Blond on Bond

Happily, the scales tip decidedly in favor of that hoped-for resurrection. Casino Royale isn't perfect—plot-wise, it's business as usual, give or take a few adjustments (international terrorism predictably replaces the Soviet threat, cheekily acknowledged when Judi Dench's M laments, "Christ, I miss the Cold War!"), and all the baddies are still either swarthy or have "funny" accents. Moreover, its pastichey pile-up of signifiers from every Sean Connery 007 film, as well as the lone George Lazenby one, grows distracting over the nearly two-and-a-half-hour running time. But Craig's lean performance and Martin Campbell's focused, unfussy direction combine to breathe life into a series that's been moribund for decades. The result is a superior, even thoughtful action movie.

Remarkably enough, this sea change pivots on James Bond's humanity. Not that he's a particularly stellar example of the species; indeed, in this go-round (which chronicles the superspy's first double-0 mission), Bond—self-proclaimed "part monk, part hitman"—is given to pummeling his adversaries and snuffing them if he doesn't get his way. After one such deadly snafu, he bucks orders to lay low and instead pursues Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), a Euro-something terrorist-funder and compulsive gambler. MI6 eventually bankrolls Bond for a poker showdown with the blood-weeping card sharp and assigns hottie accountant (!) Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) to keep an eye on its investment. Quicker than you can say "on Her Majesty's secret service," the philandering spook flips for the pulchritudinous bean-counter and the pair globe-trots happily into the sunset. Things don't end there, of course, and before it's over Casino Royale works in several show-stopping action sequences, an expectation-thwarting twist involving Le Chiffre's fate and some grueling testicular torture for our hero—who, it turns out, doesn't have balls of steel. A sequel is nicely set up, too.

Casino Royale has been filmed before, first in 1954 as an episode of the CBS TV show Climax!, and then as a shambolic 1967 feature-film spoof that's best remembered for having no connection to the Connery series and for its viral Herb Alpert theme song. (The de rigueur tune for this version, by Soundgarden screecher Chris Cornell, is mercifully forgettable.) It makes an ideal vehicle for official Bond-dom's reset, though: Adapted from Ian Fleming's inaugural 007 novel by screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade (both Bond-movie vets) and wild-card Paul Haggis, the movie daringly addresses the agent's transformation from a resentful working-class thug to the suave, lethal sociopath we know and love. The implications of this rebirth are timely without being overdone (there's a reference to 9/11 that's neither exploitative nor off-track) and are well-served by the film's uncharacteristically graphic violence. Everything is personalized here, from the psychic toll Bond pays for his fabled license to kill to his abuse at the hands of Le Chiffre, and the movie's actions are shown to have—of all things—consequences. The nuanced, coiled Craig is perfectly suited to convey this depth, then, and the sublimely unctuous Mikkelsen matches him.

It's flabbergasting to realize how little it takes for a James Bond movie to function as an actual movie instead of a wad of cinematic cud—only, it seems, that the impossible stunts and improbable plot are built around compelling human behavior instead of shallow, self-infatuated supermen, leering double entendres and tiresome techno-fetishism.