"Casino Royale" (2006)

Recently promoted to ‘00’ status, British spy James Bond (Daniel Craig) embarks on his first mission. Terrorist banker, Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), is to participate in a high stakes poker game in order to cripple various organizations. Bond must ensure he doesn’t win. Of course, help comes in the form of Treasury agent Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), who has been sent to keep an eye on Bond.

I love this movie! I would say it’s probably one of my favourite movies actually, not just in the Bond series, but as a whole. In terms of the Bond series, it’s definitely without a doubt the best. I think if you look up any James Bond movie polls on the internet, they will almost, if not always, regard this “Casino Royale” as the best Bond movie...for the simple reasons it’s got the best plot, best bond girl, best villain, and in my opinion one of the best theme songs (though other Bond fans may not agree with this).

I like the book. I absolutely love the vocabulary Ian Flemming uses which is one of the things I love about this movie so much too. It’s a very interesting read. I think they stayed pretty well with the book in this movie. Obviously there were bits added in to give the movie more action (since that’s what James Bond movies seem to have become now, is all action...they weren’t as much in the original ones) I love the way he writes James Bond’s character and after reading the book I had more insight watching the film and it made it better. I did prefer the film to the book though.

After reading the book, I have to say that I think Daniel Craig would be one of the better Bonds. I’ve realised that many might not agree with me on this though...For one thing, he has blond hair, and James Bond has black hair, as has every actor to have played him! But if you’ve read the books, I think he’s the closest to Ian Flemming’s character. I’ve heard people say that Daniel Craig’s facial expressions don’t exactly portray a lot of emotion...but sure, that’s perfect for James Bond! He’s not supposed to show too much emotion especially when he’s playing poker, which takes up a lot of this movie! There was a bit of tallyho in deciding who their new Bond would be, having had Pierce Brosnan playing Bond since 1995...but I think they cast very well.

Since Sean Connery’s era, the bond movies have changed so much, and this version of Casino Royale is proof. In the Pierce Brosnan era of Bond movies, a lot more action was introduced which seems to be the thing expected of a Bond movie nowadays. Sean Connery’s I’ve found were a lot more toned down and required you to pay attention to the dialogue a lot more. I like all the action, but sometimes I think they just throw in scenarios for the sake of having all this action. Because all the newer ones (bar Casino Royale) are not Ian Flemming’s original creations...most of them were filmed in the Sean Connery and Roger Moore eras. I think though, the films which follow Ian Flemming’s original Bond adventures have a far better plot, even if they don’t have all this action. Of course, now Bond movies seem to be competing against such movies as the Bourne series. But there was so much hype over Skyfall, and in all honesty, after reading the books, I don’t get why. The villain wasn’t that brilliant, neither was the plot, and the time-frame in which it was set is all over the place which was really annoying!

“Casino Royale” was originally made into a TV play in America in 1954 starring Barry Nelson as James Bond. This meant that the rights were tied up so when the producers made a deal with Ian Flemming to turn the Bond series into films, they were unable to acquire the rights to “Casino Royale”. Thus, “Dr. No” is regarded as the first James Bond movie but in an actual fact, an earlier film adaption of “Casino Royale” was made in 1967, starring David Niven and Ursela Andress (who was also the infamous bond girl, Honey Rider, in Dr. No)...though it was more of a spoof on the whole spy genre, meaning the book was never really done properly.

Until now!

I think the Director Martin Campbell (who also directed Goldeneye) has brought this to the screen perfectly. It has the perfect balance between action and just telling the story. I love the opening scene. It’s done in black and white and both James and Drydan (villain) are sort of shrouded. It’s very suspenseful and throws the audience straight into the thick of things, while also leading them in sort of gradually. Sort of like what Danny Boyle does in the opening of Slumdog Millionaire. It’s so effective. Meanwhile, as they’re talking, we’re given abrupt flashbacks to James tackling someone in a bathroom and the shots go back and forth from this really well. Then come the end of it, we’ve got the notorious “gun barrel scene”. This is actually the only Bond movie to have woven the gun barrel moment into the actual story, which is interesting.

I like the opening credits. I love the theme song of this movie: “You Know My Name” by Chris Cornell. It’s probably one of my favourites. But it serves well throughout the whole movie. I really like the score. Interesting fact: the title credits of this movie are the only ones of the Bond series not to include a, or the indication of a, naked woman. I thought that was interesting.

Vesper Lynd is without a doubt the best of the Bond girls. I think a lot of Bond fans would say Honor Blackman’s Pussy Galore from Goldfinger or Ursula Andress’ Honey Rider from Dr. No, since both are quite iconic in the Bond series, or even Halle Berry’s Bond girl in Die Another Day seems to be up there too...But I think of all of them, Eva Green’s character Vesper Lynd is developed the best. I think her character in the film is also is a lot more developed than the book, which I liked. I really liked her character in the movie. She was probably my favourite. I think Eva Green plays her brilliantly. It’s one of those rare times however, that I was glad to have watched the film before reading the book. I think I read somewhere actually that Eva Green said she had to learn an English accent for this movie to play Vesper, and has since lost her original French accent! Which is true: if you look at her films before Casino Royale, she has a French accent, and all the subsequent movies, an English one.

One scene I really love actually is the moment on the train when James first meets Vesper. I just think the dialogue here is brilliant. They’re both sort of quick-witted in a way, and try to outdo the other. It’s really well written. They are very similar people and this is established through this scene. I love their relationship throughout the whole movie actually.

I imagine it was very hard to film the poker scenes because each shot had to be very exact to match up with what moves were done during the game and have them follow through coherently, but also to actually make it look like they were having a serious game of poker. Getting the facial expressions correct in each shot had to be very precise. And it was achieved well. While watching a behind the scenes video of the movie, the actors were saying it got quite tense and they’d have to keep remembering that the chips used weren’t actually representing real money!!

There’s a scene in which the Aston Martin DB5 rolls over numerous times, and I think the scene holds the record for the most times a car was rolled over like this in a movie. 8 times. That’s pretty cool.

This is just a brilliant movie. Really, really good. Definitely worth a watch!

TRAILER: