Casino Royale
Directed by: Martin Campbell
Starring: Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen, Judi Dench
Rated: PG-13 for intense sequences of violent action, a scene of torture, sexual content and nudity.
Parental Notes: That this movie is rated PG-13 highlights the idiocy of the MPAA. The torture scene involves a man’s genitals being beaten with a large rope while he screams in agony. This is not appropriate for youngsters.
Rebooting familiar movie franchises may well become the new thing in Hollywood. Last year we had the superlative “Batman Begins,” which did a fantastic job restarting the dark knight’s tale, and now we have “Casino Royale,” in which we get to see James Bond receive double-0 status and go on his first mission for MI6.
Unfortunately for Bond, his first action upon earning his license to kill is to engage in a chase and shootout in an embassy. The phenomenal chase sequence features Sébastien Foucan, one of the founders of the sport of Parkour. Parkour is known in the US as Free Running, and has been featured in numerous documentaries and the French film “District B-13.” It consists of sprinting, vaulting, leaping, and otherwise moving around, over, or through obstacles in an urban setting, and the chase sequence in “Casino Royale” is utterly spectacular — especially since Bond isn’t nearly as good at this sort of thing as the terrorist Foucan is playing.
It’s a lot of fun to watch this earlier, less-refined Bond at work. He’s not quite so suave, and definitely not as good at his job. Not that the film is full of him doing stupid things or making pratfalls — it’s not. But he has little slips of judgment or ability that one wouldn’t normally expect. Craig does a spectacular job showing Bond’s gradual shift over the course of the film as he grows more and more like the Bond we know from the later stories.
M gives Bond an earful for his behavior, and tells him to go somewhere and keep his head down. He can’t leave the case alone, however, and before long is assigned to take on the man behind the terrorist he’d originally been chasing, Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen). Le Chiffre, it seems, is staging a high-stakes poker game in a desperate attempt to get the money he needs to pay back one of his clients, whose money he lost on the stock market. Bond is MI6’s best poker player, so even though he’s out of favor, he is sent to win the game and leave Le Chiffre bankrupt and ripe for turning state’s evidence.
A Treasury representative is assigned to go with Bond and keep an eye on the government’s money: Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) is Bond’s match in nearly every way. She’s cool, aggressive, and reads people very, very well. Although at first they are at each other’s throats, this is a Bond movie after all, and they wind up falling for each other. By the time the poker game is over, Bond is head over heels and ready to settle down with Vesper, but there’s an hour left in the film so we know that’s not going to work out.
What follows is a “Mission: Impossible” style series of false endings and double-crosses, to the point where one wonders if anybody in this film but Bond is trustworthy. Worse, the film steps over its violence threshold by having our hero be tortured in a scene that is far too uncomfortable for a PG-13 movie. The rest of the film contains standard chases, explosions, hand-to-hand combat, and gunshots — nothing graphic — but here a naked Bond is chained to a chair whose wicker seat webbing has been removed, and the villain swings a heavy, knotted rope up and under his legs to smash into his genitals. Repeatedly. In between wrenching screams of agony, Bond does his best to remain manly and cavalier, but it is not a pleasant scene. This reviewer firmly believes that torture should not be included in this kind of lightweight entertainment, and the scene was a large blemish on an otherwise thoroughly enjoyable film.
There are a handful of other issues in the film, including a rather disappointingly elementary error in the poker game (which is otherwise masterfully shot). Even so, it’s a fun ride — provided one goes out for sodas or to use the bathroom when Bond winds up getting captured by the bad guys.