The seemingly accepted story around the 2006 James Bond film Casino Royale is that, following Die Another Day the franchise entered something approaching a coma state and was barely surviving on life support for many years before EON cast Daniel Craig, brought back GoldenEye director Martin Campbell and revived it as if it were a whole new beast, more suited to a post-9/11, new millennium, audience who wanted more authenticity and reality in their movies.
When you look beyond that story though it doesn’t entirely hold water as Casino Royale came out only four years after Die Another Day which, while a long time by the standards of the films in the 60s and 70s, is only a year longer than the gap between the preceding pair of films and two years less than the gap between Licence To Kill and Pierce Brosnan’s debut.
Along with that, at least for the first half of the film, it fits a fairly standard ‘Bond movie’ template albeit, I will admit, with a bit more edge to the action (actually giving it a direct link back to Timothy Dalton’s second outing in some ways).
In this we get a disconnected but scene setting pre-titles sequence, a belter of a theme song from the late, great Chris Cornell with a new twist on the classic opening credits style and then a big action set piece that kick starts the main plot and throws in the then ground breaking, and still extraordinary, sport of Parkour performed by pioneer of the form, Sébastien Foucan.
From there we get Craig solidifying the classic tropes of Bond and giving them his spin as he flits between exotic locations, seduces married women and shows off his skill in a casino (notably at poker, which comes in to play later).
While a lot of this is in keeping with the classic Bond, particularly Sean Connery’s original more grounded take than any other, with a coldness that helps highlight the more vulnerable moments Craig displays, possibly more than any preceding version of the super spy, it all comes with some nice twists to bring it somewhat more up to date.
What makes this particularly successful is that, largely, the film does this without spotlighting it which makes it all feel far more natural, but with just enough hint that longtime fans are still in on it with the filmmakers – with the notable exception of the moment where Craig emerges from the sea in his trunks which is obviously intended to mirror and subvert Ursula Andress’ arrival in Dr. No.
Following all that things settle down as we head to Montenegro and the Casino Royale of the title where the real meat of the film takes place and they do a truly terrific job of balancing the tension of the poker game (including keeping us abreast of the rules), with enough moments of action (which I’ll admit do up the ante from past films considerably in terms of intensity and viscerality) and classic Bond gadgetry to make something really impressive.
Of course along with Craig here we get Mads Mikkelsen’s Le Chiffre coming into full effect, and it’s easy to see why he later got cast as Hannibal Lecter, as he finds the right balance of being a blood weeping vintage villain with his role as terrorist money man, showing both an intensity and vulnerability that only builds as it goes on.
We also meet the film’s main ‘Bond Girl’ (though that phrase feels more redundant here than ever) in the form of Eva Green’s Vesper Lynd.
Bringing elements of the femme fatale to the role far more than in any past Bond film, but also introducing a vulnerable edge along with her own inner strength it’s clear why she becomes only the second female lead that the super spy genuinely falls for, and Green embodies this all excellently.
Around this the plot borders on the labyrinthine, but never gets either too convoluted or too confusing, building to a somewhat unexpected, Venice based, denouement that packs a punch both physically and emotionally far more than Bond usually manages.
This all makes Casino Royale, while certainly something of a ‘soft reset’ for the series, a spot on balance of classic Bond and modern filmmaking, making it (at this stage of the series at least) probably the best film of the bunch and undeniably a ‘Bond film’ with it.
Tommy Girard 