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Originally posted by Aerkuld
I went to see this last night too. I was a little reluctant as I wasn't sure about Daniel Craig as Bond. But he actually does a stirling job! Reminded me of a kind of Sean Connery and Steve McQueen mix at times.
Hugh R will appreciate the DB4 (or would it be a DB5?) too!
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Saw it tonight.
You know, my first thoughts seeing Craig as Bond was that he looked like a boxer, like a good, old-fashioned 1930s pugilist. After awhile in the movie, he reminded me a lot of both Connery and McQueen. He had the kind of Scottish charm that was a hallmark of Connery's Bond, but also the "less is more" approach of a Steve McQueen. Craig doesn't have a whole lot of dialogue in this movie, but his presence is definitely significant.
I liked the approach of the Broccoli/UA people in making this movie; it's as if they hit the "reset" button (a la BATMAN BEGINS) and used only the source material to shape CASINO ROYALE. Well, this isn't completely accurate - there are tongue-in-cheek references to the now-aborted "old" Bond franchise (such as the Astons - in the books 007 drives a Bentley) - but the differences are enormous.
First off, the audience is introduced to a world of intrigue and espionage - not unlike the Bourne movies - in which large sums of money are what make legitimate governments and terrorist organizations go 'round. There are no "world-domination-bent" overlords with bald heads and tunics stroking expensive cats on a floating fortress. Sure, the technology is impressive... but it's real. The most impressive gadgets are the newest advances in laptops and cell phones. No jet packs, no portable EMPs.
Bond himself is portrayed like an assassin. He is sophisticated - his ordering of the dry martini (6 parts Gordons, 4 parts vodka, 2 parts vermouth, shaken over ice and stirred in the glass, if I remember correctly), which is verbatim from the original novel - is a particularly nice touch... but he is only sophisticated by necessity. If he had his way, he would rather just crash through drywall to get to his quarry, or shoot his next quarry in the leg with a high-powered rifle. It is actually a refreshing touch that Bond still has rough edges at this point in his career, such as his ham-fistedness with the Aston DBS.
Actually, Craig's Bond represents an extreme in the James Bond gallery, with Roger Moore on the other end. I remember reading in the NEW YORKER review of CASINO ROYALE that whereas Craig's Bond drinks Bourbon simply to kill the pain following hand-to-hand combat, Roger Moore's Bond would have stopped to appreciate the craft of the distiller. On one end of the scale we have Bond the brute assassin, on the other end we have Bond the stuffy blueblood, with Connery, Dalton, Lazenby, and Brosnan somewhere in between.
I like this new direction for 007. In spirit it is closer to television's "24" than, say, DIE ANOTHER DAY... and I consider that to be a very good thing.