Casino Royale (2006): A Thrilling Reinvention of 007

For a movie about international espionage and a high-stakes poker game that will fund either the good guys or the bad, I find it so satisfying that the most interesting element of Casino Royale is something else entirely. This movie is less about what James Bond does and more about who he is, which is an arrogant womanizer who may discover that both he and others have a heart and maybe even a soul. The initial reaction to Daniel Craig's casting as Bond is widely considered to be one of the first instances of internet backlash, but once the movie came out, public opinion flipped virtually overnight, and rightfully so. Daniel Craig starts out playing a pretentious jerk who treats people as either commodities or emotional adversaries to be humiliated, but he eventually grows into a human being who can love others and be filled with joy when they smile, pity when they cry, and even grief when he loses them. Craig embodies both personas with cutting wit and a humanity as undeniable as his suavity.

Casino Royale, the third adaptation of Ian Fleming's novel, is a fantastic movie. It is not necessarily a thematic or even a visual subversion of the spy thriller in the same way that Skyfall was, for those of you familiar with the lore of Bond. It does everything that other spy thrillers do. It crashes the same cars, topples the same towers, and shoots the same henchmen that any other would. However, it is separated from the pack by the fact that it does it all so intoxicatingly well. Le Chiffre, a sinister man known for financing terrorist organizations, is organizing a high-stakes poker tournament in the hopes of raising funds for his vile clients. MI6 happens to think that Bond, who is as brilliant a poker player as he is a spy, is the man to topple Le Chiffre's evil aspirations.

If this movie needs to do anything well, it's communicate the weight of the poker game its plot is founded on, and Director Martin Campbell sells its importance with all due panache and subtlety. A slight twitch of one player's eye, a silent glance to the side from another, and we're left to guess what these people are thinking. Watching the game is like watching a miniature movie, one where, as it turns out, it's more than Bond and MI6 who stand to lose something important to them. Rarely has watching people play cards in a movie been so gripping. There are stakes, suspense, and shocking twists. For a movie that's a spy thriller on paper, it's more than a little ironic that the best things about it happen at the table and, yes, in one-on-one conversations that reveal the heart this movie possesses. Give it some time, and Casino Royale reveals itself to be one of the best and most personable spy thrillers of the 21st century, if not ever.

This is in large part because of Craig's performance as Bond, which cuts a moodier, more menacing figure than other actors who have portrayed 007. He's my Bond, the man I always thought of when I grew up hearing about the character; I didn't realize James Bond wasn't always as complex as this until I got old enough to develop an interest in the character. Either way, Craig gifts us with a thrilling reinvention of the character, a nuanced and memorable one that emotionally anchors this movie as it scrambles all over the world. His chemistry with the rest of the cast is incredible, and his fun banter with Judi Dench's M and Eva Green's Vesper is both cutting and affectionate. All this said, one of the best things about this movie is that it also cares too much about Bond to leave him unchanged. 

Picture the rudest, most arrogantly attractive man you can visualize, because that's what Bond is. He's a sometimes-broody womanizer with an itchy trigger finger and a penchant for subtle insults, but he eventually develops a sensitive side, something we haven't seen him have up to this point, at least not in this way. Craig embodies a Bond who learns to be happy, a Bond who learns to be sad, a Bond who even learns to be kind to people more vulnerable than he and comfort them when they're afraid. He's the most human the character has ever been, even if this movie is about him learning to be. While not the first movie in the series to humanize him, Casino Royale is the first to do it this way. 

Eva Green's performance as Vesper makes her a brilliant foil to Bond as the only character who can out-subtle and out-rude him. What's amazing is how likable she is in spite of it. For as much as the two trade barbs with each other, you still get the sense that they're incredibly fond of one another, that their connection goes deeper than any sexual tension brewing between the two of them. She gradually brings a human side out of him, something that I'd argue a Bond as dark as this one needs to have.

Mads Mikkelson's Le Chiffre is the definitive portrayal of the villain. Both the way he looks and his mannerisms ask a lot of questions before he says a single word, questions like where did he get that scar? That and why does he need the inhaler? And so on. He's a cruel man who nevertheless seems a little bit desperate. He knows that Bond has the upper hand when it comes to poker, but what Bond doesn't have is the system that Le Chiffre is connected to, the same system that will ironically punish him and those close to him for failing to win the poker game. In a lot of ways, it's hard not to feel a little bad for him. 

The touchy-feeliness of the movie is balanced out by plenty of spy action, though you knew that. It is moving towards something called Ellipsis, a vague and mysterious word plastered all over the chat rooms that Le Chiffre's mysterious organization inhabits, a word that even Le Chiffre himself talks about with a sense of dread. Casino Royale doesn't tell us what this Ellipsis is right away, but it's obviously very important. We see other, seemingly unrelated bad actors caught up in this conspiracy, and their association with the word helps everything that happens in this movie feel connected, like it's all forming a sinister big picture. A lesser movie could have used Ellipsis as a rarely-discussed cop-out, but this one is interested in how the different people swept up in it are connected to one another. 

Naturally, an espionage thriller like this is going to move at a ridiculous pace and ask you to keep up, but Casino Royale is careful to make sure that everything it does remains relevant to the goals of this Ellipsis, whatever or whoever it is. The conspiracy is treated with such an air of mystery, like a ghost that, for whatever reason, wants or needs decent people to die. The movie is anchored by very strong visual storytelling, and for a movie so heavy in plot that visual storytelling could have prevented it from expositing everything it needs to, that's impressive. Its bucket list is long, but it never feels as though it's operating out of any sense of desperation to get everything on it done. 

The Casino Royale novel is more or less exclusively about Bond and Le Chiffre's game of poker, and I think that makes screenwriter Neal Purvis's decision to pad out the narrative and devote nearly an entire hour to showing both how much of a disrespectful jerk and how effective a spy Bond can be both interesting and effective. The novel was released in 1953, and the inclusion of Bond's exploits in the modern world thrusts him into a new era in exciting but believable ways. The added action is anything but a ticket-selling gimmick, and the sheer amount of jaw-dropping practical stunts in this movie is thrilling. Bond jumps off the necks of cranes onto high-rises still under construction to fist-fight fleeing criminals, high-rises about to contend with copious amounts of high explosive, mind you. He balances atop a speeding tanker truck rigged to blow as the terrorist at the wheel steers it straight for a massive commercial airliner. The action and chase sequences in this movie are breathless, but they also stick around long enough to satisfy. They don't end just as you're getting invested in them, no way. They change form, change function, and adapt. No two encounters in this movie are the same, and they're among the best in this franchise's long and storied history. You might catch yourself checking your pulse.

As good as the action in Casino Royale is, it's ultimately secondary to, and eventually in service of, Bond's growth as a human being. The campiness and sexiness of classic 007 are still present, but they function more as homage and critique than actual substance, which is a blessing in so many ways. As it turns out, all of the trappings of playboy spies serve as a fun vessel to ferry us to something deeper, which is an exploration of a darker yet somehow more tender side of everyone's favorite secret agent. He punches some people and sleeps with others, but for the first time ever, the ways he feels about it are afforded this level of care. This movie loves Bond enough to both turn him into a person and show us how he got there.

Casino Royale (2006) - 10/10

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