Casino Royale: Movie Review

December 28, 2006 - "Casino Royale" stars Daniel Craig ("Munich"), Eva Green ("Kingdom of Heaven"), Mads Mikkelsen ("King Arthur"), Judi Dench (Dame Judi Dench, if you're nasty ["Mrs. Henderson Presents"]), Jeffrey Wright ("Lady in the Water"), and Giancarlo Giannini ("Man on Fire"). It's "Batman Begins" meets "The Bourne Supremacy". The James Bond franchise gets a long overdue reboot, and returns to its roots at the same time by bringing to the big screen Ian Fleming's first Bond book, "Casino Royale", but re-imagining the plot of said book by having it center on a young Bond on his first big mission (taking down the preeminent moneyman for some of the world's top baddies by breaking him in a supremely high stakes game of poker), and giving it a modern day setting.

I've seen all the Bond films (yes, even the George Lazenby one, and the 1967 "Casino Royale" spoof featuring David Niven and Woody Allen), and, although Daniel Craig is no Connery or even Brosnan yet, he's in a better Bond film (in fact, the best Bond film ever) than any that featured my two favorite Bonds, because it's less over the top and silly, and more visceral and gritty than any Bond film since "Licence to Kill" (laugh, if you want to, but while I could take or leave Timothy Dalton as Bond, his Bond swan song is in my top three favorite Bond films of all-time), and that's even though it's uneven, overlong, and has lots of scenes of people playing cards, which can and does get kind of boring kind of fast, if not (which it's not) covered correctly, i.e., concentrating on the card players more than the card playing itself. Those qualms aside, after years of losing ground to the Jason Bournes and Ethan Hunts of the cinematic world, Bond, James Bond returns as a Texas Hold 'Em poker king, of all things, in "Casino Royale" without the cheese, but with renewed class K (licence to kill the bad guys), C (licence to chill with the ladies), and T (licence to thrill the audience) licences.