Casino Royale (2006)

Premise: M (Judi Dench) promotes James Bond (Daniel Craig) to double-oh. For his inaugural mission, Bond must track down Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), who launders money for terrorists, and defeat him in a high stakes game of Texas Hold 'Em. Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) is sent by the Treasury to oversee their investment, as they have provide Bond's 10 million dollar buy-in.

A few of us were talking in class the other day about how we wanted to see this movie , about the re-invigoration of the franchise, and the new direction of the protagonist. A return to the roots as Ian Fleming imagined them, to be sure, but far different from what we have seen in the past. At one point, while taking about how The New Bond isn't going to come across as a suave, pleasure-seeking playboy, one guy declared, "He's a thug." He said 'thug' so many times that it became something of a jarring credo, and I was wryly amused when M informed Bond that he is meant to be more than just that.

She's right, though, and Craig plays him as more of a cold-blooded mercenary than anything else. To be fair, this is Craig we are talking about, so he tends to be using his icy-blue eyes to conceal more than he'll ever show. Even so, this is by far a different sort of Bond. There's no Q, and he's not really one for gadgets - a gun and some serious hand-to-hand are his take down methods. In the past, Bond seemed to take out the baddie while stifling a yawn. Violence was a necessary component of his vocation. Here, however, Craig's Bond is something far nastier - he'll kill you, with his bare hands, just for the heck of it. There's an edge that has replaced the devil-may-care attitude of Bonds past.

Unfortunately for Bond, and fortunately for the viewer, there's a lesson to be learned on his first 00 mission. I inwardly cringed when I saw Paul Haggis' name flash on the screen. With two other screenwriters to temper him (Neal Purvis and Robert Wade) and the general possibility that the name that appears has nothing to do with the finished product, he appears not to have bollixed this one up. The bed-hopping and double-entendres are kept to a minimum, providing us with a sleeker, leaner, and, oddly enough, longer feature. From the opening adrenalin-pumping chase sequence to the utterly satisfying closing, you'll hardly notice the length.

Thank goodness Dame Judi remains in place after the re-jig. I adore her in this thoroughly anti-maternal role. She also happens to be the best looking woman in the pic.

I think we all know what happens to villains in this sort of movie, which is too bad. I enjoyed Mikkelsen as the number-crunching villain.

Can I just say one thing, though? What's with Bond villains and facial scars? Can anyone explain that to me?

Ah, well. It's the Bond we've all been waiting for, made possible by the darkness that has crept into, of all things, comic book movies. Enjoy this sinister delight. A-