Casino Royale - A Review!

Director: Martin Campbell
Cast: Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen, Judi Dench

Pragmatic, rational, earthy, unfantastic, authentic! That's how I would define 007 in his latest adventure - Casino Royale! Daniel Craig, who was once a dark horse for the role of the sauve British spy has done more than justice to the oft abused character. And Director Martin Campbell has done an excellent job in keeping the story and the plot believable.

The film opens with a superb sequence showing how Bond gets his "00" status which leads into the famous gun barrel shot and the opening credits. Then there is the slightly stretched (in all senses of the word) chase through a construction site and a neatly executed killing at an embassy.

The film has some superb visuals from the jungles of Madagascar to the beaches of the Bahamas but none of the outrageous and unrealistic special effects that we have seen in the past few Bond movies. The film is also light on the usual Bond gadgets but this is understandable considering the absence of the inventor of these gadgets - Q. Also missing is Miss Moneypenny whose absence Bond reminds us when he meets Vesper Lynd, an accountant (& his love interest) tasked by the government to look after the $10 million given to him to play poker against the evil Le Chiffre - an banker who handles accounts for terrorists. However, M is definitely present in the movie and has a neat role. The story is a combination of fast paced action & stunts on one hand and slow, deliberate drama on the other and the director has managed to seamlessly merge both!

The movie also portrays Bond as a sensitive, caring and a somewhat vulnerable human being rather than the robotic, unbreakable, indestructible engine that we have seen in the Pierce Brosnan series. How many times have you seen James Bond recuperating in a hospital? As I said earlier, the director has made the storyline really believable.

The usual Bond cars are on full display including a brand new Aston Martin DBS and an unreleased Ford Mondeo 2007. Also making an appearance is the classic 1964 Aston Martin. Sony Corporation seems to have paid a princely sum to the producers as Sony products including the Vaio notebook, a Sony digital camera and a Sony Ericsson K800i mobile phone can be seen at different times through the movie.

The closing sequence is also different as compared to the traditional Bond movies which show him rollicking around with one of the Bond Girls. Here, the director has chosen to keep the story running right till the last minute which is also when you get to hear the famed punchline "The name's Bond, James Bond!"

All in all it is a great movie with a brilliant cast. Daniel Craig really stands out as 007 in his maiden shot at the role of the spy with the license to kill!! Go watch it!

Rating: 4

(1: Trash, 2: Bearable, 3: Average, 4: Good, 5: Excellent)