February 16: Casino Royale (2006 -- Martin Campbell)

★★★★

Martin Campbell has something of a spotty directing record, but if you want to reboot a franchise like this one, Casino Royale establishes him as a go-to guy.  By the second James Bond film, To Russia with Love, Bond films were already ossified into a formula: an athletic, handsome, womanizing 007 who isn’t afraid to work outside established procedures; beautiful women who are genuine love interests or femme fatales; big action sequences; international settings; and outrageous technology.  And there’s the "stirred, not shaken" martini and “Bond.  James Bond.”  And as soon as the formula was set, the films turned to parody and clever variation to draw their crowds.

The achievement here is that Campbell manages to follow the recipe perfectly but still keep us in the film.  Daniel Craig is strikingly handsome and athletic, and he’s lit and dressed in clothing throughout to set off his body.  The women he encounters are smoky beauties with large eyes and beautiful clothes.  Campbell’s action sequences are riveting, too.  The opening chase scene involves a suspect running through African streets and then being pursued through a construction site with leaps and balancing that maintain suspense; it concludes in compound with Bond and his bad guy facing a small army.  It’s vintage Bond, but amped up beyond showmanship to genuine engagement.  Shortly later, there's a pursuit though Miami airport and near the end, a shootout in a sinking Venetian palace--all great action sequences.  And as Bond speeds though various international locales, from Madagascar to London to Miami to the Czech Republic to Venice, he’s got his Aston Martin, which happily includes a defibrillator. 

But more important to the success here than renewing the Bond formula is Campbell’s decision to give us the elements straight, without irony.  Craig’s Bond is completely invested the action he’s involved in and rarely delivers a line of dialog with self-conscious parody.  Craig shows us a vulnerable Bond from the beginning of the film as we watch his first kills and see him banged and scarred from the initial chase sequence.  And Craig takes us into Bond, too, feeling his anxiety at the card game and his growing love for Vesper Lynd.  As the film approaches its conclusion, we feel real, personal stakes for 007 in a way that very few Bond films have been able to make us feel.  The Bond here has a sincerity and depth that we've hardly seen since Dr. No, and this engaging authenticity inspires life in a film recipe that was tired. 

Casino Royale brings together an outstanding directorial performance from Campbell and an exceptional performance from Craig to create one of the best films of the franchise.