Casino Royale (21st Bond movie) Review.

Thoughts: When I first watched Casino Royale, back in 2006, I was majorly disappointed. Because it did not have gadgets like the other Bond movies and it was far too dark for a Bond movie. But I watched it again with an open mind, thinking of it as an action spy movie rather than a James Bond movie. I actually loved the movie; it is one of my all time favorite movies. I was expecting to maybe kind of like it but it was great. Most other critics agree that this is one of the best Bond movies and one of the best movies of that year. Also if Bond movies you will probably still like this one because it is very different from the original Bond movies. For this review I am going to put aside the fact that this is not really a true James bond movie and review it as an action spy movie. Casino Royale has been adapted twice into a movie but this is the first official James Bond adaption of the Casino Royale book. Casino Royale was the first book in the original book James Bond series, so it starts the new with a clean slate. It opened with Bond earning his "00" status as an agent of MI6, therefore you really do not have too much about the previous Bond movies other than a few references to the original movies. The action scenes in Casino Royale were truly amazing, with some of the best ever made. The first on-foot chase was incredible using spectacular parkour (free-running) and many other excellently choreographed fight scenes. Casino Royale is the first Bond movie to have great espionage since From Russia with Love and it executed the espionage perfectly. The plot twists were unexpected and the pacing was near perfect with only about 5 or 10 minutes with not many important things happening. As all Bond movies that was romance but it did not seem to have as much usual for a Bond movie and what was there seemed more real. Also the "Bond Girl" Vesper Lynd played by Eva Green was much better than most of the "Bond Girls" since she actually played an important role in the plot. There was one scene that if changed would have made the even better, it was the interrogation scene, I am not going to spoil the movie but if you have seen the movie you know what I am talking about.

Directed by: Martin Campbell
Genre: Action, Spy, Espionage
Release Date: 14 November 2006 (2006-11-14)
Running Time: 144 minutes
MMPA rating: PG-13


The Good: Amazing action scenes, Great performances, Unexpected plot twists, Fantastic espionage,

The Bad:




Plot: The following plot summery is copied from Wikipedia.com.
After killing a traitorous MI6 section chief—who has been selling classified information—and the station chief's contact, James Bond gets his double-0 status. The new agent 007 then goes to Madagascar in pursuit of an international bomb-maker named Mollaka. After a free running chase to an embassy, Bond kills his target and blows up a part of the building in order to escape. Searching through Mollaka's cell phone, Bond discovers a text message which he traces to Alex Dimitrios, an associate of banker and terrorist financer Le Chiffre. Le Chiffre's investments involve short-selling stock in successful companies and then engineering terrorist attacks to sink their share prices.
Bond travels to Dimitrios' house in the Bahamas and seduces his wife, Solange. While answering a phone call, Solange reveals that her husband is flying to Miami; Bond leaves to pursue him. In Miami, 007 kills Dimitrios during a fight and then follows Le Chiffre's henchman, Carlos, to Miami International Airport. There, Bond foils Le Chiffre's plan to destroy the prototype Skyfleet airliner. Watch the movie to what happens next.


Plot: 9.4/10- Casino Royale's plot has plot twists, perfect use of espionage and it even made the poker game very interesting and suspenseful.

Action: 9.7/10- While there is not constant action, every action scene is very memorable and choreographed excellently. One of the action near the beginning is truly amazing, yet mostly realistic.

Acting: 9.2/10- While I would not consider Daniel Craig a very good James Bond his performance was very good and Eva Green performance was probably the best by a "Bond Girl".

Special effects: 8.0/10- There are not a lot of use of special effects except some explosions but what was there did look realistic.


Soundtrack: 9.3/10- The soundtrack used some of the great classic Bond music combined with some great new tracks.

Comedy: 6.5/10- There were a few humorous lines in Casino Royale.


Gadgets: N/A- As a James Bond movie Casino Royale fails because it does not have any gadgets in the movie like previous Bond movies.

Title Sequence: 9.4/10- Visually this is my favorite Title Sequence and the song was good but not near as good as some of the other songs from the previous Bond movies.




Would I Watch This Again: I will definitely watch this again, I want to go re-watch some of my favrotie scenes right now.

Overall: 9.3/10- Even if you do like not the other entries in the James Bond franchise you should like Casino Royale if you like spy or action movies.

Closing comments: While I would not consider Casino Royale a "Bond Movie", it is a truly fantastic action film.


Recommended for: Spy fans, Action fans, Espionage fans,
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For another opinion of Casino Royale click here to check out a review by Burning Passion reviews.

 



 

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