Thursday, November 16, 2006
Review: Casino Royale
Well, the next relaunch of the Bond franchise is here, the hype is in full swing and the trailer, it has to be said, was awesome. And the verdict is: It's all right, with an hour in the middle that is absolutely loads of fun, Daniel Craig holds the screen in his big beefy grip as 007 and Eva Green is the best Bond girl in ages (and I'm in love with her). Disclaimer: This review has been written by someone who likes Die Another Day.
The idea behind this relaunch is to strip away the silliness of the Bond franchise, as typified by the invisible cars and ice palaces of Die Another Day (which is why it is awesome, dammit), and replace it with a grittier, more ground level, depiction of professional killers. This movie actually does attempt what so many action movies pretend to do, which is focus on character.
It starts in black and white as Bond earns his '00' status by killing two people. It is not quite as clever, as atmospheric or as brutal as it thinks it is, but it makes a change to union jack parachutes and ends with his target turning his gun on Bond and Bond swinging round to shoot him first - turning into the signature opening shot of Bond through the scope of a gun shooting at the camera.
This recontextualising of all the Bond trademarks - his tuxedo, his drinks, his car, his banter - goes on through the film and sometimes they work, showing the man behind the suit trying to fill the role of a '00' agent as opposed to just the slick surface image which has become so iconic. When it doesn't work - when a waiter asks him if he wants his martini shaken or stirred and he replies 'do I look like I care?' - it is no less cheesy or cringeworthy than Bond business as usual. But then it did get a laugh in the cinema I was in so maybe I was just being grumpy.
So we have a young Bond, highly trained but still green, full of aggression and testosterone and the thrill-chasing, rule-breaking, lone-hero attitude of the sort of man who actually does join the SAS. Of course, lots of men join the SAS and act like that because they want to be James Bond so exactly what reality is mirroring what art is up for grabs.
What is most exciting here is that the scriptwriters don't have him showing weakness or doubt as to the rightness of his actions to express his humanity (as those communist liberal scriptwriters are to do), but express his humanity through his mistakes, his lack of slickness and his brutishness. It's not exactly deep or particularly realistic characterisation but it does contrast with the male-model Bond of Brosnan and Moore, and it is at its best when expressed wordlessly though Craig's knife-sharp bright blue eyes in the centre of his ugly, thug face.
Eva Green, as accountant (!) Vesper Lynd, is absolutely a match for him. She doesn't have the glamour of classic Bond Girls, nor does she do the tough girl actioning of more recent leading ladies. Instead she has intelligence and personality. And yes I do mean it when I say she isn't glamourous. Her nose is actually a little too big and pointy for that over-made-up perfect glamour look. Glamour is actually the blanding out of individuality to create an ideal, standardised sexy look. This is why glossy magazine covers and playboy spreads are always so heavily airbushed. Eva's personality shines through too strongly for it ever to work. In the scenes of her looking 'natural' (and of course, these shots too were no doubt carefully controlled) she is breathtakingly beautiful, which probably explains why I have written such a long paragraph about her beauty. The scenes where she verbally spars with Bond are great and the scenes where she is reacting to the death going on around her are the highlights of the movie.
There are quite a few deaths here and, in the spirit of the reinvention, they are painful, messy, long (at least in movie terms) and usually end in a close up on Bond or Vesper, showing their reactions. It's not Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, but it's effective stuff and emotionally resonant. To say this of a Bond film can only be saying good things.
But the reinvention has affected the story too, and not all of it is good. The usual formula is Bond being sent on a mission, he discovers the big baddie and his scheme and things escalate to a huge climax, usually at the baddie's lair. Then things explode.
This one starts out with Bond business as usual, with him tracking a possible terrorist bomber around the world. This all lasts maybe 45 minutes, beginning with at least ten minutes of almost wordless action (involving the free running and building site from the trailer) and ending with another long chase sequence at an airport (with the bus being smashed in half). It's OK, but there's a sinking feeling of watching all the old, tired Bond cliches trotted out in good order, making you think the 'reinvention' was just another bit of hype. Right after the gritty opening comes possibly the twee-est credits sequence in Bond history, revolving around the suits of playing cards and featuring animated men exploding into hearts. Then the film turns into a product placement heaven with Bond driving a new Ford, using Sony phones and wielding Omega watches, all while in an exotic locale (or a rich, white enclave thereof). The pacing is slow (see Charlie's article here) and nothing is that great. Passable and familiar but not silly enough to be funny nor realistic enough to be exciting.
But then this sequence ends, with almost all the plot strands tied up. It could almost be a movie by itself. It could almost be a statement of 'this is how Bond movies were. Now look'. The idea of the poker game at the titular Casino Royale is finally introduced, Vesper Lynd turns up and then we have a different film - an hour or so of great entertainment featuring all the good stuff I mentioned above. There are twists and turns, double crosses and bluffs and then the game ends, again with almost all the plot strands tied up so it is almost a film in itself. It's good stuff, setting up a lot of character and emotion to be played off of in the final act.
And then we get to the final act and it turns out to be only half an act. You know the happy endings of Bond films when he ends up with the girl at some beautiful location? Well this happens, but then it carries on. And on. It seems to go on for half an hour. Double crosses, chases and things finally happen (some of them are really great, but there will be no spoilers here) but, just as we have the real villains revealed, the film ends. It ends on a very iconic moment but still, it just ends. I wanted my big climax. I wanted my show down. I didn't really get it.
Now it is a good thing that I was ready for more from a film that was already nearly two and a half hours long, but this does reveal the final part of the reinvention - this is going to be a trilogy. There will be some evil organistion (called SPECTRE? Who is to say?) and Bond will fight them. Having an over-arching storyline is certainly fashionable these days, and I guess it gives the audience enough reason to watch another two Bond movies, but it leaves this installment flapping in the wind.
The good stuff here is good, but the work done, especially to Bond's character, in the second act suddenly feels a lot more flimsy without a proper conclusion. Suddenly it's possible that the real person I thought I saw emerging from the suit was just a lot of close-ups of Craig looking inscrutable and some slightly rawer fight scenes. Certainly his final emergence as Bond, James Bond felt more like a reversion to cliche rather than a natural conclusion of character development.
All that said, it probably says good things about this movie that I can even discuss things like character development and believability in a Bond film.
So it's all right, the film in the middle is excellent and Eva Green is the most beautiful woman on the planet. If they can keep up the idea of Bond not just being a suave model in a suit or, even better, if Craig is really allowed to get his teeth into this trained killer character in danger of losing his soul, then the next couple of films could be genuinely worth looking forward too. Then again, maybe with the introduction of a SPECTRE like organisation, perhaps we'll get the Bond gadgets and invisible cars again. But then I like Die Another Day. I'd be happy with that too.
007 out of 0010
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