In Casino Royale, new James Bond gets licence to love

By Thomas Burmeister Nov 13, 2006, 17:43 GMT

London - There was a time when well-built Bond girls emerged from the sea like Aphrodite. In Casino Royale, the latest 007 film, James Bond himself does the born-from-the-foam routine.

You wonder whether British actor Daniel Craig, who plays agent 007 of Her Majesty's Secret Service, is winking his blue eyes at the camera a little, as if to say, 'I know you're all thinking of Halle Berry now, but we're not in Die Another Day.' No, this isn't the twentieth Bond film; it's the twenty-first, with a new 007 for the 21st century.

There is simply no room any longer for some of the Bond staples. Gone is Miss Moneypenny, who always went weak in the knees the moment 007 strode into her anteroom realm. She belonged to an earlier era, when all the ladies still worshipped macho men in dinner jackets.

Gone too is Q, the gadget supplier. What could he invent now, in our hypertechnological times, that truly amazes?

Casino Royale gives 007 fans two options: Either reject it and get nostalgic with the Bond 1-20 DVD collection, or embrace a James Bond who is very different. Craig has described Sean Connery, the first 007 in the series, as simultaneously bad, tough, full of animalistic energy, and elegant.

Craig's Bond is all of these things and more. He not only has deep feelings, but admits to them too.

We see him sitting in the shower in his dress shirt and trousers, getting soaked. Beside him is Vesper Lynd, played by the gorgeous French actress Eva Green, who is also blue-eyed. She is crying in despair, and he is on the brink of tears.

'You're in your armour,' Lynd says accusingly in another scene when they are alone together. Bond replies, 'I don't have armour anymore ... all that I am belongs to you.' This is a Bond with a licence to love.

Still, there is plenty of action, suspense and special effects. Right after the rather untypical opening credits there is a breathtaking chase. French youth idol Sebastian Foucan, of Parkour and Free Running fame, plays a fleeing bomber. Bounding through a dangerous construction site, Foucan climbs up cranes and lets himself drop. He does all the top stunts of his trade.

Craig keeps up with him, winning points with the viewers as he does in other action sequences.

But between the thwarting of a catastrophic terrorist attack in Miami on the world's largest passenger plane and the furious finale, which includes a building collapse in Venice and underwater attempts to rescue Lynd, a few scenes are too long. One of them is at a poker table.

The middle part nevertheless serves up the most brutal torture scene ever done in a Bond film: Le Chiffre -- a villain with tears of blood brilliantly played by Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen -- hits Bond, who is naked, hard in the genitals.

Bond does what any man would do in this situation - except perhaps Roger Moore, who would surely still manage to make an ironic remark - he lets loose an awful scream.

Some fans of 007 might not like to see the most famous secret agent of all in this state. But is Bond a wuss just because he shows pain like a real flesh-and-blood person?

There is one difference between the old and new Bond, though, that traditionalists are likely to regard as utter sacrilege. Under stress, the new Bond orders the usual, a vodka martini. 'Shaken or stirred?' asks the grinning barkeeper. 'Do I look like I give a damn?' he answers.