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Casino Royale - Movie Review

Movie Reviews

Release Date: November 17, 2006
Studio: MGM • Columbia Pictures
Genre: Action • Adventure
Director: Martin Campbell
Writers: Neal Purvis, Paul Haggis, Robert Wade, Ian Fleming
Cast: Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen, Judi Dench, Jeffrey Wright, Giancarlo Giannini, Sébastien Foucan¹
Synopsis: Casino Royale introduces James Bond before he holds his license to kill. But Bond is no less dangerous, and with two professional assassinations in quick succession, he is elevated to "00" status. "M" (Judi Dench), head of the British Secret Service, sends the newly-promoted 007 on his first mission that takes him to Madagascar, the Bahamas and eventually leads him to Montenegro to face Le Chiffre, a ruthless financier under threat from his terrorist clientele, who is attempting to restore his funds in a high-stakes poker game at the Casino Royale. "M" places Bond under the watchful eye of the Treasury official Vesper Lynd. At first skeptical of what value Vesper can provide, Bond's interest in her deepens as they brave danger together. Le Chiffre's cunning and cruelty come to bear on them both in a way Bond could never imagine, and he learns his most important lesson: Trust no one.
The Review: You're Critic for the Evening: M

M puts Bond on report and shows you his "00" Face.

Reading the reviews from Deez who got to see the movie last week I went in expecting an all new kick ass Bond flick. Hells bells! They went so far as to claim Bond would hand Jack Bauer his ass in a fight. But I kept my hype meter in check all the same. Glad I did.

There is much to love with this new more violent prone Bond. This is Bond getting his start; he's not the sleek Bond we know that can get out of any situation and make it look graceful. This is Bond who gets his ass kicked and gets out smarted by more than a few people. It's a great flip of the series to see him struggle and prove himself. But does it work?

The movie begins with Bond getting his 00 Agent status. Which clearly one can only get "00 status" if they have two kills. Mind you they do not go into depth about the specifics of this so I have to ask: Can you just kill anyone? Or is it only those people you were ordered to pop a cap in? Because I'm thinking if I worked at MI:6 I'd just have killed Jimmy the copy boy and Al the janitor day one and gotten my license to kill. This seems ass backward to me it's like going to apply for a fishing license and having to bring two fish with you. I'm not nitpicking just saying it's a loose way of handing out 00 numbers, which may explain why my drug dealer in high school would introduce himself as "Escobar, Pumpkin, Escobar" I was pretty sure he'd killed at least two people..but that's another story.

After the set up we see Bond on a mission to do a snatch and grab on "Crispy Joe Mollaka" (Sebastien Foucan) the bomb maker who it seems is a shoe in for the 2007 3rd world Olympics in the "how to out run a white man with a gun" decathlon. Seriously this guy is amazing. He bounds around, up and over, through obstacles with skill that would make Spider-Man jealous. the point of all this being that Bond needs this man alive, which I guess becomes a moot point later as Bond busts a cap in this guy (inside an embassy no less) and settles for stealing his back pack filled with fruit roll ups, one home made pipe bomb, and a very nice product placement...err cell phone.

The whole mess of course gets James into quite a pickle with M. Oops time out! Need to ramble...M is played by Dame Judi Dench, who is a wonderful and sexy woman but looks nothing like me...I feel like Dante walking out of the The Blunt Man and Cronic movie "I can't believe Judi Dench played me." This leaves Bond on his own to play catch up on the villains plot and save his new 00 gig.

The movie keeps a nice pace going through most it and has quite a bit of building on Bonds persona. The big picture however starts to get hard to see as Bond works his way blindly trying to figure out the villains plans. Once he puts enough pieces together M and MI:6 step back in to assist and the mission becomes: Celebrity Villain Poker Challenge with Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) accountant hottie in tow.

Allow me if you will to halt the review here for a moment, it's time to talk about Bond Babes (Did you think I was going to leave dry humping your keyboard? This is M your talking to) Eva Green, Ivana Milicevic, and Caterina Murino are the trinity of hot mainly unknown women Bond encounters on his new big screen adventure and THANK THE GODS they had the good sense to cast these women. With any luck gone are the days of over hyped and overly wrong women to throw into Bonds world. I could tell you how Halle Berry was the worst of the worst in this category recently but I doubt nothing could ever top Denise Richards playing a nuclear scientist??..who thought that nonsense was going to fly? The only way to top that is to cast Paris Hilton as the virginal head of mensa. But Casino Royale puts all the right women in all the right roles in this one...they even throw in an between meal snack of Veronika Hladikova and Alessandra Ambrosio...yumminess. Lets not forget Judi Dench who I'd love to..ya know what lets get back into the review shall we?

The tournament ends and it's time to move back into Bond VS Bad Guy mode. This is where the pace jumps back up a few notches and the situation comes to a head. I'll try not to spoil the movie further but let's just say James Bond has some big balls.

This is where the movie takes a slow dive. With all the ends seemingly tied up nicely the film continues on to give a false ending first. It does pay off but getting there tries your patience a little bit. At the end of the film it all plays out into shaping James Bond's character and gives you some insight into how he built his sleek cold style from the Bonds of old.

Daniel Craig my hats off to you. You make a damn fine Bond sir. Just keep them from casting the Olsen twins as KGB assassins and I think we are going to be very happy together.

Some people are going to nitpick some of the things left out of this movie (*cough*Deez*cough*), but I think the changes are for the best. Most of what's left out are things Bond will pick up later and are nearly forgivable. This is the nearly gadget less Bond who has to grow up before they give him the big boy toys to play with.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5

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