I saw the new James Bond last week, Casino Royale. It's actually the third time the movie has been done: once in the '50s for CBS as a TV movie (I have to find this!) and once in 1967 in what became a complete spoof (starring Woody Allen, David Niven, and a host of Hollywood personalities). Brilliant but truly weird comedy that I first watched with my cousins in Ottawa in French (largely unintelligible to me then) on New Year's Eve.
All the history aside, this was a wonderful deconstruction of the Bond mythos. We see a younger Bond (he is the youngest to play the role I believe) growing into being 007 - rough around the edges, still not entirely cynical though already a tough guy.
The film has some nice pacing, hearkening back to the early Sean Connery films (with whom he compares quite favorably), and the action scenes are very well done and thankfully wholly free of the gadgets that have come to dominate the current films.
This was the 21st in the series and to my mind the best since the third or fourth Bond. I will definitely buy it.
Posted by artandscience at December 2, 2006 08:38 AM