You know my name
Screw the ’simple things in life’ I promised you last week (sorry GNG - I will do it, I swear): let’s talk about Bond. Oh ‘Casino Royale‘, shall I count the ways I love thee?
Firstly, Daniel Craig. What a sweet revenge he must be enjoying! The best way to get back at your critics must surely be to rise above it and blow their objections out of the water. Generally, everyone has agreed that Daniel Craig is one of the best ever Bonds; certainly knocking Pierce Brosnan’s efforts into a cocked hat. (Oh, where did all go wrong? ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’ was soo good, but as Mark Simpson so vividly puts it,”by ‘Die Another Day’ he resembled an Eighties knitwear catalogue model trapped in a Noughties computer game.”) Obviously he doesn’t do it all by himself, but he’s the first Bond for a long while you feel could actually be dangerous. There’s something more unsettling about an intelligent man who will shoot you than a smug turtle-necked gent who will shoot you; I’m sure in practice that’s a stupid statement, but it’s make-believe, so I’ll I say what I like. Also worth a mention is the swimwear; all over the trailers but sadly lacking screen-time in the event. I wonder if he knew they were guaranteed their place in cinematic history when he put them on?
The film is beautifully shot, and expertly crafted to give a Bond film feel whilst dispensing with many of the staple ingredients of the genre. Gone are the gadgets (and not before time - the invisible car was the absolute limit), replaced with - heavens forfend - characters and depth! Not that some of the older Bonds aren’t classics for their sheer cheesiness and crass production values (who remembers the pigeons doing a double-take in ‘Moonraker’?) but finally the Broccoli brigade have rediscovered that the secret to a successful movie isn’t a secret at all: you just need to make a really good movie. It is a fantastic reinvention of the franchise.
‘Casino Royale’ starts out with a classic sixties feel; the cinematography is traditional Bond. Of course it’s a dramatic Bond beginning, but the clothes, the colours, the set and the sounds track give it a timeless feel, so that this opening could in fact be the opening to any Bond film, from any decade. The rest of the film continues this feel, so that whilst they of course use laptops and mobile phones, there is still the feel of classic Bond about it. This attention to detail - generating the feel of a traditional Bond film whilst ditching much of the Bond legacy - makes it a fantastic film in its own right, independent of the Bond yoke. Watch out especially for the green baize of the fields when Bond literally becomes his own rolling dice near the end: exquisite filmography.
The rest of the film matches the high standards of the production values: Eva Green is an exquisite Bond girl - easily an equal for Bond without going all out early-nineties feminist on us. Mads Mikkelson is an expert nemesis - who knew accountants could be so villainous? - and we finally discover the precise recipe for the ultimate Bond drink (though the immortal words are not directly uttered once throughout the film).
My only complaint is that the film is somewhat long and the plot, though well crafted, rollercoasters once too often for me. I loved the ending, but felt that it could have finished twenty minutes earlier and saved the closing of this film for the beginning of the next one. Still, if that’s the only thing stopping you from seeing this excellent film, buy a smaller coke and watch it at once!
Next week: Scissor Sisters in concert! Whoo yeah! Photos galore! Oh, and I did a new book review and started a new blog about punctuation (pet hates are often more amusing than they sound). And one more time for the fans:
