On Casino Royale

In the proud tradition of the remake, the sequel and prequel comes...the reboot. Trust Hollywood to add yet another species of regurgitation to the already insufferably long list. The "reboot" is a term of the computer age, aptly used to describe a new movie in an already-existing franchise which is being used to reinvigorate the said franchise. "Remake" is no longer an appropriate term because in this case the franchise is basically moribund, rather than actually dead. Planet of the Apes for example, was a re-make, while Casino Royale, the latest James Bond movie, is a re-boot. A re-make essentially re-tells the story told by the original movie, usually adding a contemporary twist. A re-boot acts like the original movie and everything that transpired therein never happened, and does not necessarily tell the events of the original movie.

Here's a little bit of trivia for anyone interested: while Batman Begins is undeniably the most successful "reboot" of a popular film franchise, it is not the first. That dubious distinction goes to The Sum of All Fears, based on Tom Clancy's popular Jack Ryan series of novels, in which Ben Affleck was cast the Ryan role previously essayed by the much older Harrison Ford and Alec Baldwin. That movie, while a commercial success, didn't exactly set the box office on fire, and it was therefore the latest Batman movie that effectively institutionalized the reboot.

The producers of James Bond were right to tap into this relatively new concept. Over the last forty-four years, James Bond has gone from satire to farce to cartoon. While I loved seeing Pierce Brosnan drive his silver Aston Martin across an icy wasteland in the last Bond movie, I won't deny how silly the film's central premise (about a satellite that can wipe out all of the mines between North and South Korea) as well as various action set pieces were.

In this film, the Bond folk are true to their word that there will be no gadgets and no megalomaniacs out for world domination. There is, however, still lots of action, most of it quite brutal, more in the vein of Matt Damon's Jason Bourne movies than any 007 film of the last twenty-five years or so. This James Bond, played by the much reviled newcomer Daniel Craig, feels like an honest-to-God killer, which is basically what his character is.

As an action film, this film does not disappoint. There are awesome action sequences, like the extended chase across a construction site between Bond and an extraordinarily athletic black guy who could give Jacky Chan a run for his money in the stunts department, as well as shoot-outs and slug fests galore. Arguably, one advantage of an ugly Bond is that getting his face smashed up is not that big a loss (hehehe).

In all seriousness, though, and to reiterate an earlier point, Craig is enormously effective in creating the franchise's new atmosphere of a darker, more brutal 007, in no small part because of his looks, but also owing to his acting, which, while not exactly Oscar material, is still quite good. Craig's Bond is every inch a killer, not some ridiculous movie star (a la Roger Moore, whom I never liked, even though I grew up with his movies) pretending to be one. Not only that, but this is a killer who lets us into his head.

The re-boot really rears its head here as Bond's entire history is revamped and set in the present day. Judi Dench's M suddenly becomes the M that hired him, rather than the replacement M she started out as in 1995's Goldeneye. Effectively, there never was a male M.
There are some other details that get whitewashed, too, like the origin of his misogyny, which was explained at some point in the past. Well, without giving too much away, let's just say that according to this new, revised canon, his eternal mistrust and objectification of women stems from something one woman did to him. Still, just as Batman Begins shed off all the unwanted cheese that had built up from two Joel Schumacher movies, the Bond production team has successfully shed the corniness from several decades of bad flicks.

At the end of the day, while Craig is surprisingly impressive as the new James Bond, this is still director Martin Campbell's movie. Just as he gave the franchise a badly needed shot in the arm 11 years ago with Goldeneye (which also featured James Bond "in love" contrary to all the hype that we the movie viewers had never seen this happen before), so he masterfully reinvents the franchise here. A lesser director (name any other from the last dozen Bond movies) could have sent the franchise crashing and burning, especially with an ugly Bond.

And it was refreshing to end the movie without him bedding some barely legal nymphette like some D.O.M. from hell. It was a nice change of pace.