CASINO ROYALE 007

Kat: ll.5
Tyler: lll

Casino Royale begins explosively. With a powerful black and white segment, the new James Bond is introduced as one with far less hesitations about pulling the trigger and far more well deserved marks on his face. After a cold blooded and unexplained murder we move into a strikingly different mood. Bond finds himself in Uganda, chasing a man across a construction site and leaving an excessive amount of collateral damage behind. It doesn't take long to realize that the emerging Bond is splitting off in a new direction from a tired franchise. Daniel Craig is not your mother's Bond. He is not the Bond that a girl would even think about taking home to Mom. He is however, someone she would most likely want to lock away in her bedroom. A very bad boy type of guy. He replaces the clean cut, smooth talking and sensitive agent, for one that is explosively aggressive, practical about killing and emotionally scarred. Seeing the dead body of a woman he was kissing the night before, he turns away expressionless. It becomes clear that women are sometimes not even a sexual tool, but can be used for information and disposed of with less emotion than for a dented car. The expectations begin to rise for fans of a more raw and complicated, DeNiro as "Taxi Driver" type of character.

This movie promises a lot in the beginning, but falls short of delivering. Although it is enjoyable, it is far from Oscar worthy. The failure of this movie does not lie with the acting, the photography, or the soundtrack. It lies with the script itself. There is a slight problem when the villains of the movie start playing musical chairs leaving the audience confused as to who is really Bond's arch nemesis. In my opinion, the first hour of the film is loads of fun but, in the second half it starts to decline finally plummeting in the end. It is very anticlimactic. The writers were unsure as to where to take the franchise and thus the script is left with too many loose ends.
- Kat
Nevertheless, there may still be hope for this new, more raw Bond. A better crafted script that better represents the threats to international security in the 21st century and the type of agent required to effectively deal with these threats, may serve as the foundation to a captivating revival. Obviously wine, great food, the latest Ferrari, a sun soaked Mediterranean beach and a beautiful woman have always been part of the 007 tradition. But the relatively more complex and challenging woman in Casino Royale is one of several hints of a more spiced up European Dream taking over. It will be a challenge worth taking to make the new Bond more grounded in reality and yet soaked in the unmistakable style of 007.
- Tyler