Orson Welles, with his fat cigar at the card table, performing magic tricks with flags and scarves amid flashing lights while everyone whistles and applauds.
Such silliness abounds and at times the movie drags a bit, but there is always another joke around the corner. A British soldier who has been practicing karate chops on wooden boards comes to a stiff attention when his superior approaches and snaps a quivering Brit-style salute, knocking himself out with his own hand. It's a succession of gags, puns, and visual effects taking place in spectacularly designed settings, spoofs of German expressionism, psychedelic imagery, and all that. The five disparate directors saw to that, to the extent that the writers didn't. It's pointless to compare 'Casino Royale' to any of the other 'straight' Bond films. Or in Fritz Perl's 'here and now', to switch hoaxes in midstream.
It helps if you're able to live in Kierkegaard's unfolding moment if you want to enjoy this movie.
