a chance of going down in the canon. He's too new and modern to go down with the classics, and the story of the Bond renaissance has now been established as beginning with Casino Royale, not GoldenEye. His legacy is basically going to be, "He made GoldenEye, which was really popular." Maybe Die Another Day being a reviled misstep will be a footnote to the Casino Royale story. But I don't think anybody is going to have really strong feelings about Brosnan himself as Bond anymore. Brosnan is just going to be a facet of the "GoldenEye successfully brings Bond back after the Cold War" story, whereas Craig already has two undisputed classics to his name in three tries and has two more movies on the way, giving him both more films and longer tenure than Brosnan. Brosnan is in serious danger of joining Lazenby and Dalton in the "everybody else" column while the public focuses on Connery, Moore, and Craig.

 

"It was part of his profession to kill people. He had never liked doing it and when he had to kill he did it as well as he knew how and forgot about it. As a secret agent who held the rare double-O prefix—the licence to kill in the Secret Service—it was his duty to be as cool about death as a surgeon. If it happened, it happened. Regret was unprofessional—worse, it was a death-watch beetle in the soul."

Ian Fleming, Goldfinger,.

If it's not evident from here, then let me know.

 

Absolutely. I remember walking out of Casino Royale, and realizing that all the "dramatic" threads weaved during the Brosnan era--Alec's betrayal, Paris's death, the Bond, M, Electra and Renard dynamic--amounted to nothing more than melodramatic fuzz. In the wake of CR, Skyfall, and even Quantum of Solace, the movies have been vaporized.

 

Although, without the Brosnan movies M's death would not have been as emotional since the audience wouldn't have seen her develop as a character over so many years. She might not even have been cast in the Craig movies had she not been so well received in the Brosnan ones.

Havac - I get what you're saying about Craig making Brosnan rather insignificant, but to think he'll become rather forgettable overlooks the fact that as you said his films were largely liked and well received and also pretty successful compared to say a guy Dalton. While most of his movies may be mediocre they're also much better than pretty much all of Moore's movies and he's a better actor than Moore could ever hope to be. How many of Moore's movies are even well received these days? They tend to get pretty poor ratings when they come on TV I've noticed (aside from TSWLM) which suggests critics certainly don't rate them much anymore. With the exception of DAD, Brosnan's movies tend to get good critic feedback on the whole (4 stars for all but DAD in the Radio Times here every time the come around on TV compared to an average of two or three stars for Moore movies bar TSWLM).

Craig's movies hurt Moore's era far more than they hurt Brosnan's

 

That's exactly it Havac. I think Brosnan was so well received back then was because 1) He was passed over before, and the expectation was that it was finally his turn. and 2)After the 6 year break between films, people wanted any type of Bond, and it was what filled the void. At least Bond movies were being produced again, but I think having said that, the production team, as well as the audience, didn't know any better. Because as you said, I think by DAD, Bond had become so generic, that it set the stage for Craig's series. Craig's movies have very much so made Brosnan's tenure simple filler.

E_S, those are the few Bond novels I have read. But I think almost immediately, the movie version of Bond never really translated Fleming's vision. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but Fleming thought Connery was all wrong for the part, assuming Fleming kept the same idea of Bond from when he 1st wrote them, up until he died shortly after Connery assumed the role. But Connery set the stage for the pop culture template. In Fleming's mind, the passage you quoted would be attributed to kind of a nerdy assassin. Or rather, he could interchangeably be a haberdasher or a licensed killer for the crown. I mean, the actor who Fleming said embodied James Bond was David Niven from this period in time:



Fleming actually played homage to Niven in his novel. Besides the film parody Niven was in, I'm not sure how well he would play a legitimate James Bond and be accepted by movie audiences. I could see Niven stepping out of the pages of the novels and swapping scrambled egg recipes and worrying about cold roast beef and potatoes. I can't picture him dodging a helicopter with an Ar-7 rifle or assaulting Fort Knox. The movies certainly would have progressed in a different manner. It would be interesting to think about.

 

I was of the impression Fleming liked Connery, E_S has said previously Fleming even changed Bond's origin in the book to be Scottish (as we saw in Skyfall) because of Connery. Hence why Connery IS Bond, because Bond was changed to be Connery

Fleming was around for Dr No & FRWL, but died the year Goldfinger came out. I don't know if he ever saw that, but he did see the first two and they are regarded as showing Connery as being closer to Fleming than his later movies (despite the acclaim and love for stuff like Goldfinger) because he was more ruthless and cold.
It seems as if the producers were waiting for him to die just so they could mess with the formula, because he can't get mad when he's dead.

 

I wasn't sure. But that's kind of the basis for my question. Did Fleming have a completely different character in mind when he started writing him in 1952, vs the later years of his life after he saw Connery portray him on film? How much input did Fleming himself have when Saltzman and Broccoli bought the rights to put to film, and did that input change? Because Fleming also wrote Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and as far as movies go, Dick Van Dyke was closer to the physical description of Fleming's Bond than Sean Connery was. Connery was certainly no David Niven.

 

It isn't, really. He's an impersonal and professional killer. Fine. But that's not a reason we can't otherwise learn a huge amount about his personality in a two hour movie that just features his more quotidian duties. There may be constraints inherited from the particulars of how the Bond franchise tries to operate, but it's certainly neither the fact that we're discussing espionage nor the fact that we are discussing killers that is the problem here. In fact, most of the other (albeit more grounded) films about the intelligence community make dissecting their main characters' psychology a central part of the tale.

Havac, let me show you what I mean. Look at the two most recent Bonds, and the incidence of "now it's personal" and/or "revenge" themes:

1. Goldeneye- Betrayal from within the ranks. Includes the famous exchange "For England, James? No, for me" when Bond finally defeats a treacherous one-time partner.

2. Tomorrow Never Dies- A normal James Bond film

3. The World Is Not Enough- Multiple people in the this thread remarked on the "personal" dynamic sense M is so close to the case, and Elektra's father was a close friend.

4. Die Another Day- A huge wave of remarks about how everyone was hoping Bond's capture in North Korea would lead to a revenge subplot.

5. Casino Royale- A normal James Bond film

6. Quantum of Solace- James Bond revenge flick about whatever happened with that lady in Casino Royale

7. Skyfall- Bad guy is out for revenge against MI6 (again)

To review, 4/7 actually played on the "now it's personal," thing. Fans were disappointed that a fifth didn't do so to a much greater extent. In basically the last quarter century, only two films have featured ordinary James Bond missions without any personal or revenge element. I hope you understand how that's at least a little odd.

 

Casino Royale (2006)

Behind the scenes

In 1999, MGM swapped rights with Sony to get back Casino Royale, Ian Fleming's first Bond novel, the rights to which had been sold separately before EON had picked up the rest of the package and gotten the Bond franchise off the ground. Casino Royale had originally been adapted as part of the American anthology-drama TV series Climax! way back in 1954, notable mostly for having the great Peter Lorre as Le Chiffre. A watered-down, Americanized adaptation long before Bond became an international sensation, it was basically forgotten for years, but the separate rights came back into the spotlight when they were used at the height of Bond-mania to produce the 1967 film Casino Royale. Rather than trying to compete with Bond directly, it instead tapped into Bond mania by parodying the series in a wild, celebrity-packed farce.

Now, with the rights back in hand, EON started thinking about finally giving Casino Royale a true big-screen adaptation. Meanwhile, Pierce Brosnan had fulfilled his entire contract and was looking at the wrong side of fifty. The public was left in suspense as it became clear that Brosnan's future was in limbo, with the delay lasting twice as long as normal, pushing the ultimate release of Casino Royale to four years after Die Another Day. Finally his retirement from the role of James Bond was formally announced in 2005. The franchise was moving on, utilizing Casino Royale's status as the first Bond novel to jump-start a reboot of the series, telling the story of Bond's first mission as a 00 agent. For the first time, the muddy sliding-scale continuity-that-wasn't-really was being explicitly contradicted and a new continuity established.

For the reboot, Martin Campbell, who had successfully helmed the revitalizing GoldenEye, returned to the director's chair, while Purvis and Wade were kept on to write the script. They attempted to hew as closely to the novel as possible, bringing the last unadapted Bond novel to the screen faithfully and bringing out an emphasis on Bond as a character. Their script was rewritten by Paul Haggis.



The biggest challenge, though, was casting another Bond -- the first such post-Cubby casting. With Bond in the internet age, public speculation was rife and casting interest was intense. All sorts of names flew through the rumor mill. Wilson at one point said that two hundred names had appeared on their list. In the end, the top contenders internally were Daniel Craig and Henry Cavill. Campbell backed Cavill, but while the actor had the looks for the part, he was only in his early twenties at the time, and reboot or not, the producers felt him to be too young for the role. Instead, the part went to Craig, entering his late thirties. Craig had initially not been interested, given the direction of the franchise in Brosnan's tenure, but was convinced by the strength of the script; like Dalton, he came on board with the promise of a new direction and immediately set about reading the books to research the character. There was significant public backlash to the announcement of the first blond James Bond, both from dissatisfied fans and the notoriously quarrelsome British press. The film's release largely quieted those critics.

After big-name actresses like Angelina Jolie and Charlize Theron were considered and rightly rejected, French actress Eva Green was cast in the critical role of Bond girl Vesper Lynd. Danish star Mads Mikkelsen was tapped to play the villain Le Chiffre. Academy Award nominee Giancarlo Giannini (no, really, he was nominated for Best Actor back in the seventies -- and for a performance all in Italian, no less) played ally René Mathis. Judi Dench was the only cast member returning from the previous films; Q and Monepenny did not even appear. After an absence of seventeen years -- and in only his third appearance since 1973 -- Felix Leiter returned to the series, played by Jeffrey Wright. Wright was the first official black Leiter, though Leiter had been played by black actor Bernie Casey in Never Say Never Again.



Primary shooting was in Prague; plans to shoot in South Africa fell through, and the rest of the shooting ended up being done in the Bahamas, Italy, and of course the UK. The production narrowly avoided disaster when a fire caused major damage at Pinewood, so severe that the 007 Stage had to be rebuilt; it struck shortly after filming had already wrapped. The team moved away from the overreliance on CGI for which Die Another Day had been so criticized, doing as much as possible via classic practical effects. Perhaps the most famous practical stunt is the flip of Bond's car (an Aston Martin DB9 standing in for Bond's DBS V12 during the stunt), which holds the Guinness World Record for most rotations of a car, flipping seven full times after a ramp and air cannon were used to flip the car -- it gripped the road too well for the stunt drivers to flip it on their own however they tried.

To emphasize the film's nature as an origin story, not only were major characters like Q and Moneypenny missing, but the Bond theme was not used until the end of the film, with David Arnold instead using Chris Cornell's You Know My Name to create a motif for Bond. The classic gunbarrel opening was reworked enough to make Lee Tamahori's addition of a CGI bullet whizzing from Brosnan's gun seem tame; it was significantly altered to serve as the end of the pre-credits sequence and led directly into the credits sequence, starting a trend of experimentation with the gunbarrel sequence that the Craig run still hasn't gotten over.

The Queen once more attended the premiere. The film was a massive box office success, earning praise from both critics and the public for revitalizing Bond with a back-to-basics, character-focused approach. The criticism of Craig largely faded.

Plot

The film opens with a sequence showing the two kills Bond had to make to be promoted to 00 status. 007 is then sent to capture and interrogate a bombmaker in Madagascar, but ends up killing him after a lengthy chase that ends inside an embassy. M chews him out for rashness and sends him on leave, but Bond instead follows the trail of the bombmaker's associates to the Bahamas, where he identifies the broker Dimitrios as the bomber's contact. He follows Dimitros to Miami and picks up the trail of the replacement bomber Dimitrios hired, foiling the plot to destroy a prototype jetliner. The failure of the plan nearly bankrupts the plan's mastermind, international financier to criminals and terrorists Le Chiffre, who has lost their money on the plot.

Learning that Le Chiffre is in dire financial straits and plans a poker tournament at Casino Royale to recoup his losses, MI6 sends Bond, as its top poker player, to Montenegro to enter the tournament, make sure Le Chiffre loses, and then bring the desperate criminal in, promising protection in exchange for information. He is joined by Treasury agent Vesper Lynd, who has charge of the government funds Bond is playing with. Bond connects with his local contact, Mathis, and sets about playing. He saves Le Chiffre from an angry client, and avoids Le Chiffre's poisoning attempt during the tournament, all while building a mutual attraction with the combative Vesper. Bond looks set to beat Le Chiffre, but Le Chiffre manipulates Bond's awareness of his tell to bust Bond instead. Vesper refuses to provide the re-buy, but Bond is staked by CIA operative Felix Leiter in exchange for allowing the Americans to bring Le Chiffre in.



Bond wins the tournament after the re-buy, only then realizing that Le Chiffre was likely told of Bond's recognition of his tell and suspecting Mathis. He sees Vesper abducted on her way to a claimed meeting with Mathis and follows, only to wreck his car in the chase. Le Chiffre captures him, claims that Mathis was his inside man, and proceeds to torture Bond in hopes of learning the access code to the Swiss account from which he can claim Bond's winnings. Instead, Le Chiffre is shot by Mr. White, the representative of a criminal organization that had used and recommended Le Chiffre's services, for his betrayal.

Bond recovers and has Mathis arrested, while Vesper and he reveal their feelings for each other. They start traveling around the world, Bond resigning from MI6 to be with his love. In Venice, however, he receives a call from M informing him that the winnings have not been deposited with the government. Realizing that Vesper has betrayed them by routing the funds to a private account, Bond follows her from their hotel room and finds her meeting with a representative from Mr. White's organization (Quantum, though we don't know that yet). In the shootout, Bond kills the goons and, though he initially wanted to kill Vesper, tries to save her from drowning in a collapsed elevator trapped underwater. She kills herself by deliberately drowning instead. From information left behind, MI6 discovers that she was pressured to work for Quantum by the kidnapping of her previous boyfriend, and she had betrayed Bond to Le Chiffre and given Quantum the money. Bond finds a note she had left giving him White's identity, and captures him at his villa in the final scene.

Bond himself

Finally, meaty material to talk about. Craig's take on Bond is deeply Flemingesque, yet also wholly his own. His Bond is brand-new to the 00 business, and remains overconfident, brash, and inexperienced. He's a dispassionate killing machine, and he enjoys his job. Yet, prompted by Vesper's love, he ultimately realizes the toll it takes on him as a human and attempts to walk away -- only to lose Vesper and resign himself to intelligence work once more. He had been vulnerable, entering a genuine romantic relationship that opened him up and gave him hope of a life outside work, overcoming his natural tendencies toward misogyny and detachment, but her betrayal and death leave him more hardened than ever.

Bond gets a real arc, learning and growing both personally and in spycraft, only to have his hopes dashed and form him into the jaded, rueful veteran familiar from Fleming. It's fantastic stuff, the first time the series has really taken Bond completely seriously as a character and delved deeply into his psychology to take him through a character arc.



Notably, Bond gets to be not just emotionally, but physically vulnerable. His fights are intense and brutal, and they leave evidence on his body -- he gets scarred and bloody, cut and bruised. He sweats, he falls, he gets his balls bashed with a rope. He's still ultimately an unstoppable killing machine, but he's not the untouchable inhuman he was previously; he comes with a sense of real consequences and fallibility.

Craig plays the character so well, a great actor bringing out all the many facets of Bond in a performance that's human and vulnerable but also makes Bond as dangerous and cold as he's ever been. His hair is irrelevant when he's nailing the character of Bond so well.

How it fits into the series

Well, it's a reboot. That much has an obvious impact, discarding the amorphous continuity of previous entries to definitively establish itself as a new starting point that stands on its own. Though there are many aspects of classic Bond present, and it is in a big way a return to the series' roots in Fleming, it also is a film that finally breaks away from formula in a definitive way. It has no sacred cows, with Bond's iconoclastic "Do I look like I give a damn?" the most memorable signal that this was not a film desperate to play on the past's greatest hits. The gadgets were ignored, the quips were limited to logical locations for banter, famous standard elements like Q, Moneypenny, and the gunbarrel sequence were omitted or reworked, and plot and character came well before shoehorning in any formula elements. It was more concerned about telling a great story than pandering to expectations. It is, I would say, only the third film since Goldfinger that isn't trying on some level to be a remake of Goldfinger (and that's maybe being generous to FYEO).



Of course, just because it doesn't pander to formula doesn't mean that it's not recognizable as Bond -- its strength is perhaps shown by how clearly it remains a Bond film even without all the superficial trappings. In its dedication to Bond as a character, exploring his emotions and humanity, it recalls OHMSS and LTK. In its stripped-down, grounded Bond, it recalls Dr. No and FRWL. Craig channels the dangerous, rugged, killer-in-a-suit menace of Connery and the emotional depth of Dalton.

It's a departure that modernizes the series, but it also brings it back to its roots at the same time, locating Craig's Bond in a world that is once more dangerous and in desperate need of spies and killers, emphasizing the job's toll on his soul. It's more down-to-earth in the vein of classic Bond, but it doesn't lose its role as spectacular escapism, finding a balance between dramatic seriousness and big-time action. It's the biggest change to the series since Goldfinger -- and it's exactly what it needed.

Review

Casino Royale is probably the first movie since From Russia with Love that completely works as a film. There's no "Bond movie" wackiness to shrug off, no need to grade on a curve, no holding it to the lower standard of an action movie. It's a completely legitimate thriller that works from beginning to end without any inserted wackiness, any weak spots. A back-to-basics reboot that concentrates on espionage, character growth, and the costs of intelligence service rather than supervillains and setpieces, it's both a great Bond film and a film that could stand on its own if Bond were a brand-new character introduced here for the first time.

Previous back-to-the-origins attempts hadn't gotten all the way free of Bond formula – FYEO couldn't resist nonsense setpieces and bad puns, LTK had gadgets and gags. Casino Royale is the first to really shake free of formula, keeping elements only as they play within the story, and going back to no gadgets, no playing to expectations, with a focus on the story and the action, in the style of FRWL and Dr. No. What it adds to that classic formula is the OHMSS-style focus on character, on realizing Bond as a character, giving him an arc of character growth, and giving him real emotions. Bond is happy, sad, cocky, he falls in love and grows cynical. The real genius of the movie is how deeply it's rooted in Bond's character growth. Early on, M harangues Bond, but it's also seen in the story, in Bond's reckless, full-tilt, damn-the-consequences pursuit of the bomber in the beginning, in the cocky way he breaks into M's apartment, in his delight in goading his enemies. This is a Bond who's young, brimming with overconfidence, not fully seasoned. We get to watch the process of his seasoning. When he pauses and checks out the security cameras before he barges into the Bahamian club, it's visual storytelling letting us know that Bond is learning caution. When he is distracted by Solange coming up to Dimitrios in a planned move, and he later instructs Vesper to do the same move, it's left to us to draw the connection, but it's clear that Bond is learning in front of our eyes.



With Vesper, we see Bond drawn in by a strong woman who gives him a challenge and rejects his advances, but the film isn't content to sit with that as an explanation for Bond falling in love with her – instead, it roots that in a moment of emotional connection, when he finds her shaken by Obanno's death and her vulnerability brings out something in him, and he offers her comfort nonsexually, as part of a personal connection. That moment is key, because it also puts Bond in a new light for Vesper – he lets the shield of his detached persona down, and offers her a genuine emotional connection rather than exploitation, one that grows in both of them and starts Bond thinking about the long-term consequences of his lifestyle and whether he should get out with what soul he has left. Green does a fantastic job as Vesper – she's incredibly sexy, not just physically but in her attitude, and has just the right mix of confidence and brittleness underneath. She's also great at playing the two levels of Vesper – watching with the knowledge that she's a double agent, you can clearly see the hesitation and conflict underneath what she's doing, the way reactions that seem to indicate one thing are actually covering a different emotion. And that double agent nature is great – it gives Vesper great inner complexity as she resolves to throw her lot in with Bond even as she knows she can't escape Quantum's grip, and is basically resigned to death as the exit of the mess she's gotten herself into by the end of the film. Her suicide is a tremendously harrowing scene.

Overall, what really stands out is just how confident the filmmaking is. It dispenses with formula elements, and doesn't worry about it. It goes into the "serious dramatic thriller" range without a second thought or any attempt to undermine it back to the Bond standard. Very few films, let alone comfortable genre fare like the Bond films, would have the confidence to introduce Mr. White offhandedly in the first post-credits scene, give him absolutely no presence throughout the rest of the film, and then bring him back at the climax in a perfectly logical way and trust the audience to remember who and what he is. I particularly love Campbell's recurring visual motif of the camera focusing on consequences – the lingering shot of the truck driver the Miami bomber kills, the insistence on showing everything that gets dropped or knocked down during the building/crane sequence hitting the ground, the fact that Bond winds up with his face completely covered with cuts after Miami because the action is real, bringing us back to a shot of Solange's dead body (and a completely impassive Bond – magnificent scene) as the immediate and necessary followup to Bond's triumph in Miami. It's sharp stuff, a nice visual complement to the thematic focus on the emotional and spiritual consequences of Bond's job as a killer.

I could list highlights from the movie all day. The pre-credits sequence is absolutely fantastic – gorgeous black-and-white footage of the sleek glass-and-metal Prague office contrasting with grainy, gritty footage of Bond's first kill, setting the stage for the incredibly brutal, sustained, intimate nature of the violence throughout the film. It's followed with probably the best credits sequence in the whole series, and shortly thereafter one of my favorite action sequences of all time, the parkour chase/fight. It's an incredibly kinetic sequence that cannonballs from one scenario to another, making tremendous use of the environment, showing us something that was very new at the time, well shot (I love those helicopter shots of tiny figures up on those cranes), thrilling, and telling us about Bond's character at the same time, illustrating his relentless, straightforward, arrogant nature. The torture scene is yet another all-time sequence. I can remember sitting in the theater, being absolutely blown away by how vulnerable Bond was, then thrilling to how he took control of the situation as only he can, a great display of defiance – only for Le Chiffre to get into the reality of how the intelligence world works and turn Bond vulnerable again, though never any less defiant. And of the course the ending is one of my favorite fist-pumping endings of all time, the suave Bond taking in the top villain and declaring, "The name's Bond. James Bond," right as the Bond theme grows and hits us with a cut to the credits.



Furthermore, the film is tremendously cast. I've already gotten into how perfect Craig and Green are. Jeffrey Wright is the only truly great Felix Leiter, world-weary but charming. Mads Mikkelson, an actor who deserves to be even bigger, is awesome as Le Chiffre, a confident, smarmy presence. One of the strongest Bond villains, and he doesn't need any scheme bigger than recovering his money and continuing his role as banker and go-between for the criminal class. And it's a situation that he got himself into via greed, overconfidence, and extra-crookedness, screwing over his clients. It's a wonderfully appropriate touch that makes the character even slimier. Giancarlo Giannini's smooth confidence and easy charm as Mathis makes it easy to see why they brought him back in the sequel. He's not given a whole lot to do, but he still stands out among Bond's allies. I'm also glad they kept Dench – she's great, stepping up her game along with the script and delivering a potent hardass maternal figure for the misogynist Bond to play off. She's hard on him because she needs him to shape up into a better agent, but it's a harshness that comes out of a sincere desire to see him succeed.

Really, the worst criticism I can make of the film is that it has a small structural/pacing problem. It has the first climax with Le Chiffre's death a half hour before the film finishes, then twelve full minutes of essentially nothing happening – Bond's medical recovery, a tiny bit of housekeeping with Mathis, and then multiple scenes of Bond being lovey-dovey with Vesper while the viewer sits with the plot seemingly resolved and no idea where the film is going with this until the plot kicks back in a couple scenes into the Venice sequence. At that point, we get a great action finale and the second climax of the movie, but there's a long, languid, essentially aimless stretch in there that throws off the pacing. It's especially disappointing after the film did so well at pacing the long poker sequence to avoid interminability. Also, it would be nice if the writers knew how markets worked, or did some research to find out.

I could go on all day, but the fact is that Casino Royale is the best of the Bond films. It weaves together the down-to-earth, plot-and-character-based espionage of Connery's greatest hits with the most serious, fully-realized, and effective of the series' attempts at emotional depth and character exploration. Instead of catering to empty formula, it boldly reboots the series with Flemingesque grit and genuine artistic ambition, and it completely pays off in every way. A damn near flawless entry that shows exactly what the series is capable of and the most refreshing possible contrast to Die Another Day.

Rankings

1. Casino Royale
2. From Russia with Love
3. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
4. Licence to Kill
5. Dr. No
6. For Your Eyes Only
7. GoldenEye
8. The Living Daylights
9. The Spy Who Loved Me
10. Goldfinger
11. Thunderball
12. You Only Live Twice
13. The Man with the Golden Gun
14. The World Is Not Enough
15. Tomorrow Never Dies
16. A View to a Kill
17. Diamonds Are Forever
18. Octopussy
19. Live and Let Die
20. Die Another Day
21. Moonraker

Questions for discussion

1. How refreshing is it to finally have a great Leiter? Why did it take them this long?
2. What are your responses to the reboot of the series? Could the film have gotten away with adding more classic Bond elements?
3. What does it mean if the best Bond film is actually the one that deliberately bucks Bond formula?
4. How does Craig stack up as Bond?
5. Does any Bond film have a better overall cast than this?
6. What effect will the reboot have once the series has to move on from Craig? Will we be back to amorphous continuity? Will there be an attempt to maintain a single tight continuity somehow? Or will the precedent be set that the series reboots each time a new actor is cast?
7. A reboot would have been the obvious chance to take Bond back to his origins for real, with a period-set Bond franchise, but CR didn't go for it. Do you think there's a chance that we ever get a period Bond?

 

The most chiseled Bond to date.

My wife didn't want to know anything Bond until she saw this image. His good looks and physique certainly helped garner some female fans.

I also had to look up what MGM swapped over to Sony for Casino Royale. It was their partial control of Spider-man. I didn't know that.

 

I was happy that they through out the gadgets and went for something more realistic. It's quite a bit like For Your Eyes Only that way. I find it cool that Bond carries his scars and bruises not only from scene to scene but film to film. Even in QOS he is all beat up.



Ow! Ow! Not exactly a laser threat to the balls is it?

 

Questions for discussion
1. How refreshing is it to finally have a great Leiter? Why did it take them this long?

To be fair, I actually liked old!Leiter -- but Jeffrey Wright is just an amazing actor so I have zero complaints here. I think unconsciously, the previous Leiters were supposed to be, directionally, "inferior" to Bond as a British vs. US thing -- but with the goal of casting amazing people in every main role, where possible, this makes more sense. And I'd love to see more Wright in future films.

2. What are your responses to the reboot of the series? Could the film have gotten away with adding more classic Bond elements?

I liked the reboot, however it more reflects modern trends than anything else. More on this below.

3. What does it mean if the best Bond film is actually the one that deliberately bucks Bond formula?

"Best" is subjective. Certainly not in money (either gross or ratio) and people found the other Bond films (even the terrible ones) entertaining. And recall: there's a lot of difference between filmmaking (both in technique and secondary things like effects, stunts, etc.) in 1962 and 2006. But this is certainly the best "Bond movie" as a film.

4. How does Craig stack up as Bond?

1a. Just behind Connery, but not "inferior."

5. Does any Bond film have a better overall cast than this?

No, and it shows. See #3 above.

6. What effect will the reboot have once the series has to move on from Craig? Will we be back to amorphous continuity? Will there be an attempt to maintain a single tight continuity somehow? Or will the precedent be set that the series reboots each time a new actor is cast?

I think Skyfall answers this almost explicitly, no? We should be back to basically the original Bond formula at this point though possibly with fewer "gadget-based" things. Male M, leather door, Moneypenny in place, flirting with Bond, Q in place, etc.

7. A reboot would have been the obvious chance to take Bond back to his origins for real, with a period-set Bond franchise, but CR didn't go for it. Do you think there's a chance that we ever get a period Bond?

No. Unless they do time travel. Which would be awful.

********************************************************

So, on the subject of the reboot.

I think this particular film more represents the time it was made in, similar to the Nolanverse for Batman films. James Bond is a superhero, not unlike Batman. It's essentially a comic book and it never made it from the Silver Age to the Modern Era unil now. I happen to think that this is why it doesn't really matter which formula they stick with going forward (and my response to #6 above indicates they seem to be hedging their bets somewhat) -- as there are people who like both versions (and, frankly, I think we'll see how this works out next week with Man Of Steel depending on what they did to the property).

But people like this sort of thing. I like this sort of thing where it's appropriate for the character (e.g. Batman? Yes. James Bond? Yes. Superman? Hell no.). So I loved the hell out of this movie. And I think a lot of care and attention went into making this (Exhibit A: casting the founder of freerunning as a terrorist Bond is chasing in a freerunning chase) a) a Bond film and b) grounding it in realism as much as possible while c) retaining the jeu d'espirit of the overall Bond character.

Similarly, I thought the use of the Bond theme at the end of the film -- only when he truly becomes James Bond -- as a really good touch. Going back a ways, and dating myself terribly, I have a very soft spot for the terrible The Legend of the Lone Ranger. The movie goes along for about the first hour with the origin part and, really, falls relatively flat as a Lone Ranger-film... until John Reid is giving a graveside speech and turns around, finally in the mask, and the William Tell Overture: it has now become a Lone Ranger movie. I thought it worked there and I think it worked better in Casino Royale right after the first "Bond... JAMES Bond..." because,well, then it's a James Bond film...

 

Once in a while, I'll experience a cinematic miracle, whereby a movie, coming out of nowhere, leaves me shaken and stirred.

I had little faith in this movie. Contrary to the British press/Internet schmucks, I knew Craig was inspired casting; I had seen Munich and Layer Cake, after all. But there was the sad reality that he was being guided by the Bond producers and returning writers. Given their deplorable track record, I prepared myself for mediocrity.

What I saw in 2006 was the best Bond movie ever made, with the best lead performance, the best Bond girl, the best Bond ally, a top-three ranking villain, the best pre-credits sequence, the best finale. Like I said, a cinematic miracle.

Several points:

-I must be the only fan who embraces the Chris Cornell opening song. I love it to pieces.
-Mads Mikkelson deserves more credit for his performance. His Le Chiffre is the only villain, apart from Sanchez, who comes across as a fully-realized human being. Sadistic, but also burdened and cowardly. I love the scene where the African warlord threatens to sever his girl's arm. As said warlord observes, not a word of protest from Le Chiffre. Self-preservation is his only concern.

Thematic observations:

-Notice, in the pre-credits sequence, the quick cut to Dryden's family picture, right before he's shot down? We truly are back in Fleming's world...and I never want to leave again.
-Notice how this is the only Bond film that makes explicit reference to the spiritual? Le Chiffre's denial of God and Bond's stated desire to save his soul is completely appropriate here, in an origin story about an empty-shell of a man with a licence to kill. (Nice job, screenwriters.)

 

I think the review about sums it up.


1.I don't know. Like Dp, I never minded the old Leiters. For the longest time, my favorite was Jack Lord. And as Dp also pointed out, Leiter was always supposed to be a US vs British rivalry thing. Leiter always supplied the helicopters, spaceships and money and whatnot, while Bond was always one step ahead, of course. Having said that- Wright is the perfect Leiter for Craig, as even in Wright's brief scenes, including QoS, he and Bond are two sides of the same coin. Going back to Halle Berry and her supposed "spin off," I could actually see Wright hold a movie in his own spin off.

2.Perfect. I don't think at CR's point, any more classic elements were needed, because it ensured by SF, the classic elements were that much more meaningful. Whereas CR rebooted the series, SF stripped the reboot down and completely returned it to its roots. Both worked together.

3.I don't think it bucked the core Bond formula. We still have a megalomaniac wanting money and power, and we still have Bond acting as the fly in the ointment. What it did was buck the layers of fake "blockbuster-ness," and reset the Bond formula to more closely match his origins. This Bond was also a blockbuster, but it did it by taking the back door, as truly successful films do.

4.This is a tough question. Connery will always be the defining Bond, but Craig is perfect. There's Connery, there's Craig, and then the rest can fall wherever they do on the list behind them.

5.I think Dr No comes close for overall cast. Dr No himself was the perfect villain. Ursula Andress perfect Bond girl. 1st appearances of Bernard Lee and Lois Maxwell. Already mentioned Jack Lord. Even the girl Bond has arrested and the always nervous, twitchy Professor Dent, who Bond kills, were great. Again, it comes down to Dr No, this movie, and all the rest.

6. I hope the series isn't rebooted every time there is a new Bond from now on. However, there has to be a light at the end of the tunnel as well. Craig still has 2 more movies left. That's going to take Bond to 2020, assuming the transition goes smoothly. Craig is going to leave shoes which are almost impossible to fill, no less than when Connery had to be replaced. The way SF ended with Ralph Fiennes' Mallory returning the series to its roots helps, but I think ending the series at movie #25, some 60 years later, and letting the collected works stand wouldn't be a bad way to go out either.

7. I hope we don't get a period Bond, because since Bond is still popular, true "period" Bonds are still playing on a regular basis. I think the danger of doing a period Bond now is that it would end up a caricature of Connery's Bonds. I was truly excited at how the end of SF set everything. But I want the actual "in movie" period to be undefined. I hope a truly updated, non-silly version of SPECTRE is focused on in Craig's last two movies. This would remove Bond from being tied down to something like the cold war, or actually, any set period in time.

 

I'll reenter the discussion, because I actually care now.

1. How refreshing is it to finally have a great Leiter? Why did it take them this long?

Leiter's kind of a hard character to do. He has to play second fiddle to Bond, not get in his way, but still be useful. All things that Jeffrey Wright plays perfectly here.

2. What are your responses to the reboot of the series? Could the film have gotten away with adding more classic Bond elements?

In this instance, I'd say no, it did perfectly fine with what it had. This movie is about stripping away everything we know about James Bond, all the stupid tropes that have been keeping him behind, and seeing if he still works as a character. And lo and behold, he does.

3. What does it mean if the best Bond film is actually the one that deliberately bucks Bond formula?

I still think FRWL is better, but it's pretty telling that this one is so great.

4. How does Craig stack up as Bond?

One of the best, if not the best. He has the rough charm, wit and ball (ha!) to completely lead the film and leave me asking for seconds.

5. Does any Bond film have a better overall cast than this?

Maybe Skyfall.

6. What effect will the reboot have once the series has to move on from Craig? Will we be back to amorphous continuity? Will there be an attempt to maintain a single tight continuity somehow? Or will the precedent be set that the series reboots each time a new actor is cast?

I think we're going to see a reboot for every new Bond. Which I don't mind. The "This never would have happened to the other fellow." always bothered me.

7. A reboot would have been the obvious chance to take Bond back to his origins for real, with a period-set Bond franchise, but CR didn't go for it. Do you think there's a chance that we ever get a period Bond?

With the critical popularity of Mad Men...it could be. Maybe just a one-off film though.

 

No, I also love the song. On first hearing it on TV I was apathetic, but when it kicked in with the animated opening credits (definitely my favourite Bond credits ever) I suddenly was in love; it has an energy that really fills me with enthusiasm for the film every time I hear it, and its rawer sound just fits Bond so well at this stage of his career.

 

I really like the song too.