CASINO ROYALE
UNSHAKEN, NOT STIRRED

In "Casino Royale," James Bond trades his customary wink for the kind of tightly focused stare you'd expect from an assassin.

Cool.

The cheery cosmopolitan with an insatiable appetite for women, martinis and double-entendre quips has been jettisoned. Taking over for Pierce Brosnan, Daniel Craig gives us a brutal, smash-mouth Bond.

A level of predictability had settled into the movies: the opening action scene, usually in a hostile setting like North Korea, along with the trademark Bond girls, the temperamental villain and his loyal lieutenant who would always be knocked off first, the lovable supporting characters like "Q" and "M," and futuristic gimmick gadgets.

But along comes a blond Bond -- namely Daniel Craig. Things begin afresh with Craig's Bond evolving from wannabe assassin to the real deal -- his first hit, first major mistake, first dressing down by M (Judi Dench), a woman to fall in love with and a jilt to the heart to forever form his cold, callous character.

Well known in the UK for dramatic roles in "Mother" and "Enduring Love," Craig may be more familiar to American audiences for his supporting turns in "Munich," "Infamous" and "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider."

Blond, muscular and combative, he is closer to Sean Connery's working-class cheekiness than his more debonair successors. This is a back-to-basics Bond, a "blunt instrument," as M (Judi Dench) puts it (echoing Bond author Ian Fleming). Which is not to say Craig's Bond isn't cocky -- that's his designated character flaw -- but the rough edges haven't been shaved off yet.

At first there was controversy over Craig’s casting. Many people were hoping for Clive Owen, whose work in the BMW "The Hire" shorts coupled with his Bond spoof in the new "Pink Panther" film made him a popular choice for Bond fans. Craig was criticized for being blond and blue-eyed (it should be noted though that Fleming describes Bond as having grey-blue eyes in the books), and for being too short (at 5' 11" he’s the shortest Bond--two inches lower than Brosnan). But since Craig strips down for a few scenes in "Casino Royale," I doubt that female fans will be complaining about his height.

And Craig can take comfort in the fact that when Connery was cast, he was criticized by Fleming and book fans for being too working class and for being Scottish. But after one outing as 007, Connery won over Fleming (who actually gave his literary character Scottish heritage after seeing Connery’s performance) and fans. Craig too is likely to win over fans after they see the film. The actor delivers a hard-edged Bond who can be a cold-blooded killer, a cool, calculating gambler and a matter-of-fact seducer of women. But he also knows that killing can sometimes be messy, and emotions can sometimes cloud judgment.

"You do what I do for too long, there won't be enough of a soul to salvage," he says, waxing poetic.

This isn’t the James Bond we know from the last forty years. Craig isn't succeeding Brosnan; he's re-inventing the role.

Amid the retooling of the surrounding cast, the last bit of continuity is Judi Dench as M, who seems reinvigorated and delivers acerbic one-liners like only she can.

Instead of a megalomaniac out to rule the world, the villain is Le Chiffre (Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen), "the Cipher," a banker to international terrorists who is only in the game for the money. His quirks are a tear duct that drips blood and the need for an inhaler.

The heroine is Vesper Lynd (French actress Eva Green), a female counterpart to Bond -- cool, calculating, the right mix of hard and soft. It's not hard to see how she could beguile Bond. Their exchanges contain none of the usual tired double entendres but rather sharp dialogue as the two suss each other out. And when she steals his heart, 007 actually uses the "l" word.

Jeffrey Wright is suitably low key as Bond's CIA ally Felix Leiter, while Italian veteran Giancarlo Giannini is his smooth local contact. Caterina Murino, also Italian, plays Bond's first sexual conquest, who pays dearly for her extramarital fling.

It's interesting to note that the radical revising of Bond is being done by the "usual" team. The producers are still Michael G. Wilson and Barbara (daughter of Cubby) Broccoli. There's no way of knowing for sure which parts of the script belong to Neal Purvis and Robert Wade (veterans of the last two Brosnan Bonds) and which were written by the ubiquitous Paul Haggis ("Crash," "Million Dollar Baby"), but the old-school romantic sparring between Vesper and Bond has the double Oscar winner's fingerprints all over it: both for the sophisticated repartee and the serious attempts to invest the characters with psychological depth. Director Martin Campbell previously retooled the series when he oversaw Brosnan’s "Goldeneye" with Phil Meheux as his cinematographer. And David Arnold has been composing Bond scores since he took over from John Barry in the '90s.

Technically, this makes the third adaptation of Casino Royale. The first two were a 1954 TV series with Barry Nelson as Jimmy Bond, and a 1967 spoof starring Woody Allen. But this is the first time the official Bond franchise has filmed the novel, updating the setting from the Cold War to the War on Terror. As far as this movie is concerned, nothing in the last 20 entries has happened.

Until its rousing introduction during the end credits, the "James Bond Theme" is heard sparingly, during brief, subdued passages. The signature line of "Bond, James Bond" keeps us waiting. There are no gadgets - in fact, there's no Q. Nor is there any Moneypenny.

There's action, but it's surprisingly low-key (for Bond). The over-the-top, gravity-defying stunts are gone. Things get brutal. Not only is there a nasty fight in which Bond beats the crap out of a bad guy, (he has to kill two people to get his double-zero status, neatness isn’t necessary) but our hero ends up on the receiving end of some vicious treatment. One can't see Connery, Dalton, or Moore going through that ordeal.

The new film gives us Bond as a young, fresh and reckless agent. The opening teaser in Prague, shot in black-and-white to demonstrate the new grittiness, shows him making his first kill. Then it’s off to Uganda and Madagascar where Bond attempts to capture a potential bomb maker/bank robber. He winds up on a wild foot-chase in and around a construction site of the kind one would expect in a Hong Kong action flick. Bond’s quarry just happens to be played by Sébastien Foucan, a master of parkour (or "free running"), who bounds over obstacles and scrambles over walls in the space of a heartbeat. The acrobatic high jinks end with a shoot-'em-up in an (unnamed) embassy.

M scolds Bond for bungling the mission and banishes him, but he rushes off on his own to the Bahamas and Miami -- without permission -- hot on the trail of more potential terrorists. He beds the exotic, married Solange (Caterina Murino) and tracks down terrorist bankroller Le Chiffre, who makes his fortune by being banker to the unbankable, such as third world warlords and other underworld scum. In exchange for a huge pile of money, Chiffre with his bleeding eye guarantees one machete-wielding warlord that his hundred million bucks will be invested without risk.

Which is, of course, a very risky move on Monsieur Chiffre's part. The eye's next move is equally mystifying when he sells his substantial stock holdings in an airline that's about to unveil a new liner. His broker doesn't understand the move since the stock has been climbing like a rocket, but when Bond's trail leads to a terrorist trying to destroy the slick new plane before it gets off the ground -- a catastrophe that would bankrupt the company -- the money manipulation part of it clears up.

Seeking to recover the money lost (and keep his head), Chiffre sets up a super-high stakes game of Texas Hold "Em Poker at Casino Royale in Montenegro. Bond sits across the table to deny the mastermind any gains. He's now aided by Vesper Lynd, who stakes him with British treasury money to the tune of $10 million.

Besides bringing his best card game, the freshman spy also needs to learn how to wear his first tuxedo, and figure out exactly which way he likes his vodka martinis prepared.

"Shaken or stirred?" asks a barman.

"Do I look like I give a damn?" says Bond.

Lynd turns out to be a prickly partner for Bond and they take an immediate dislike to each other. Needless to say, they eventually warm up to each other’s charms but not before a few intense rounds of poker.

At one point, Chiffre poisons Bond, who doesn’t quite put the defibrillator to his heart and passes out. But after Vesper gives him the jolt he needs, he returns to the poker game with a dry, "I’m sorry -- that last hand nearly killed me."

When Bond turns out to be the loser, Vesper denies him further backing though he pleads with her for a 2nd chance. Things don't always go well for the agent. In fact, they sometimes go really badly.

But Felix Leiter turns up to stake Bond instead and give him a second life.

Of course things get more complicated and nasty (namely Chiffre’s sadistic torture of Bond right out of Fleming’s book), and the movie neatly sets up Bond’s emotional crisis as his love affair with Vesper offers the promise of a life less ruthless -- and maybe the last chance to save what’s left of his blood-spattered soul.

Major sequences -- the early chase in Africa, a fight aboard a runaway fuel truck on the Miami airport tarmac, a shootout in a collapsing Venice, Italy, canal building and a grueling torture sequence -- emphasize the physicality of the stunt work rather than special effects. The old James Bond musical theme is saved for the end as David Arnold's superb score chooses to mirror the rise and fall of tensions and emotions. Phil Meheux's cinematography and Peter Lamont's design take full advantage of the great locations ranging from Prague and Venice to Lake Como and the Bahamas. And Martin Campbell does the series proud again directing a second retooling.

Bond is often caught in physically tight spaces that force him to use anything and everything at his disposal, and to engage in hand-to-hand combat rather than to rely on guns and gadgetry. At one point he even makes clever use of the stairs used to embark or disembark passengers on airplanes. And when Bond does have to rely on something other than his fists, he gets realistic tech support rather than futuristic gadgets.

What’s also fun in "Casino Royale" is seeing the characters develop. In the recent films, the characters were just a given. Bond, M, Moneypenny, Q and even the villains and women were just character types that we had come to rely on for certain traits and to act out certain roles. But "Casino Royale" invigorates the formula by fleshing out the characters beyond their conventions.

Now, Judi Dench’s M gets out of the office and out of her role as a bean-counting desk jockey to develop Bond’s superior with a little more depth and interest. A relationship begins to develop between her and Bond rather than just having them trade quips.

Bond also isn't given a tricked out hot rod by "Q" -- he earns his stylish Aston Martin DBS in a card game (along with the guy's wife). He exchanges more than double entendres with Vesper, revealing a little more of himself along the way. He even pokes around for some trace of dormant humanity in the professional killer. The direction the film takes bodes well for more revelations in the future.

For Daniel Craig, this is a triumphant debut. Not since early Connery have we seen a Bond this magnetic. Craig shows us both the human and the inhuman sides of Bond. This Bond isn't beyond uttering the occasional quip, but when he does so, there's not a lot of humor in the delivery. Not since the closing moments of "On Her Majesty’s Secret Service" have we seen such a vulnerable 007.

As the film wears on Craig refines his performance into something increasingly colder and more elegant, never quite assuming full Bond-ism until the final, crowd-pleasing line: "The name is Bond…James Bond." The poor guy he is talking to is not in for a good time.

"Casino Royale" isn’t flawless, however. About twenty minutes can be trimmed from the film’s two hour plus run time. The final section involving the romance between Bond and Lynd, drags on and we know how it has to end. There are also some questionable decisions made in the script -- like changing the card game from the book’s Chemin de Fer (baccarat) to Texas Hold ‘Em and then having a character narrate what’s going on. The script also shortchanges Leiter’s character.

But if the goal was to give Bond new life, "Casino Royale" is a smashing success. This Bond is not only licensed to kill but eager to get on with the job. I’d wager he’ll stay for as long as Craig wants him to. The success of his two following Bond movies will depend as much on the level of writing.

I’m looking forward to seeing how they turn out.