How I fell in love with Bond again—The Herald
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How I fell in love with Bond again
ALISON ROWAT
PICTURE this. James Bond, pumped up from his latest killing spree, returns to his hotel room to find a fellow agent sitting under the shower, fully clothed. She is weeping, a Lady Macbeth who fears she will never wash the stains from her conscience. Another Bond might have swept her up and delivered a brisk towelling off and a cheesy line. Not this one. He gets down in the shower tray beside her and feels … her … pain. First prize in the wet tuxedo competition, and the title of absolutely the best Bond since Connery, goes to Daniel Craig.
Cinemagoers had been promised that the sixth incarnation of Bond would be a back-to-basics version closer to Ian Fleming's original vision. But then something similar has been said of every new Bond; on such hype does a 50-year-old, massively profitable franchise keep chugging along. The difference this time is that director Martin Campbell (GoldenEye), along with Craig and a writing team that includes the Oscar-winning Paul Haggis, have made good on the pledge.
Not that it looks promising at the start. Chris Cornell's theme song is a stinker, and the opening credits look like they've been knocked up by a ten-year-old on his bedroom computer. The first scenes, shot in monochrome, feature Bond accumulating the two kills that will give him double-0 status. One is a straightforward execution; the other takes place in a toilet, no less, and is such a brutal affair you begin to wonder about the rest of the movie. No-one wants Bond to keep it too real.
When the traditional bells-and-whistles opening scene eventually arrives it is mercifully, gloriously fantastic. All the action sequences are corkers. Craig sprints and jumps like the Six Million Dollar man on steroids. He's a slugger, a slapper, a neck-snapper. His old- school fighting style is the only thing that is dated about him. Casino Royale, though based on a 1953 novel, is tailored unmistakably to the audiences of today. The villain, Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), is a banker to the terrorist set. He doesn't want world domination; he just wants to have a good time. His physical flaws - the attributes every Bond villain must have to signify the evil within - include asthma and a stress-induced eye condition. How thoroughly modern. Judi Dench, meanwhile, is an M who is dragged before parliament to explain why 007 blew a foreign embassy to smithereens. "Christ, I miss the Cold War," she sighs with faint disgust. There's even a torture scene that's right at home in this post-Abu Ghraib world.
The greatest concession to modern sensibilities comes in the nature of Bond himself. Craig takes a character that was in danger of becoming a caricature and gives him back his dignity. His Bond looks in the mirror not to preen but to prove he can still stomach the sight of himself. Vesper Lynd, the Treasury agent who bankrolls Bond for the big card game against Le Chiffre at the Casino Royale, sneaks through the last gap in his armour. Through this relationship, Bond's softer, female-friendly side is revealed.
The screenplay goes to almost laughable lengths to make the world's most famous sexist sexy again, but it works. Craig doesn't want his women to lie back and think of England; he wants to look them straight in the eye the better to flirt with them. He doesn't leer at girls getting out of the sea in bikinis; he gets the trunks on and does his own swimsuit shots. And while he doesn't quite put up shelves for Vesper between bouts of state-sanctioned murdering, by God he looks as if he could.
Bond's relationship with Vesper adds a fascinating new dimension to the character, but for me it is one of the film's less successful aspects. The French actress Eva Green reportedly didn't want to come across as the archetypal, pneumatic Bond girl, but her reinvention doesn't entirely work. She's too thin, too elegant, too reserved. She looks like she'd have trouble breaking a breadstick, never mind Bond's heart.
Casino Royale has flaws other than a slightly glacial Bondette. The novel was a slip of a thing, fast and classy; the film, while never boring, wanders all over the place like a drunk at a party. To make the audience wait so long for the classic theme tune is cruelty worthy of Smersh's finest, and if the product- placement could be toned down a few hundred notches next time it would be appreciated.
Mention of next time brings us to the best thing about this Bond. When Craig was named as the new 007 there was a mass fit of the vapours over whether a blue-eyed blonde could play the dark and mysterious Mr Bond. Five minutes into Casino Royale those worries vanish, but as the movie draws to a close the dread starts to creep back. What if Craig should throw contractual obligations to the wind and walk away? What if an asteroid hits Earth, destroying the planet and the chance to see the next Bond film, due in November 2008? It's a measure of Craig's brilliance that before he has even left the screen you're missing him already.
ALISON ROWAT
PICTURE this. James Bond, pumped up from his latest killing spree, returns to his hotel room to find a fellow agent sitting under the shower, fully clothed. She is weeping, a Lady Macbeth who fears she will never wash the stains from her conscience. Another Bond might have swept her up and delivered a brisk towelling off and a cheesy line. Not this one. He gets down in the shower tray beside her and feels … her … pain. First prize in the wet tuxedo competition, and the title of absolutely the best Bond since Connery, goes to Daniel Craig.
Cinemagoers had been promised that the sixth incarnation of Bond would be a back-to-basics version closer to Ian Fleming's original vision. But then something similar has been said of every new Bond; on such hype does a 50-year-old, massively profitable franchise keep chugging along. The difference this time is that director Martin Campbell (GoldenEye), along with Craig and a writing team that includes the Oscar-winning Paul Haggis, have made good on the pledge.
Not that it looks promising at the start. Chris Cornell's theme song is a stinker, and the opening credits look like they've been knocked up by a ten-year-old on his bedroom computer. The first scenes, shot in monochrome, feature Bond accumulating the two kills that will give him double-0 status. One is a straightforward execution; the other takes place in a toilet, no less, and is such a brutal affair you begin to wonder about the rest of the movie. No-one wants Bond to keep it too real.
When the traditional bells-and-whistles opening scene eventually arrives it is mercifully, gloriously fantastic. All the action sequences are corkers. Craig sprints and jumps like the Six Million Dollar man on steroids. He's a slugger, a slapper, a neck-snapper. His old- school fighting style is the only thing that is dated about him. Casino Royale, though based on a 1953 novel, is tailored unmistakably to the audiences of today. The villain, Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), is a banker to the terrorist set. He doesn't want world domination; he just wants to have a good time. His physical flaws - the attributes every Bond villain must have to signify the evil within - include asthma and a stress-induced eye condition. How thoroughly modern. Judi Dench, meanwhile, is an M who is dragged before parliament to explain why 007 blew a foreign embassy to smithereens. "Christ, I miss the Cold War," she sighs with faint disgust. There's even a torture scene that's right at home in this post-Abu Ghraib world.
The greatest concession to modern sensibilities comes in the nature of Bond himself. Craig takes a character that was in danger of becoming a caricature and gives him back his dignity. His Bond looks in the mirror not to preen but to prove he can still stomach the sight of himself. Vesper Lynd, the Treasury agent who bankrolls Bond for the big card game against Le Chiffre at the Casino Royale, sneaks through the last gap in his armour. Through this relationship, Bond's softer, female-friendly side is revealed.
The screenplay goes to almost laughable lengths to make the world's most famous sexist sexy again, but it works. Craig doesn't want his women to lie back and think of England; he wants to look them straight in the eye the better to flirt with them. He doesn't leer at girls getting out of the sea in bikinis; he gets the trunks on and does his own swimsuit shots. And while he doesn't quite put up shelves for Vesper between bouts of state-sanctioned murdering, by God he looks as if he could.
Bond's relationship with Vesper adds a fascinating new dimension to the character, but for me it is one of the film's less successful aspects. The French actress Eva Green reportedly didn't want to come across as the archetypal, pneumatic Bond girl, but her reinvention doesn't entirely work. She's too thin, too elegant, too reserved. She looks like she'd have trouble breaking a breadstick, never mind Bond's heart.
Casino Royale has flaws other than a slightly glacial Bondette. The novel was a slip of a thing, fast and classy; the film, while never boring, wanders all over the place like a drunk at a party. To make the audience wait so long for the classic theme tune is cruelty worthy of Smersh's finest, and if the product- placement could be toned down a few hundred notches next time it would be appreciated.
Mention of next time brings us to the best thing about this Bond. When Craig was named as the new 007 there was a mass fit of the vapours over whether a blue-eyed blonde could play the dark and mysterious Mr Bond. Five minutes into Casino Royale those worries vanish, but as the movie draws to a close the dread starts to creep back. What if Craig should throw contractual obligations to the wind and walk away? What if an asteroid hits Earth, destroying the planet and the chance to see the next Bond film, due in November 2008? It's a measure of Craig's brilliance that before he has even left the screen you're missing him already.