Casino Royale *** (2006, Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Judi Dench, Mads Mikkelsen, Jeffrey Wright, Giancarlo Giannini, Caterina Murino) – Classic Movie Review 838

Daniel Craig was named as the sixth actor to play James Bond in October 2005, following Pierce Brosnan’s surprise departure from the role after Die Another Day in 2002. Allegedly the popular Brosnan was asking for $30 million to play Bond a fifth time.

But Craig met a huge backlash from diehard Bond fans, saying ‘They hate me. They don’t think I’m right for the role. It’s as simple as that. They’re passionate about it, which I understand, but I do wish they’d reserve judgment. I didn’t expect this backlash. You take it in, you can’t help it. I’ve been trying to give 110% since the beginning, but after all the fuss, maybe I started giving 115%. If I went onto the Internet and started looking at what some people were saying about me – which, sadly, I have done – it would drive me insane.’

Casino Royale was the first James Bond novel written in 1953 by Ian Fleming and is the last of the original Fleming novels to be filmed by Eon Productions, which has now filmed all Fleming’s Bond novels, although some just in title, eg The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), Moonraker (1979), and You Only Live Twice (1967). Casino Royale was the only Bond novel not obtained by producer Harry Saltzman when he bought the rights in 1961.

It was previously filmed as Casino Royale in 1967 with David Niven and Peter Sellers. Producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson secured the rights in 2000 when Sony exchanged them for MGM’s rights to Spider-Man, which they filmed in 2002.

So this is a James Bond origin story, taking 007 back to the start and back to basics, which proves a good and welcome idea in the mid-noughties age of the Batman reboot Batman Begins (2005) and the Star Wars prequels.

In the story, Bond is sent by M (Judi Dench) on his first mission to prevent Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), banker to the world’s terrorists, from winning a high stakes poker game at Casino Royale in Montenegro, where he must win back his money to stay safe in the terrorist market. Bond has help from Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright), Rene Mathis (Giancarlo Giannini) and Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), who poses as his wife.

Craig made himself amazingly popular as 007, but the jury was still out in 2006 with the diehard Bond fans whether he was a good Bond. At this stage, many of us still thought he was so notjamesbond.com. But as a gym-fit, generic action hero, Craig scores big time. He’s a bit smug and smirky, but then that’s the role.

The movie is dark, gritty and sombre, with intense sequences of violent action, a scene of torture, sexual content and nudity. Apart from the torture, all that’s good, but Casino Royale certainly lacks a sense of humour and a sense of fun. But, again, this takes Bond back to basics. There’s no Q and no Miss Moneypenny. The larky fun and the iconic characters are sorely missed, but conversely the serious tone is welcome. Maybe another, better film could have managed both.

The movie certainly delivers good value at 145 minutes, but it seems overlong, is a bit patchy and gets sluggish around two thirds of the way when it slows down noticeably. The $150 million cost is all there up on screen in the action, stunts, scenery and sets. It is hard to keep an old show on the road after so many years, but in 2006 many thought this was as good a way as any and there were more nods of approval than naysayers.

Anyway, it left the public begging for more, and Craig was back quickly in 2008 with Quantum of Solace, then Skyfall in 2012 and Spectre in 2015.

The backup team is a great one. The sizzling Eva Green makes an exceptionally fine Vesper Lynd and the magnetic Mads Mikkelsen a magnificent Bond villain in Le Chiffre and they had the good sense to keep Judi Dench on from the Brosnan era as M.

The theme song You Know My Name (lyrics by Chris Cornell, music by David Arnold ) is performed by Chris Cornell, the lead singer in Soundgarden and Audioslave, who died at age 52 on 17 May 2017. 

Craig’s reserved demeanor and shunning of showbiz help his mysterious image as 007. He is the first blond actor to play Bond and the first to be born after the start of the film series and after the death of author Ian Fleming in 1964. Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan have approved of him as a good choice for Bond. Moore was reportedly so impressed with the film that he went out and bought a DVD copy of it.

Casino Royale (2006) is the first Eon Bond film to have a major black and white sequence. It is also the first not to feature Miss Moneypenny or the gun barrel walk. The first to have the gun barrel sequence start after the opening sequence and not before. The first to have a fair haired Bond. The first Eon Bond film to have an animated opening sequence since Dr No (1962) and first for any Bond film since Casino Royale (1967). The first Eon Bond movie not to feature the Q character since Live and Let Die (1973). The first Bond movie to feature a Casino Royale casino building since the unofficial Never Say Never Again (1983) and the first to have a radically different opening gun barrel sequence.

This film replaces the high-stakes casino game of Baccarat/Chemin de Fer from the novel Casino Royale with the modern high-stakes card game of Texas Hold ‘Em. In this game, a hand with a pair of eights is called an Octopussy, the 007 short story and 1983 movie title. A hand with a pair of eights is seen in the movie.

James Bond orders the Vesper Martini in both the book and the 2006 movie of Casino Royale. Bond says in the 1953 book: ‘Three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it’s ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon-peel. Got it?’ It is only ordered by Bond once throughout Fleming’s novels, and in later books Bond is ordering regular vodka martinis, though he also drinks regular gin martinis. Felix Leiter orders a Vesper for Bond in the novel Diamonds Are Forever. The book version of the Vesper was created by Fleming’s friend Ivar Bryce.

In 1954 CBS paid Ian Fleming $1,000 to adapt Casino Royale into a one-hour TV show as part of their dramatic anthology series Climax!, which ran between October 1954 and June 1958. It was adapted for the screen by Anthony Ellis and Charles Bennett. It aired on 21 October 1954 as a live production and starred Barry Nelson as Bond, with Peter Lorre as Le Chiffre. The Bond character was re-cast as an American agent, working for Combined Intelligence, supported by a British agent, Clarence Leiter.

There was a change in Craig’s reserved demeanor when he old Time Out London in 2015 about returning to the role: ‘I’d rather break this glass and slash my wrists.’ Announcing his return for Bond 25 on 15 August 2017, he said he gave ‘a really stupid answer’ in 2015. ‘I always wanted to [do Bond 25]. I needed a break.’

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 838

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