Bond, James Bond
2006 saw the ushering in of YAJB (Yet Another James Bond). I have to say, when I heard the news I was not impressed. I was not one of the legion of Bond fans who were complaining about Daniel Craig (wtf is Daniel Craig was my reaction). I was, actually, not in the legion of Bond fans any more as I thought the character, and the movies, had run their course. Yes, I enjoyed Timothy Dalton’s turn at the role, but I thought the movies had declined to the point where they were little more than live-action cartoons with plots to match. And I think I was right on that score.
But, I admit I was a little intrigued when I found out they were making (remaking, sort of) Casino Royale. The only one of the Ian Fleming books to never be made as a ‘real’ Bond movie we’d only had the very funny 1967 Casino Royale (with David Niven, Woody Allen, and Peter Sellers). Casino Royale is the first of the James Bond books by Ian Fleming, and a book I’d read fairly recently.
So, by the time the movie came out, I was 1) not expecting much and 2) somewhat interested.
First off, it is nice to see that after 40 years and over 20 movies there is finally one movie in which the character of James Bond as written appears. No, really. This is the first Bond movie to actually have James Bond in it.
James Bond in Flemings books was not a dashing handsome posh dandy with some nifty spy gear thrown in. He was a right bastard to the core. A cold and almost sinister anti-hero who was, I suspect, a lot more like a real spu than anything we’d seen in a Bond film previously.
Daniel Craig is an excellent Bond. Daniel Craig is Bond. It is unfair to compare him to his antecedents since he is playing a completely different character, but if forced to say, I would say either he or Timothy Dalton is the best of the bunch, but I would be hard pressed to pick between them. Trouble is, the films with Dalton were simply not as good as this one, through no fault of Mr. Dalton.
The film itself is very good as well. Craig’s performance could have easily been wasted in a poor movie (like, say, most of Timothy Dalton’s), but it is not. In a film that is remarkably close to the 53 year old book we still have a story that works in 2006 with a minimum of change.
Work is already underway for the next Bond film, due in 2008. For the first time since the early 80’s when I heard that Pierce Brosnan would be Bond, before NBC prevented him taking the role, I’m actually really looking forward to a new James Bond film.
A solid +2 (-4/+4 where 0 is average) or 8/10.