Film Review | Casino Royale (2006)

Chips and a Dip

by Thomas Delapa


When British actor Daniel Craig was first announced as the new James Bond, hardcore 007 fans went ballistic. "Bland, James Bland," they dubbed him. In his defense, Craig told Entertainment Weekly, "They hate me. They're passionate about it, but I do wish they'd reserve judgment."

Deal or no deal, judgment day has come for Craig and Casino Royale, the 21st Bond movie extravaganza. Get ready for a flush, because this blue-eyed and blond Bond has a license to bore.

In the bygone line of screen Bondage, dating back to the nonpareil Sean Connery and the rudely retired Pierce Brosnan, Craig comes up short (literally) of even George Lazenby, the Aussie actor who had only one assignment, 1969's On Her Majesty's Secret Service. The spy who gagged me, Craig is to Connery what Mini-Me is to Austin Powers' Dr. Evil.

Gambling on Craig to carry on their billion-dollar franchise, producers Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli chose author Ian Fleming's first entry in the phenomenally resilient Bond series. Fleming's über secret agent was a cultural product of the Cold War (and British end-of-empire blues), but the fall of the Berlin Wall has only meant that Bond's "license to kill" was upgraded to include renegade Commies, terrorists, mad media moguls and other high-value targets.

Casino Royale deals out a losing hand, starting with the astounding absence of Monty Norman's killer theme music in the opening credits. The screenwriters (including Oscar-winner Paul Haggis) pay lip service to Fleming's 1954 book, but they've modernized it by playing to U.S. audiences in the age of ESPN, not the USSR. Most of the book involves Bond's cryptic game of high-stakes baccarat. Now 007 must go mano a mano with his foe in a made-for-TV game of Texas hold 'em poker. Yee-haw, pardner.

Yet director Martin Campbell's introduction of Bond is neither as card shark nor suave, karate-chopping spy. In a set-piece befitting Jackie Chan, not Jimmy Bond, Craig acrobatically chases an anonymous bad guy through the Ugandan jungle and up and down a construction crane. Surly and jut-jawed, Craig is not a kinder and gentler Bond. According to his exasperated and expendable boss, M (Judi Dench), he's just a blunt instrument.

It's no coincidence that Bond visits a Miami "Body Worlds" exhibit as a prelude to another no-brain chase. Craig's freakish, barrel-chested physique sculpts the new Bond as a Y2K caveman of few words. Craig doesn't even get to say, "My name is Bond, James Bond." This guy would be more comfortable ordering steroids, shaken not stirred, instead of a martini.

Bond's penultimate showdown takes place at a casino in Eastern Europe, where he faces down Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelson), a tycoon of terrorism whose evildoing is signified by his bleeding eyeball. Reluctantly bonding with Bond is a dishy British treasury agent (Eva Green) who's supplying the stakes for 007 to play.

Everything is in on the table in Casino Royale's royally dull denouement, from torture and betrayal and death in Venice to Bond's handy pocket defibrillator that could bring him back to life. Campbell and the film's gambling producers shouldn't have bothered. This 007 is DOA, though odds are he'll return to die another day.

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First published in Boulder Weekly, 11/22/06

Film Review | Cowboys & Aliens

The Only Good Alien...

by Thomas Delapa


“Cowboys & Aliens opens tomorrow. I wonder what that’s about?”
--David Letterman


If the classic western has gone south, and science fiction is plumb tired, what’s a desperate Hollywood to do? Well, if you’re director Jon Favreau, the answer is easy, pardner: Take both genres, mix them up, add a stampede of special effects, and point and shoot.

With such producing honchos as Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard riding herd, you might figure Cowboys & Aliens would gallop off into the sunset as a sure-fire winner. But once you look beyond the bizarre blend of gunslingers, sagebrush, barroom brawls and evil E.T.s, Favreau’s mixed-up mélange is a close encounter of the worst kind.

Basing their script on a 2006 graphic novel, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci steal from western classics (like The Searchers) for their template, hogtied to a malodorous plot about alien abduction. Our amnesiac, Bourne-again hero is Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig), who wakes up on the prairie to find a weird, space-age shackle on his wrist. When three grubby outlaws try to rob him, Jake shows us what a tough hombre he is.

Just to make sure we know we’ve landed in a western (as opposed to the real West), Favreau loads in clichéd dialogue (“Palms to heaven, friend”) to go along with the iconic, widescreen landscapes. From this well-trod fictional universe, we are transported into an empty, politically correct no man’s land where evil, bloodthirsty aliens take over the role that used to be played by Indians.

In the corrupt town of Absolution, the good guys (and a tribe of nice Indians) are forced to team up with the bad guys to fight the monstrously ugly invaders. Though Favreau pays lip service to the classic western, this travesty only comes to life during the alien attack on the town. From their marauding spaceships, the creatures brutally lasso the humans with hooks, dragging them back to their desert lair for unearthly experiments.

Away from the dramatic attacks, Favreau’s dialogue is as flat as Death Valley. As the laconic Jake, Craig rides short in the saddle, glaring his vacant blue eyes and looking as comfortable on a horse as James Bond in a leisure suit. As the town’s leathery cattle baron with a trigger-happy son (Paul Dano), Harrison Ford scowls and spits out his lines, a Han Solo gone to seed.

With the double-barrel star casting, you might reckon it means that Ford is passing his rusty action-hero badge on to Craig. Whatever the aim, the gesture is nothing but a bum steer.

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8/2/11