Nov 20, 2006 04:44 PM
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Dir: Martin Campbell
Cast: Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Jeffrey Wright, Ivana Milicevic, Judi Dench, Sebastien Foucan, Mads Mikkelsen.
Bond, or rather, Blond is back. Can new boy Daniel Craig do more tahn simply fill 007's little blue swimming trunks? The answer: a double-oh-yes. Thanks to the fact that he can actually act (an asset tradionally low in the list of requirements, after chest hair and the ability to unzip a dress with one eyebrow), Craig is an impressively well-round Bond in every sense. If a deliberately different breed...
'You're a thug,' M (Judi Dench, still marvellous) tells him. 'A weapon.' And he looks like one too. Cocked, muscly, and emotions tensely guarded.
It starts off before JB has won his license to kill. Then bang, bang and he’s killed two agents and earned his 00 status. M reluctantly sends him off to Madagascar and the Bahamas hot on the heels of some big league terrorists. Terrorist No.1 is the wing-footed Mollaka, real life free-runner Sebastien Foucan, who gives Bond the run-around in a breathtaking action sequence.
It’s an ingeniously choreographed set piece which sees the pair scale a 120 ft crane setting the standard for a barrage of show off, pumping action. Unlike his predecessor, our superspy isn’t given a load of cheesy one-liners to get him out of numerous pickles.
When his Walther PPK clicks empty he just chucks the gun at the baddy's head rather than pause for a quip. Still, there's barely any time to pause in this thrill-packed, chronology-defying return to Bond's first licence-to-kill mission, which sees him take on terrorist banker Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), a terrific old-school scar-face who weeps blood.
One magnificently orchestrated car-hurling set piece follows another, like you're being vomitted on by an Audi showroom. And the product placement is outrageous - is this a film or a duty-free catalogue?
Still when the dialogue does poke up above the parapet, it's sharp. 'Shaken or stirred?' asks the barman. 'Do I look like I give a damn?' growls Bond. He escapes with sheer brute force and Craig is convincing enough to make it look like he could do the business for real without even raising his pulse. And did I mention his impressive physique - which is displayed more often than is frankly decent.
Yet he demonstrates some charm in the vicinity of the sultry Vesper Lynd (the impossibly sexy French actress Eva Green), who is the implausibly good-looking British government accountant. The pair get to let lose their obvious sexual chemistry in one breathless scene where he comforts the distraught Vesper in the shower by sucking her fingers as if to clean off the blood.
If all is controversially less cosy and camp than before, well, frankly that's a relief. Boffiny Q, for example, should have been pensioned offlong ago. Instead director Martin Campbell (Goldeneye) reinvents Bond once again with a steely, tougher tone, shooting new life back into a franchise that seemingly never says die.
Admittedly it’s a lengthy affair at 144 mins, but you barely notice because it is Bond at its best. As the man himself observes to M, 00s have a very short life expectancy. Lets hope Craig’s Bond lives to die another day.
