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CBn Reviews Casino Royale

Forum members review the twenty-first James Bond film

Well, since we have a CBn Member review section, I'll just link my review from that forum. And my opinion hasn't changed.

00Twelve's Review

"The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning...."

To even think of Pierce Brosnan - let alone watch his latter entries in the series - seems embarrassing and pointless. Watching a Brosnan Bond now seems like watching a tired England match you've seen before.

CASINO ROYALE is hard to compare to the previous 20 films as it doesn't want to be. The franchise of old is still present, but the formula is not. Structurally alone, this film re-writes the book on Bond. It also re-structures what any adventure film can get away with these days (as it should - Bond wrote the book on mainstream cinema and shouldn't be left behind by its imitators).

The film has a pre-title sequence, a build up and a climax granted - but not necessarily in that order (the film ends on a prologue to the next film).

Replacing the traditional destruction of the villain's lair with the main character's emotional destruction is astute, intelligent and bloody cool. It is not a lady's mid-drift or a Moore-ism that gets laid bare in a shower scene in this film - but a character trait underscored by the simple gesture of giving someone more hot water.

The dialogue crackles with insight and judgment on a character we actually know very little about. But Craig doesn't make him a victim. He also doesn't play Bond like a 1970's ambassador abroad. This Bond has to be almost bribed into donning the tuxedo. Wealth and the accoutrement's of it (including a reference to Bond's childhood benefactor) embarrass this Bond.

CASINO ROYALE successfully shaves back all the deadwood of the series - apart from Bond having a pit stop with a typically voluptuous chanteuse (which worked for 44 years for Bond but now seems awkward and unnecessary and is maybe indicative of a sequence that seems handed down from Brosnan).

However, even M's new polytechnic-educated assistants work. The titles alone are stunning and perfectly illustrate the film's vibrancy, texture and masculinity. There are no writhing bints in this prelude. Just a dealing of the cards both actually and metaphorically against a 'cock rock' title song that wipes the Bassey cobwebs well and truly from the speakers.

This is a uber-cool film that remembers how the Connery entries were the Tarantino films of their day. Craig is extremely sexy, aggressive and impatient - but that is the character ("Vodka Martini, Mr Bond, shaken or stirred?" - "Do I look like I care?!"). Craig is a panther-like thug. And so he should be. Bond is a paid assassin, not an Alan Whicker globe-trotter.

But unlike Brosnan - who admittedly got better as the scripts got worse - Daniel Craig's Bond shows emotion and vulnerability (in fact 'vulnerability' is a theme running through the whole film and crosses multiple characters at various times, notably LE CHIFFRE, the antagonist). But rest assured, Craig's Bond does not make a quiche once (Roger Moore hold your A VIEW TO A KILL head in shame...!).

Bond films should always reflect the cinematic trends of the time as well as pre-empt a few along the way. Brosnan's Bond films were becoming dated and were almost apologising for being Bond films ("You are a misogynist dinosaur, a relic of the Cold war"). CASINO ROYALE doesn't apologise once. Some fans will hate it, most should not. Either way I don't care. The producers set out to make a good film that rewards your time and money. And they have. They know there is no point remaking THE SPY WHO LOVED ME twelve times.

CASINO ROYALE can be epitomised in one scene. There is a torture sequence where a helpless Bond brilliantly takes the verbal initiative, makes the audience laugh, makes the torturer laugh, makes himself laugh then all narrative hell breaks loose. That scene alone demonstrates what Bond and the Bond films could now be and I for one am excited...

The old questions such as "who is your favourite Bond?" and "what is your favourite Bond film?" may just have to be reconsidered. It may not be my favourite Bond film yet, but the final strength of CASINO ROYALE is that it is in a different league to most of what has gone before. These questions now miss the point. Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson have raised the bar. The series has been lifted from the cinematic stalemate it had slipped into. It is no longer important to ask "who is going to sing the song?" (Cornell's effort works perfectly in the film and this writer was not an initial fan - it's a different version to what's doing the download rounds), or "who is playing the girl?" (note to producers : Caterina Murino cannot act, bless her...) or "what's the title going to be - please let it be BEYOND THE ICE...". These are Smash Hits considerations that seem futile, boring and fan-happy in the face of a film that resets the counter.

What will matter is when is the next one coming and how can we keep Daniel Craig? Okay - and maybe "who is Mr White and who is he working for" needs answering fairly quickly too.....

^^ What he said!


10/10.

The defining, humane portrayal of Agent 007, James Bond, the sadistic, cold and ruthless assassin for HMG.

Daniel Craig is James Bond, simply put.

10.

10/10!!!!

It's a real Bond movie with real action, that's how everything began!

CASINO ROYALE PRIMER
(Don’t worry; this primer will not spoil anything.)

Rumored to be the first installment of a three part movie trilogy, Casino Royale is a re-boot of the classic James Bond movie series. Faithfully based on the first James Bond book by Ian Fleming (although updated to present day subject matter), Casino Royale is about how James Bond becomes James Bond. Amongst other things, the movie shows how James Bond earns his 007 license to kill, learns to dress in a tux, drinks martinis, acquires an Aston Martin and most importantly develops his attitude towards women. For the first time in the Bond movie franchise, he is not entirely cool, calm and collected and he does make a number of big mistakes.

Even though Casino Royale is really a love story, it still retains a number of the key elements of every James Bond movie. However, it is a more realistic Bond movie with a tougher, but more vulnerable Bond who can get hurt physically by bad guys and emotionally by women. It can even be said that there are a number of elements in the movie which are appealing to the women in the audience. Not that it can be called a “chick flick”, but it is only the second Bond movie where he actually falls in love. The other being On Her Majesty’s Secret Service where the movie ends with Bond getting married.

Since the movie rights to Casino Royale were originally sold by Ian Fleming in the fifties, Casino Royale was not part of the deal between Fleming and the movie team of Albert “Cubby” Broccoli and Harry Saltzman when they bought the rights to the remaining novels in the early sixties. Thus, the introductory story about Bond was never told by the “official” Bond movie franchise, Broccoli and Saltzman’s Eon Productions. However, a live television version of Casino Royale was shown on U.S. television in the fifties with actor Barry Nelson playing U.S. secret agent Jimmy Bond and Peter Lorre playing bad guy LeChiffre. Over the years it was assumed that there was no copy of this live TV show. However, in the eighties a tape of the live performance was discovered and it can be found on DVD in some video stores. When the Eon Bond movies first hit the screens in the sixties with Sean Connery starring as James Bond, the owners to the rights of Casino Royale decided to produce Casino Royale as full feature movie. However, they felt that the EON Bond movies had covered all the ground for a Bond movie and they subsequently decided to make a comedy spoof of the story. Besides being a pretty bad movie in general, the first Casino Royale movie is interesting in that it stars David Niven as Sir James Bond (it actually was Niven who was the original front runner to play Bond instead of Connery in the first EON movie Dr. No). Peter Sellers, Woody Allen and four others also played the character James Bond in the movie. Lastly, Orson Wells played bad guy LeChiffre. The movie was a big flop, but when viewed today you can see a number of similarities to the current Austin Powers spy spoofs.

Over the years, the rights to Casino Royale ended up with Columbia Pictures which was wholly owned by Sony Pictures. With Eon making Bond movies through MGM, it was not until 2004 when Sony acquired the MGM company, that the possibility of EON making an official Bond movie based on Casino Royale became a reality. With the opportunity to do a “Bond Begins” type movie the executives of EON made the decision to find a younger actor to play Bond and to recast the character in a meaner, leaner and more realistic fashion. Actor Daniel Craig was selected by EON to replace Pierce Brosnan as the new Bond and the news of the selection was immediately received negatively by a fairly broad based set of Bond fans around the world. With the fact that Brosnan was generally liked as Bond, Craig was dubbed “the Blond Bond”. Nevertheless, as it is very evident in Casino Royale, Daniel Craig immediately took the role and made it his own, achieving both critical and box office success. Many have said that Craig is the best Bond since Connery and some go as far as saying he is the best ever in the role. Besides numerous award recognitions for the movie in general, Casino Royale was nominated for nine BAFTA awards (the UK version of the Oscars) including Best British Film, Daniel Craig as Best Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay. In the end, Casino Royale took two BAFTA’s for Best Sound and Best Rising Star for Eva Green’s portrayal of Vesper Lynd. From a box office perspective, Casino Royale has since gone on to be the biggest grosser at the box office of any previous Bond movie. At the time of the release of the DVD in March, 2007, Casino Royale has earned just shy of $600 million worldwide at the box office, it was the 9th top grossing movie of 2006 in the US, the 6th all time highest money earner in the history of UK cinema and the 32nd highest grossing worldwide movie of all time. With the release of the DVD, Casino Royale was still showing in 200 theatres in the US (and more around the world), over four months since its release in November, 2006.

In the movie, EON has stayed fairly true to the story in Fleming’s Casino Royale novel. While modernized, it still maintains the classic elements of Fleming’s introductory James Bond story. In their fourth outing as screenwriters for the Bond series, the script was written by veteran Bond writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade. However, this time around the script was enhanced with the help of Academy Award winner Paul Haggis (winner for best screenplay for both Million Dollar Baby and Crash the best picture winners in 2004 and 2005, respectively). Included in the movie (but not necessarily in the same order) are: how Bond earns his license to kill, the classic card game with LeChiffre (although it is Texas Hold’em Poker instead of Baccarat), the infamous torture scene and the famous quote which ends the book is in the movie, too. Casino Royale is the first Fleming title to be used as a movie title since The Living Daylights in 1989. It is also the first movie be true to a Fleming story since On Her Majesty’s Secret Service in 1969.

Casino Royale starts differently from all other Bond movies, telling the story behind Bond earning his 007 credentials. In fact, the iconic “gun barrel logo” of Bond walking across the screen at the beginning of every Bond movie through the sight of a gun barrel with the James Bond theme blasting in the background does not appear until he has earned his stripes. Further, the whole traditional pre-title sequence is actually filmed in black and white. Overall the music is excellently scored by David Arnold. This is his fourth outing scoring a Bond movie and it is clearly his best. The theme song “You Know My Name” is a driving modern rocker by Chris Cornell of Audioslave and Soundgarden fame which grows on you the more you listen to it. The theme itself is cleverly repeated at key moments during the film. Obviously absent from the overall score throughout the movie is the trademark James Bond theme until it finally appears, appropriately so, at the climatic conclusion when Bond becomes Bond, James Bond.

The movie is predominately divided into two parts. The first half is where the major action sequences take place while the second half focuses on the relationship between Bond and Vesper Lynd and the poker game with LeChiffre. The overall story concerns Bond stumbling upon a bad guy named LeChiffre, a banker for world terrorists, who uses the terrorist’s money to fund personal investments. When one of those personal investments goes wrong (with a little help from Bond) to the tune of about $100,000,000, LeChiffre has no choice but to use his profound mathematical prowess and host a high stakes poker game at Casino Royale in Montenegro. Being their best card player, the British secret service organization MI6, assigns Bond to bankrupt LeChiffre by beating him at the poker game. There are many twists and turns in this story and even though the movie is over 2 hours and twenty minutes long, it is an absorbing ride with the typical Bond exotic locales, beautiful women, bad guys with some bizarre characteristics, tense moments and amazing action sequences. Overall it is pure escapism in typical, but now modernized, Bond fashion.

Throughout the movie there is a sinister undertone that there is something bigger going on behind the main story. Since this movie is rumored to be the first of a trilogy, it does leave a number of elements of the story unanswered for the next installment currently scheduled for release in November, 2008.

As with the end of every Bond movie, Casino Royale also ends with the famous words, “James Bond Will Return”.

Excellent summary, Billy Bob. Welcome to the CBn Forums.

Keep the reviews and votes coming.

Pretty decent scores so far!! I'll try and track down and update my review from November

I 100% agree with u. its back to the extreme basics as it should be and that Daniel Craig is the perfect guy to be Bond at the beginning of how it all started.