Rent Casino Royale on Amazon Video (paid link) // Buy the book
Written by: Neal Purvis & Robert Wade and Paul Haggis (screenplay), Ian Fleming (novel)
Directed by: Martin Campbell
Starring: Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Judi Dench, Jeffrey Wright, Mads Mikkelsen, Tobias Menzies
Rated: PG-13
Watch the trailer
Plot
After earning 00 status and a license to kill, secret agent James Bond sets out on his first mission as 007. Bond must defeat a private banker funding terrorists in a high-stakes game of poker at Casino Royale, Montenegro.
Verdict
This plays the James Bond is cool card a lot and, Bond is definitely cool. This doesn't rely just on action, something that befell later Craig movies. This has a bit of everything and some of the best scenes are the focus on small moments during the card game. This is thoroughly Bond, but it also stands alone rebooting a new era, nodding to and subverting various Bond tropes. It's got more than a few twists with a script that pulls everything together. This is easily my favorite Bond movie.
Watch It.
Review
My first James Bond movie was Pierce Brosnan's Goldeneye. I've seen the successive films, but when I first saw Casino Royale, that was the first Bond movie I saw that was really good. I haven't cared for the later Craig movies as they're too much of an action blockbuster with less substance. I've gone back and watched some of the Connery movies, but they didn't grab me.
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| Daniel Craig plays James Bond |
I really like the black and white introduction to this where James Bond (Daniel Craig) earns his 00 status. This film noir influenced introduction runs into the animated credits.
The first action scene is full parkour, fulfilling the action aspect and adding to the tone of this movie. This was a much different movie compared to Brosnan's turn as Bond. Bond has always been too cool. He can't lose, and in a movie like this that's not a problem. Lots of action give this a quick pace and keeps things exciting. There's a very restrained knife fight in the middle of a crowd where no on realizes what's happening. While this movie goes big, it also knows when to reel it in.
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| Eva Green and Daniel Craig play Vesper Lynd and James Bond |
While Bond's reputation is a womanizer, which is on display in this movie, he has a counterpart in Vesper Lynd (Eva Green). She doesn't fall for him immediately as seems to typically happen. She's bankrolling him for the crux of the movie, a poker game against Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen). The plan seems wild. They're going to gamble to bankrupting a terrorist. Is it ridiculous? Sure, but it's a lot of fun.
While there's a full table and this is a ten million dollar buy in, this is a game been Bond and Le Chiffre. Of course Bond is the best poker player at MI6, and of course they are the ones at the end of each game. The Bond movies are always a bit of fantasy. I don't fault it for that as that's part of the draw. Not many movies can show a character losing it all, nearly dying, an then returning to the game with a sardonic response and seem reasonable. If you think about it, the sequence seems ridiculous, but in the context of this movie it works.
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| Daniel Craig and Mads Mikkelsen play James Bond and Le Chiffre |
This gets a lot of mileage out of just a card reveal. This movie knows how to be intense without thinking explosions are the only way to do it. Bond wins, but it's not through any real skill. Winning the card game isn't the end of the movie.
There's a torture scene that was wild the first time I saw this movie and still doesn't have many rivals. The wild thing is that Bond was inches from being done. He's saved by a combination of a deux ex machina and Chekhov's gun. This isn't the end of the movie either. We get one more sequence that completes the character of this Bond, reinforcing that he will no longer trust anyone. It's a sequence in Italy, but it's worth noting that houses in Venice don't float, they're built on foundations set in the marsh.
James Bond is a pop culture icon. He's a man's man, a lady's man, and a secret agent. The movie plays into this concept that Bond is too cool to die, and in this case it makes the movie a lot of fun.
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