A Review of the Casino Royale Teaser Trailer

Were it not for the Bond theme, you could be forgiven if you didn't notice that this teaser was supposed to promote a new James bond film. 007 himself seemed conspicuously absent from the trailer, and when we finally get a clear view of the new man, in tux at the gaming tables, he looks like he's been dropped from the sky and beaten with an ugly stick for a couple of hours. An unbelievable own goal by whoever cut the trailer.

Craig speaks once in the trailer. "You want me to be half-monk, half-hitman?" he says in that dreary posh-Liverpool drawl.The line doesn't actually make any sense but then not a lot does at Eon these days.

The trailer starts in black and white. This is either very artistic or a bunch of hacks getting pretentious in their old-age. A non-descript man, who I think was apparently Craig, has a punch-up in a khazi. What is it with Martin Campbell and scenes in toilets? Wasn't there a toilet fight scene in True Lies anyway? Perhaps they really are going for people with short memories in this film. Judi Dench supplies a voiceover for these b/w scenes. My immediate thoughts were (1) I'm really bored with Dench and her M character and (2) what the f**k is she doing in this film anyway?

One the highlights of Casino Royale promises to be a chase through a construction site and fight on a crane. A glimpse of this in the trailer suggests that (1) Casino Royale clearly isn't going to be the grittiest and most realistic film ever made and (2) This sequence should be great...as long as you aren't familiar with the Hong Kong classic Black Mask. Location report shots of Craig commandering a bulldozer for part of the chase would also suggest that Roger Moore, nevermind Pierce Brosnan, could have slipped into parts of this 'gritty, realistic' film. A shot of a scanner detecting a micro-chip in Bond's arm lays waste to the promise of no gadgets. We see Craig dodging twenty-seven million bullets and something blowing up. A woman emerges from the sea and so does Craig in a pair of small blue swimming trunks. Whoever this last shot is supposed to appeal to I'd probably lay money down that they aren't Bond fans.

A so-so trailer that didn't get the pulse racing. It hardly seemed like a Bond film at all. Martin Campbell is back fresh from making some of the worst films of the last decade. Bond is now a 38 year-old rookie agent who looks like Daniel Craig. M is still Judi Dench doing her headmistress act. Q and Moneypenny are absent and Bond wasn't married to Tracey. Anything else opening in November?

- Greg Haugen

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