Prædaceous

It’s bigger. It’s better. It’s Bond—and beyond!

Right then. I wasn’t going to watch the latest Bond movie until it was coming on DVD, but I felt weak at the knees when I saw the date March 27th 2007. Combined with a movie invitation in a spur of the moment, I couldn’t resist.

James Bond is clearly different in his latest reincarnation. While Timothy Dalton introduced us to Bond’s aggressive side, Daniel Craig hones it to brutality. Craig is also by far the most physical Bond ever. This comes apparent in the beginning when our agent is chasing the French parkour master Sébastien Foucan around a construction site causing the usual havoc. The scene sets new benchmarks for Bond action sequences making it really kick the grass.

Somehow soothing the female gender is not Craig’s hurray. He looks kind of clumsy and almost comical when wooing the ladies. He manages nevertheless to reach the home base mainly because the script says so.

Casino Royale shows Bond’s darker side in all of its glory and continues the torture theme that came with Die Another Day, making Bond appear less than superhuman. The grieving aspect of Bond is portrayed as well. These are good in some way, bad in others. While it is making Bond more like a normal guy it also unveils the mysterious enigma that was hovering on him and making James Bond so desirable.

Pierce Brosnan’s pieces introduced us the idea of placing unrelated objects of desire onto the set for the sheer sake of product placement but Casino Royale is really plagued in this field. The producers even have managed to cram Ford’s 2007 model of Mondeo in there. To match up with Aston Martin I suppose.

Despite all rejuvenation I still think I like Pierce Brosnan better and his looks too. Of cause, I am saying this in the most neutral way possible to avoid any confusion.

Casino Royale is worth a watch, though.