"Casino Royale" Retrospective: How A Franchise Peaked Four Decades In

Daniel Craig's debut remains the franchise's best - and most important - installment.

August 18, 2024

In 2004, during cycle 3 of America’s Next Top Model, contestant Tocarra Jones was getting fitted for a photoshoot. She was a “plus-size” model in a stick-thin world, so the available clothes reduced her to dressing like someone who, in her words, “worked at Home Depot.”

‍

The fitter combatted her perspective by criticizing her “ingratitude:” Tocarra was on TV's biggest modeling competition, stayed in a luxury penthouse in New York, and got designer clothes weekly.

‍

Tocarra stood her ground: just because life is good in one way does not mean it is not bad in another.

‍

Jones got eliminated before the show went abroad, with her downfall depicted as a bold personality flattened by the pressures of modeling. It was more likely that Tokyo, the season's foreign destination, was even more unkind to women like Tocarra than the United States.

‍

Thankfully, modern feminism has forced a reconsideration of female beauty standards, like minuscule hip-to-waist ratios, masking natural aromas and bodily processes, dressing to appease male ideas of femininity, and demanding embodiment of classical interpretations of womanhood. We have a long way to go, but we are much further now than in 2004.

‍

But for all the talk of unfair standards for women, all the discussion about tearing down archaic notions of acceptability for females, one question has slowly begun to ring out:

‍

What about men?

‍

Movies prove the idiocy of our standards. We create controversy about who plays who to protect the "sanctity" of things that don't matter. We can debate the merit of casting decisions when corporations think with money instead of morals, but debating the concept is foolish. It does not matter if a woman of color with dark hair plays a fictional character inspired by an iconic redhead or if a teenage girl under the sea has dark skin and hair instead of bold baby blues and fiery red locks.

‍

It does not matter that a book character described as dark-haired gets played by a blonde.

‍

Alas, Daniel Craig’s casting as the new James Bond was controversial upon its announcement in October 2005. He was not brunette! He was too short! Heaven forfend!

‍

The resulting boycotts and campaigns cast a pall over the production of Casino Royale. In the age of body sensitivity, understanding that by emphasizing the innocuous, we can needlessly offend, it seems ludicrous. We actually tried to derail a 44-year-old franchise because the new lead was blonde and “short.”

‍

Thankfully, the studio backed Craig, who brought an emotional interpretation to the role. It was a burst of inspiration for a fledgling franchise that revitalized a (creatively) dying entity.

‍

The previous installment, Die Another Day, possesses early 2000s nostalgia, like campy gadgetry and ludicrous set pieces, but its reputation as a deviation is a case of mistaken identity. Casino Royale maximizes its potential by understanding that Die Another Day didn't abandon what made Bond great for reliance on kitschy CGI; it was the culmination of 40 years of expanding formula.

‍

Bond always beheld bombshells emerging from the sea or standing beside enemies, enlisted Q for the latest gimmicky updates in technological warfare, and charmed his way between the legs of female bit players. Reinventing the wheel meant not just a new Bond but reshaping the series. Gone were the half-hearted technological advances, the seductive charm, and the bombshell beauties emerging from the sea or standing side-by-side with arch nemeses.

‍

This time, it was Bond who emerged from the water, his massive endowment packed into a skimpy blue Speedo. Finally, he was emotionally vulnerable and to an intellectual equal who clouds his judgment by opening his heart. He got armed with his wits, instincts, and a gun. The drama played out in silent strategy games. The victories were earned in a complicated drink order that frustrates his opponent, exploiting the ego of a government contractor to win his Aston Martin, or enduring torture to protect Queen and country.

‍

Craig does not emote with every discovery or lead us to conclusions the same way. He plays it cool but uses subtle variations to humanize Bond, who feels like a man working as a secret agent and not a secret agent who forgets to be a man. It makes him quick-witted in blue-collar fashion, barreling through walls and using muscle to climb metal contraptions while his target slithers through small openings and hop-scotches his way through a construction site.

‍

But it never forgoes spectacle when it needs a spark or breaks from it when it must return to its roots. It is as compelling when Bond chases the Somali bomb maker through Madagascar as when he and Vesper verbally spar across a table. It draws us in just as closely when M chastises him for his decision-making in Africa as when he fights to prevent the explosion of an airliner.

‍

Casino Royale understands that humanizing a protagonist is not done by unveiling all their past traumas. We can relate to people reactively, but substantial connections get rooted in a person's character, not their experiences. Horrible people can suffer horrible things: if we submit to the tragedy at the expense of acknowledging the individual, those bonds will prove fragile. Bond has yet to realize that shielding yourself makes you more susceptible to betrayal. By avoiding deeper connections, he has created an impossible situation. The person he attaches to will seem so revelatory that he will forget the most critical truth: trust no one.

‍

That idea powers the movie, especially as it becomes clear the conspiracies extend further and run deeper than initially believed. Le Chiffre is one cog in a wheel: even Mr. White, whom Bond incapacitates at film’s end, is not the big bad. Everyone has an enormous amount to lose and can gain only from not losing. The more Bond gives himself to lose, the more dire his circumstances become.

‍

As such, Casino Royale is less of a story than an exercise in laying a foundation, but it proves that movies can excel as building blocks to something more. If each step gets explored fully, a film can develop its ideas and leave us wanting more: the subtleties will always earn our admiration.

‍

A quick cut reveals that Dryden, the traitor James assassinates at the start, is a family man. Bond learns from his enemies, telling Vesper to distract the players just like Dimitrios’ wife did at the Bahamanian resort. We will always appreciate the quiet intensity, from James driving down a dark country road to save a kidnapped Vesper to him and Dimitrios struggling over a knife in a crowded airport. We will never forget the quippy one-liners, from Bond explaining his rationale for murdering the bomb maker to Vesper relaying her pessimism for the “plan” of theoretical merit.

‍

But what Casino Royale does best is show why our standards are inconsequential, as much for a young woman in a modeling competition as a "short," blonde Bond. Everyone has the potential for greatness; size, age, sex, and hair color are incidental. All it takes is uniting the right pieces and seizing a golden opportunity.

‍

Does James and Vesper’s relationship unnecessarily swerve into unearned melodrama? Yes.

‍

Does the climax feel rushed because it chose to fast-track the romance instead of isolating a particular adventure and letting their connection speak for itself? Yes. Do we ponder the purpose of the stairs if all the doors are locked? Yes.

‍

But when a film knows itself like Casino Royale, what makes it less than what it could be means nothing compared to what makes it more than what we expected. It can earn a lover’s sacrifice by legitimizing her reasons for making it and deserve her victim’s coldness as he grapples with her death. It can justify a quiet bond between the newly minted secret agent traversing a world he has yet to understand and the boss who knows what awaits him but is powerless to stop the sting of that discovery. It can earn every penny its hero makes at that poker table: a man once too cartoonish to take seriously is someone we trust to meet a higher standard.

‍

Bond was blonde and "short," enraging an entire fanbase. It can be hard to ascertain when fans should have the right-of-way and when studios should barrel through their stop signs. Ultimately, Daniel Craig is no different from Tocarra or anyone else who can be great in a world telling them they have no place. Shut up, let them work, and behold the magic.