Entertainment, Movies - Air Force Times

‘Casino Royale’: Daniel Craig has license to thrill as 007

There’s one scene deep into “Casino Royale” that tells you all you need to know about the latest version of Ian Fleming’s British superspy, James Bond.

Bond (Daniel Craig) has been taken captive by terrorist financier Le Chiffre (the excellent Mads Mikkelsen), whose scarred, milky left eye sheds tears of blood. Le Chiffre (“The Number”) wants 007 to cough up the electronic banking codes that will unlock access to a fortune of more than $100 million.

Bond is tied naked to a chair that has had its wicker seat cut out, leaving him, uh, highly vulnerable. Le Chiffre holds a thick rope, the kind used to tie large sea vessels to piers, with one end wrapped in hard leather.

He swings the rope, whipping the end under the chair. Whomp! Pause. Whomp! Pause. Whomp!

Le Chiffre stops to give Bond time to consider his options. Bond beckons his enemy closer and grunts: “I’ve still got an itch.”

Whomp!

“No, no, no!” he growls through clenched teeth. “The left one!”

Yep, they’re not just brass -- they’re titanium.

Longtime Bond fans may be nonplussed by this seemingly uncharacteristic behavior, but it’s not really uncharacteristic at all; the fact is, this film version of Fleming’s first novel is as close to the author’s original vision as any Bond movie.

This 007, with his chiseled body and ice-blue death stare, still has a way with the ladies and knows how to work a black-tie party crowd. But he’s also a feral, stone-cold killer who can take and dish out pain in equal measure while radiating a palpable sense of danger that has too often been sorely missing from the Bond films.

Director Martin Campbell and writers Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Paul Haggis do everything right in stripping down to basics to show how Bond became Bond -- and it all starts with the casting of Craig.

He flat-out nails it, flashing a near-perfect mix of in-your-face arrogance and subtle charm, with fleeting glimpses of humanity showing through.

The filmmakers also help themselves mightily with the canny decision to ground the character in present-day reality; there’s a reference to the Sept. 11 attacks, and the plot is all about the shadowy world of international terrorism.

There’s still plenty of action, but of a different flavor than in other recent Bond films. The over-the-top pyrotechnics and car and boat chases that have come to dominate the franchise are replaced by stunts that are much more intimate, yet no less amazing.

One early scene ranks as one of the best foot chases ever put on film, as Bond goes after a terrorist (Sebastien Foucan) who displays astounding skill at “free running,” an esoteric athletic discipline involving acrobatic, gravity-defying moves that would make Newton’s head explode.

Also gone are all the kooky gadgets, which have grown increasingly ridiculous with each film. This Bond packs only the essentials -- an implanted tracker, a silencer-equipped pistol, a personal defibrillator (put to good use in one wild scene) and his steel-hard fists.

Absent, too, are the smutty double-entendres, replaced by dialogue that’s as sharp as nails yet cleverly understated.

The dialogue peaks in several scenes between Bond and smart, sultry Vesper Lynd (Eva Green, putting her own indelible stamp on the “Bond girl” tradition).

She’s a British treasury official who stakes 007 to a high-powered poker game as part of a plan to financially break Le Chiffre for good -- and she accompanies Bond to keep tabs on Her Majesty’s investment.

Their initial meeting on a high-speed train sizzles with sexual heat as they size each other up and break each other down.

But Vesper is much more than eye candy; Bond, who early in the film makes no secret of his preference for married women (less chance of long-term entanglements), drops his emotional armor and begins to fall for her -- and she for him.

That can only end badly. When it does, in a climactic sequence in Venice featuring a running gun battle in a four-story villa that is rapidly collapsing into its canal, we get a crucial insight into Bond’s later-life attitudes toward matters of the heart.

No sacred cow is left intact --even the old vodka martini bit gets a fresh twist here. When a bartender asks Bond if he’d like his signature drink shaken or stirred, 007 glares and growls, “Do I look like I give a damn?”

At 140 minutes, the film is a bit longer than it needs to be, but in cutting away all the old-growth dead weight and revitalizing the roots, “Casino Royale” marks a hip new beginning for one of the most enduring male fantasy figures ever created.

3½ stars. Rated PG-13 for violence. Got a rant or rave about the movies? E-mail cvinch@atpco.com.