I sure do like a good action movie, and in Casino Royale a lot of things blow up, blow up real good. In fact, maybe as good as they have ever blown up before. Trust me, I know a good blow up if I see one. What can I say, this is classic James Bond. And yet, this is not the Bond we remember; not Pierce Brosnan’s Bond and certainly not Sean Connery’s either. This Bond is darker and more intimate; so intimate in fact that it is a little surprising to see by how little he must have escaped that R-rating. This is a dangerous Bond.

Yes, it’s true. This Bond is more reckless, more physical, less witty and more athletic. He uses his fists more than his wit, he has very few gadgets, and the ones that he does have are hardly the high tech stuff that we are used to seeing, which means he is also a headstrong Bond. Maybe most importantly, he is fallible. This Bond sweats, he bleeds, he is capable of love because he doesn’t yet know enough to not invest personal emotions into his work, and after chasing a villain up and down a construction site in exotic Madagascar his hair is unthinkably a little messy. Dare I say it? This Bond is human!

I’m not going to discuss much of Casino Royale’s story. I haven’t the time nor the patience and I forgot my spread sheet so I’ve lost track of all the double crosses. What you need to know is this: the film roughly revolves around a poker game in which Bond must play a terrorist trying to win millions of dollars in order to fund terrorist activities; hardly the most compelling of Bond villains or Bond plots but there is a trick to this kind of thing.

While watching Casino Royale I began to think that the reason we love Bond plots so much is because they all stick to the same basic formula. In them, someone is always smarter than everyone else and everyone is always, in one way or another, smarter than the audience. There are so many ingenious twists and turns in Bond films that dramatic irony ceases to exist because the plots have a way of wrapping themselves around us, placing us in the middle of the clutter. Thus, all we can do is sit back and let the exotic locations, fast cars and even faster and more exotic women wash over us. These films create a universe unlike most others: comprised solely of entertainment and excess, and it is exciting to be there along for the ride.

If there is one thing that I have always cherished about the 007 films it is the precision and clarity of their action sequences. Recently action sequences have tended to be cluttered and messy; filmed with handheld cameras which shake uncontrollably, losing the visual in the chaos. Casino Royale has some of the most remarkably filmed action sequences I’ve seen in a long time.

My friends, these are not kid’s shots. They are not unremarkable feats filmed in front of green screens. These are big, expensive, complex sequences. For instance, there is a chase atop a large crane in which Bond and a villain jump from one elevation to the next, the camera circling overhead like an airplane. There is one moment in particular in which the camera fly’s towards Bond and then overtop of him, and as it begins to turn back around we get a remarkable view of the ground and an unnerving sense that these people are really elevated and really at risk. I kid you not, that single shot is more exciting, more unnerving, and more exhilarating than any digitally assisted action sequence I have ever seen.  

Now to finish with what you’ve been waiting for. How is Daniel Craig, the sixth and newest face to play the infamous James Bond? The difference between Craig and the other Bonds before him is that he is an actor not a showoff. He brings Bond down to a more accessible level so that we can understand the man as a human being and not just an icon. Casino Royale is by no means a film that tries to understand the true human nature of James Bond, but Craig adds a dimension to the character which has not existed until now. He allows us to see that to be Bond is not always about exoticism and excess: having your cake and eating it too. Sometimes it is not fun to be Bond; it can be cold, hard and tragic. Did I mention he messes up his hair a little?