Leave My Dude Alone.

Ah... there's nothing like an untimely movie review! Casino Royale was released in November of last year, with second run theatres playing it months ago, and no doubt the film has long since hit DVD, maybe no longer even crowding the queues of Netflix customers. It has been months even since I've seen the movie and first started chewing this cud of criticism.

But alas, opinions are timeless.

The press and fans had been all abuzz about the new James Bond, giving me high hopes that we were finally embarking on a new 007 era, finally free of that corny Pierce Brosnan who to my dismay, during his reign managed to woo many first-fans not even gametes when I saw my first Bond flick. No doubt all the talk had set within me high expectations for a great Renaissance, perhaps something worthy of the Cold War?

Not quite. While we've definitely left Remington Steel behind, this was not the return to the James Bond whom I fell in love with so many years ago.

Let's start with the basics. Bond does NOT ever say, "I love you." Doing so will immediately result in DEATH (as older fans will recall was the fate of his wife Teresa Bond, whose matrimonial bliss and lifespan did not extend beyond the ending credits of On Her Majesty's Secret Service). Bond may have muttered some crap about "love" a couple of times in the Brosnan era, but that was reason to stop watching the movies. 007 also does not give the pink slip to God, Country, and the Queen, and again, certainly not for love. And he is not a robot. The Daniel Craig version is entirely binary without any nuances reflecting the spectrum in between extremes. As the more classic Bonds have shown us, it is in fact possible to:

• kill for the love of your country,



• "love" women for the moment,



• and be human at the same time.

And if God forbid, Bond finds himself mired in a moral struggle, he keeps it private - he certainly doesn't talk about it. Eww.

In Casino Royale, as soon as this Bond left the Her Majesty's Service in order to spend the rest of Forever with Random Bond Girl, predictably, I leaned over to my companion and whispered, "She's either EVIL or GOING TO DIE." Or both, I suppose.

And I guess I am the only one who thinks that the real James Bond can be clever and witty without being corny and sappy. It frustrates me when people think Bond is inherently corny. As one friend has described me, I belong to that "radical faction" of Bond fans that really likes Roger Moore. And no, I do not think Roger Moore is corny at all. (He has a good sense of humor, let's just say.) I tried recently to look up on the Internet statistics to verify whether I truly stand in the minority of the fan base, but the search was inconclusive. In my opinion, the truly unsufferably corny James Bond came with Pierce Brosnan, and I wish he took that Bond with him. (I'll note here that I was actually fond of Brosnan's Reminington Steel work, but Remington is no James.)

Puckery Daniel Craig did a good job with what he had, but I found the script generally lacking. Only the dialogue between Bond and Bond Girl on the train ride was mildly interesting. They even gave poor Oscar-winning Judi Dench lame lines. Over the years, whoever has been in charge has soured Bond movies into regular action flicks, a genre which has recently suffered from an over-proliferation of testosterone-indulgent, drawn-out, seemingly never-ending violence. (See giant-insect killing scene in King Kong; Orcs fighting in second Lord of the Rings movie. Yes, I know all of you men are still drooling over these cites.) That men enjoy watching minute after minute, scene after scene, of boring arbitrary repetitive boring action suitable for only fast-forwarding leads me to believe I will never ever be compatible with the opposite sex.

And to top it off, Casino Royale was a remarkably unsexy movie. Bond movies are supposed to be super sexy! What happened to the not-so-subtly-implied sexual escapades worthy of only indecent international spies? The slow, slinky unzip of a sequined gown that used to make my five-year-old heart turn all a-flutter???

In Daniel Craig's defense, he is undoubtedly the most athletic Bond ever and could beat Bambi in any contest of leaps and bounds. And certainly even the dear and eternally smooth Roger Moore would not want to compare pecs with Mr. Craig. Despite my opinion that the movie's plot was generally unsexy, the word HOTNESS did inexplicably and randomly HOTNESS cross my mind a number of HOTNESS times during the film. HOTNESS HOTNESS HOTNESS (Ladies, you know exactly when.)

In the end, I question the constant effort to reinvent 007, to bring him into "our time." If I want to think about "our time," I would not watch a movie about a man who probably packs a helicopter in his attaché on a daily basis. The point is that James Bond is classic and timeless. You want to do a movie about a spy who likes strange girlie concoctions with curly lemon peels, well, invent a new dude.

Hands his shaken martinis, and leave my dear 007 alone.

All in all, Casino Royale was certainly not a waste of the three dollars I spent at the second-run theatre. And there is the business of HOTNESS HOTNESS probably being worth a few extra nickels, too.

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