Bond
Casino Royale, first released in 2006 and starring Daniel Craig as the new and improved James Bond, is the first installment in an attempt to re-vamp the Bond Franchise that had tragically fallen into formula, moving further and further away from spy genre expectations that audiences anticipated. The film takes Bond back to his roots and focuses more on character and plot rather than high-tech gadgets and visual effects, the main focus of the previous four films. It is important to remember that Casino Royale is actually the first novel in creator Ian Fleming’s series. In fact, Casino Royale had been adapted to film twice before, once in 1954 as a made for TV film and then again in 1967 as a satirical film, both unfortunately failing miserably. However, restarting at the beginning turned out to be a great move for this makeover. By doing this, the Bond franchise is able to establish a new timeline and narrative framework that is not to be preceded by any previous film. This not only frees the franchise from more than four years of continuity with the previous four films, but also allows the film to show a less experienced and more vulnerable Bond. The film begins before Bond has gained is 007 status, and the audience gets to be there just as he is earning his license to kill. Right from the beginning, the film works to break free from the conventions previously set up by previous Bond films, and Spy films in general, such as Bond’s image, women as sex symbols, as well as Bond’s relationships with these women, and continues to break from these conventions through the whole of the movie. The one thing that won’t change, and probably never will, is the franchise’s dependence on violence, it is in Bond’s nature as an agent with a license to kill and is something in which he can never waver.