How the Bond Girl of "Casino Royale" stacks up

Of all the deaths in the slick new James Bond movie "Casino Royale," here's the saddest: A smashing purple evening gown, trimmed with rhinestones (or, since this is a Bond movie, maybe they're diamonds), meets its demise in a posh hotel-room shower, where its wearer is shedding a few pretty tears. She is, of course, a Bond Girl: Vesper Lynd, a Treasury official who's having a bad day. Not as bad a day as the dress, though.

Bond Girls, however, operate from a different rule book than the rest of us. They have names like Plenty O'Toole, Holly Goodhead, Christmas Jones. They wear white belts with bikinis (both Ursula Andress in "Dr. No" and Halle Berry in "Die Another Day"). Their hair is always perfect, their clothing skin-tight and impeccable. They make spectacular entrances; in "Casino Royale," a mystery woman turns up on a white horse, wearing — but of course — a green bikini. They speak in naughty double entendres and, of course, they get to have Bond sex, usually after a few martinis.

But the actresses who play them, alas, usually find Bond to be a pretty lousy career move. Sure, there are exceptions: Jane Seymour went on to fame after playing Solitaire in 1973's "Live and Let Die," and Desperate Housewife Teri Hatcher ("Tomorrow Never Dies") has done pretty well for herself. (Fun Bond Girl fact: Diana Rigg, who followed up her "Avengers" roles with a Bond Girl stint in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service," will soon be seen in the arthouse film "The Painted Veil" ... as a nun.) But most of them fade away. Anyone seen Denise Richards, Sophie Marceau or Lynn-Holly Johnson lately? For that matter, since becoming the first Bond Girl with an Oscar, Halle Berry isn't exactly burning up the box office. ("X2"? OK. "Catwoman"? "Gothika"? Please.)

So how does Eva Green, who plays Vesper, stack up? (Forgive the verb.) Well, "Casino Royale" is less campy and more gritty than the usual Bond movie, which means that Vesper doesn't get very many good lines and doesn't don swimwear. She does, however, get Bond to fall in love with her, and has dangerous-looking sex with him in a sanitorium amongst all the beakers and IV poles, and wears a nicely spidery black gown midmovie, which apparently she ran out and bought after ruining the purple one. This is all good Bond Girl stuff, and Green looks lovely throughout, as surely all Treasury officials do.

Meanwhile, Daniel Craig as Bond keeps taking his shirt off, perhaps to make up for the fact that he isn't Pierce Brosnan, and some random blonde turns up near the end, wearing a spectacular Bond Girl jumpsuit consisting of bell-bottoms below the waist and a few strategic straps above. (This is, let us remember, a serious Bond movie.)

But for the real female center of the movie, look to a 70-something Dame: Judi Dench, as Bond's imperious boss M, wears nicely tailored pantsuits and brooks no nonsense. In "Casino Royale," we get a more personal glimpse of M: Bond comes within a whisper of speaking her real name, and matter-of-factly breaks into her apartment. It's hard to tell which is the worse crime.

We even see M in bed, in her red silk pajamas, with a sleeping Mr. M by her side (you can't really see his face, but I'm picturing something like Dennis Thatcher). Dench, who has a coolness that rivals Bond's, would never be caught weeping in a shower. Never mind the Bond Girls; she's a Bond Woman, and if James has any sense, he'll soon be looking her way.

Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com