SolarPlexus

Being of the graphic-design bent, I viewed the opening title sequence of the new Casino Royale with some interest. Gone were the fancy effects of recent years, gone was the traditional black backdrop and, shock horror, gone were the lithe, sinuous silhouettes of naked ladies cavorting against guns and missiles. No, instead we have a flat, colourful heavily-stylised animation that could’ve been produced using Macromedia Flash, albeit with some smooth figure rotoscoping.

The unifying items are images and patterns taken from a deck of playing cards - hearts, diamonds, swirls and knaves etc. In the foreground we have flat, blocky male characters in dinner suits battering each other into showers of hearts and diamonds. Different, and very good so far.

I wasn’t overly impressed with the overlaid figure of Dan Craig created by posterising a normal filmed image of the actor. Posterisation is where the normal palette of colours is cut down to a handful of shades. The effect makes a live image look like a cartoon rendering. However, it runs against the flat style of the rest of the work, and it looks cheap.

This, on its own, had me mentally knocking the work down to the category of “flawed” but the designers compounded this flaw by occasionally fading in real images of Mr Craig. Sorry, but this reminded me too much of the opening to the 1980’s TV drama Poirot.

What about the film itself? I thoroughly enjoyed it, and relished this astonishing reboot of the Bond experience. At no point did I question Dan Craig as Bond. Having said that I always thought that poor old Lazenby was given a lot of bad press, and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service has a special place in my heart. For me, everything that Roger Moore did post-Live and Let Die should be wiped from the Bondian universe.

Of course, being aware of the entire Bond continuum from Connery to Craig does leave me feeling uneasy at how we are expected to overlook the fact that Casino Royale is a contemporary movie, replete with mobile phones and laptops, and Bond has not yet travelled From Russia With Love, been Oddjobbed, or had Pussy Galore.

We have two choices: wipe the mental slate and view this as Brand New Bond, and as such non-canonical (until its progeny creates a new canon), or take the cultist view that “James Bond 007″ is a codename much like M or Q. There’s no harm in believing the latter - and I didn’t see anything in the new movie that would go against the codename theory. Makes me sleep easier ;)

Go and see Casino Royale. Buy the DVD when it comes out. Force your teenage kids to watch it, then go back and watch OHMSS with George Lazenby. Go on, I dare you.