Official Reviews Thread

[Cinemaman]

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/30609?two_readers_slide_into_casino_royale

2 reviews from AICN.

 

[Agentsands77]

A review from CommanderBond.net by Daniel Winters:

Throughout the entire film, it didn’t seem at all like Casino Royale was Daniel Craig’s first Bond film, and that is because he looks so confident in the role. The one-liners, Craig delivers perfectly—being on par with Sean Connery. Not like Moore’s eyebrow raising, or Brosnan’s later tongue-in-cheek deliveries, at which I sometimes cringe. The audience loved them all and burst into chuckles and laughter throughout—one constant of the original formula that remains in this new reboot.

And this was a much needed reboot. The invisible car in Die Another Day was the nail in the coffin. Having just gadgets and explosions was no longer good enough. There were too many other films copying and doing the same thing, making the latest Bond movie ‘just another action flick’ while the Jason Bourne series and others were surpassing with great storylines. I believe this is why the producers spent so long in a state of paralysis, as Pierce Brosnan described, deciding how they could move forward. And I’m so glad they did. It was worth the wait.

I was at first sceptical about Chris Cornell’s performance of the title song, ‘You Know My Name’. I felt the song was too heavy. However, seeing Daniel Kleinman’s titles with an orchestral version of the track, I now love it. It’s a true Bond ‘Title Song’. Around 95% of the titles are computer generated, with a casino and card theme, mixed in with shots of Craig and Eva Green. But it works so well. I’m really looking forward to seeing the film again on the 14th just to see the titles!

Mads Mikkelsen shines as Le Chiffre. A fine choice of actor. He has a cruel face and plays the part perfectly. In the game of poker, the stares he throws across the table at Bond are great—both men trying to read each other. And it is great to see his reaction when he sees Bond returning to the table unexpectedly at a point during the game. Mikkelsen really plays the part while trying to extract information from Bond. He looks desperate yet sadistic at the same time.

Eva Green is equally as good in her role as Vesper Lynd. When I first saw the trailers, I wasn’t convinced with the choice of her for the role—and I only judged it because that was the first glimpse of her we all saw. However, it’s not surprising, but in the film she is great. When Bond and Vesper first meet you can see chemistry between them, which lasts all the way to the end. That of course has a double meaning… but I’m not going to spoil anything too blatantly.

Despite the news that the torture scene has been cut to make it a 12A rating in the UK, it still had me cringing in my seat, along with every other chap around me. Everyone was squirming in horror at the unimaginable pain Bond was going through. Le Chiffre really does put a ton of power into his swings and gives Bond a good bollocking—literally. I’m so glad they kept this in the film. It’s just such a great, memorable scene. This is one point in the film where it really shows that Craig can act. His facial expressions are intense.

One of two concerns I have with the film is that there are quite a few action sequences all in the first part, prior to Bond being assigned to Casino Royale. They over-shadow slightly what is actually going on—where it is actually setting up the story about Le Chiffre. I’d already read the script so was aware of what was going on. But for others, if you weren’t paying attention too closely, you may have missed it and just thought it was an action sequence they’d dumped in the film for the sake of it. As another reviewer has said, you may be left wondering who Bond is chasing, and why. How does it fit into the rest of the story? Be sure to pay extra close attention and it is a great part of the film. Oh, and I’m not complaining at all about the action sequences. They are amazing and will become classics that fans will remember.

My other concern is that the average person expecting to see a Bond film with gadgets, Moneypenny and Q, will be disappointed for the simple fact that those things aren’t present. Those things are all key constants in the original Bond film formula, but as I said above, Casino Royale doesn’t use them at all. As a big Bond fan, I love it. I’ve read Casino Royale several times and I love the fact that the film follows the book respectfully. But hopefully the ‘average person’ will enjoy it as well and not just expect lots of explosions, gadgets and invisible cars (groan). If you want to see that, go and watch xXx or some other pile of tripe.

As for length of the film, it didn’t really feel as though it was too long or short. It was just right. There wasn’t any part that was being dragged out. Though I wish they’d have spent just a few more seconds focussing the camera on the card flops, turns and rivers so those poker players of us watching it could figure out what was going on before the showdown. It would have helped to interpret the players facial expressions in order to guess what hands they all possibly had, based on what was on the table.

A well spent 144 minutes and 007 seconds.

Critics around the globe are hailing this film as a success. Some of which were the ones who called Daniel Craig ‘James Bland’. As we at CBn originally said, how could they possibly judge Daniel Craig when they hadn’t even seen the film? Now that they have, they love it. They’re eating their own words and I love to see that. And that is such a great indication to the producers that they’re now doing the right thing.

Bravo! I can’t wait to see the film again and to see James Bond return for the next film!

And then one from CommanderBond.net's ACE:

Casino Royale is an instant classic with a clean, clear linear plot that moves confidently ahead, capturing the spirit and essence and, in surprising places, the details of the 1953 book. The credit "based on a novel by Ian Fleming" in the title sequence is miraculously both present and true in a Bond film made in 2006.

Daniel Craig is immediately James Bond as we have all known him and as we have never known him before. This is Fleming's Bond brought to life but the jewel of this performance is set magnificently in an exquisite script and framed in Martin Campbell's bold and satisfying direction. This is good film -making first and an extraordinary Bond film second. Craig is intense, naturalistic and fierce but also tender, vulnerable and haunted. A man emboldened and burdened by his licence to kill.

Eva Green is stunning as Vesper Lynd. Edgy, elegant, intelligent yet guarded and mysterious. Her romance with Bond is the core of the movie which takes us back to the tarnished knight of novels.

Mad Mikkelson is sinister, original and malevolent as Le Chiffre, a silouhetted cypher. He is interestingly and dynamically rendered in a performance that shades Fleming's creation with added complexity.

Caterina Murino's Fleming-named Solange is sexy and sultry and could have been a character from Quantum of Solace or The Hilderbrand Rarity. She really does hold the eye and her scenes with Bond sizzle. She is also integral to the function and spirit of the story and is played with arch aplomb by the Sardinian beauty.

Judi Dench's M is teasingly developed both in her relationship with Bond and her placement in the British Government. Continuity aside, her inclusion is exactly right for this story and her admonishing of Bond crackles with good writing and topical knowingness. M contextualizes 007's character and sets up the story and the stakes in an expositionally creative way. Jeffrey Wright's Felix Leiter is a subtle but pivotal presence while Giancarlo Giannini's Rene Mathis is a more prominent, ebullient performance. Richard Branson's "blink-and-you'll-miss=it" cameo is fun and Michael G Wilson's appearance is notable for the character bling he sports.

The theme song and titles are similarly different from the past and a development. Saul Bass-esque graphic artistry combines with Binder-esque motion poetry in Daniel Kleinman's CG animated titles. Playing card and gambling imagery also incorporates a live action Daniel Craig. The instrumental version of the song provides a driving, energetic action theme. Denied of the full James Bond theme until the end (although we are given delicious truffle-shavings of it), You Know My Name binds the film like John Barry's alternate "007" theme. David Arnold's score both simmers and soars and is an achievement of reinvention. Both the song and the score encapsulate the performance of Daniel Craig: an updated classic. Rather like the silver beast that is brand new purring Aston Martin DBS.

Martin Campbell's style is different from GoldenEye in all but the pure energy and exuberance of his direction. Visually intriguing (a cobra-mongoose fight, a trail through the bizarre Bodyworld exhibit) and atmospherically sinister, the film touches on elements of classic but recently unused filmBond. The travelogue is non-specific but visually stunning especially the recreation of Montenegro. Phil Meheux's sweeping photography is glorious and colourful and rich and romantic. Oscar-winning Bond veterans, production designer Peter Lamont and costume designer Lindy Hemming break the film into 2 halves starting with a tough, gritty, New World Order edge and then taking Bond to the heart of Europe and dressing the film in classic, realistic European sophistication. Structurally different from any previous Bond film, the 21st Eon film flies through the series' longest ever running time. Stuart Baird's editing is uncompromising in the action sequences yet paces the film carefully through the poker duel and romantic subplot. Time is given to characters to talk, to love and to live. Gary Powell has made the combat very brutal and realistic and original. The visceral action setpieces are extremely exciting and, above all, original: the Madgascan freerunning sequence is breathtaking.

The toying with the Bond film formula is playful yet respectful from the placement of the gunbarrel, the name-reveal, the use of the James Bond theme, outrageous femme fatale names ("Stephanie Broadchest"!), the use of gadgetry and the symbolic invocation of the vodka martini (the Medal), Aston Martin (the chariot), MI6 hierarchy (the Order) and M (the Monarch). The reboot really is tangential to the story.

Casino Royale is like the fourth James Bond film, after Dr No, From Russia With Love and Goldfinger. Before the lava of creativity cooled to the crust of formula, Bond films sat as individual pieces, extracting and refining the ore of Fleming. Daniel Craig is laced with a soupçon of Dalton (richer though with the stronger charm and wit of a superior script). However, Daniel Craig is very much his own, believable, instantly winning incarnation of James Bond 007.

The larder of the last 20 films will confuse and confound the ardent Bond fan upon first viewing. This is not Surf 'n Turf at your local franchise chain restaurant. This film will not be to everyone's taste and does not lean into expectations. Casino Royale needs to percolate, mature, air in the mind, explored by the senses. Only then will the full flavour of the gourmet Bond film we have been served begin to be savoured by all of us who have hungered for James Bond to return.

 

[Agentsands77]

EmpireOnline has posted their review of CASINO ROYALE (4 out of 5 stars):

The only thing missing from Casino Royale is a truly memorable theme song. Otherwise, this has almost everything you could want from a Bond movie, plus qualities you didn’t expect they’d even try for. It does all the location-hopping, eye-opening stunt stuff and lavish glamour expected of every big-screen Bond, but also delivers a surprisingly faithful adaptation of Fleming’s short, sharp, cynical book with the post-WWII East-vs.-West backdrop persuasively upgraded to a post 9/11 War on Terror.

From Goldfinger on -- especially in the Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan films -- the usual gambit has been to open with a pre-credits sequence highlighting amazing stuntwork and a larger-than-life exploit. Here, with a new actor cast as a Bond only just issued with his license to kill, we get an intense, black and white scene set in an office in Prague. Bond has just killed his first man – as shown in brief, brutal fight flashbacks which strain the 12A rating – and confronts a traitor in British Intelligence, exchanging pointed dialogue which leads to the ice-cold agent’s demonstration that the second killing is easier (‘Considerably’). The famous iris pose brings in colour, and a brilliantly-designed (shame about the song) titles sequence that highlights not an anonymous beauty but the silhouette of Daniel Craig himself.

For a few reels, Casino Royale lets the new boy settle in to what could almost be a Brosnan or Dalton movie – hard-hitting, but tinged with the fantastical. Bond goes off the map to harry the organisation of ‘banker to the world’s terrorists’ LeChiffre, with a beddable beach beauty along the way, and a thwarted attack on a super-sized jet aeroplane which could have been the climax of any other adventure. Then, with a notable click into focus, the movie segues into Fleming’s tight, twisted plot. Readers will be amazed to find the book’s most memorable scene (involving a wicker chair with the bottom cut out) is included, as is Bond’s brutal Mickey Spillane-ish last line (though, here, he doesn’t quite mean it).

Director Martin Campbell, who set a high mark in GoldenEye that subsequent craftsmen haven’t matched, returns, and regular scripters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade get Oscar-polishing assist from Paul Haggis. There are nods to tradition, with respectful Aston-Martin product placement, but also refreshing breaks from established practice. Judi Dench’s imposing M is held over, but supporting comedy characters like Q and Miss Moneypenny sit this one out. Mads Mikkelsen’s LeChiffre has a physical tic and a lethal girlfriend, but this villain interestingly has as much to lose as the hero, playing cards because he lost terrorist money and needs to make up the shortfall before his clients kill him.

There are miscalculations (a collapsing building in Venice is a gimmick too many in an emotional finale which would play better without all the noise) and audiences who just want a handsome fantasy figure might find a muscular Bond with perpetually bruised knuckles and the beginnings of a drink problem too much of a stretch. But long-running series can only survive through constant renewal. Casino Royale is the most exciting Bond film, in conventional action terms but also in dramatic meat, since On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, with the added advantage of a star who finally delivers what the credits have always promised: ‘Ian Fleming’s James Bond’.

Verdict
Contrary to pre-release nay-sayers, Daniel Craig has done more with James Bond in one film than some previous stars have in multiple reprises. This is terrific stuff, again positioning 007 as the action franchise to beat.

 

[pointman]

That verdict is blatantly talking about Craig being betetr than Moore and Brosnan, hell Craig is better than all but Connery.

 

[WorthyStevens]

BBC gave it a 4/5

James Bond gets a hefty whack in the testes in Casino Royale, both literally and figuratively. The 21st installment of the world's longest-running movie series strips away the gadgetry to focus on action and character, introducing a younger, tougher James Bond (Daniel Craig) struggling to complete his first major mission. The target is terrorist banker Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), whom our hero must defeat in a high stakes poker game at the swanky Casino Royale in Montenegro.

First things first: Daniel Craig is not a good Bond. He's a great Bond. Specifically, he is 007 as conceived by Ian Fleming - a professional killing machine, a charming, cold-hearted patriot with a taste for luxury. Craig is the first actor to really nail 007's defining characteristic: he's an absolute swine. Following his example, Martin Campbell's film hits the ground running with a breathless chase through a building site, a sequence so impressive that the rest of the action struggles to trump it. Bond takes a tremendous battering throughout the movie. He's beaten senseless, thrown off ledges, poisoned and tortured. Even his withered heart takes a whupping when he falls for slinky treasury agent Vesper Lynd (Eva Green). It's all thrilling stuff, closer in tone to The Bourne Identity than the camp quippery of old-school Bond.

"CRAIG'S THE FIRST ACTOR TO REALLY NAIL 007"

There are a few problems. 144 minutes is dangerously long for an action flick, and audiences may be restless during the protracted romantic interludes. You could drive an Aston Martin through the holes in the plot, and Chris Cornell's theme tune is an embarassment. But these are small niggles. Casino Royale is a 1,000 watt jolt to the heart of a flagging franchise, bringing Bond kicking - and frequently screaming - back to life.

 

[Erundur]

Me wants movie now

 

[Seen]

Me wants movie now

Word.

 

[Dark Knight]

I love seeing these very positive reviews! It makes the morons who ripped Craig as Bond w/out even seeing him in action eat there words once again! Nice!

 

[Dark Knight]

double post

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

http://www.mi6forums.com/viewforum.php?f=72

 

[DACrowe]

I can't wait. But again my thinking is very doubtful of him being better than Connery (and Brosnan is a pretty tough number to beat in my eyes as well, but quite possible unlike Connery). And for the record he may be the first to nail "the real James Bond" but the real film James Bond is a different creature and while I'm glad to see this movie be a throwback to the Connery days, the thing is if Craig can stand up to Connery. But if he can't this still sounds like the best Bond movie in over a decade though.

 

[War Party]

From Variety:



Bond made his debut in "Casino Royale" when it was published in 1953, and while the novel was adapted the following year for American television (Barry Nelson played Bond) and in 1967 became a lame all-star spy send-up featuring Peter Sellers, David Niven and Woody Allen, it remained unavailable to the Eon producers until now.
As refashioned for this 21st series installment, the novel's focus on a high-stakes cards showdown doesn't kick in for an hour. But Craig's taking over as the sixth actor to officially portray the secret agent on the bigscreen (not including that first "Casino") provides a plausible opportunity to examine the character's promotion to double-0 status, which is neatly done in a brutal black-and-white prologue in which he notches his first two kills.
After the pic bleeds into color, Bond pursues a would-be suicide bomber in a madly acrobatic chase through an African construction site, at the end of which he happens to be filmed killing an apparently, if not in fact, unarmed man in images instantly disseminated on the Internet, to the enormous embarrassment of MI6. Welcome to the 21st century, Mr. Bond.
Doubling the displeasure of his boss M (Judi Dench happily back for her fifth turn) by surreptitiously entering her flat, Bond ignores her reprimand by high-tailing it to the Bahamas, itself a nice throwback to the film series' origins in "Dr. No." Following a cell phone trail of potential terrorist bombers, Bond tracks one, then another in Miami, where an evening that begins at a "Bodyworks" exhibition ends with a high-speed tarmac battle in which the fate of the world's biggest new jetliner hangs in the balance.
Even by this early juncture, the pic has emphatically announced its own personality. It's comparatively low-tech, with the intense fights mostly conducted up close and personally, the killings accomplished by hand or gun, and without an invisible car in evidence; Bond is more of a lone wolf, Craig's upper-body hunkiness and mildly squashed facial features giving him the air of a boxer; 007's got a frequently remarked upon ego, which can cause him to recklessly overreach and botch things, and the limited witticisms function naturally within the characters' interchanges.
As matters advance to the Continent, elements even more unusual in the Bond world of late, comprehensible plotting and palpable male-female frissons, move to the fore. Bond's enemy is not a Mr. Evil type plotting world domination, but a financier of international terrorism, Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), who needs to make financial amends by winning a big-pot poker game at the casino in fictional Montenegro. Bond plans to break Le Chiffre for good at the gambling table, and to this end he is fronted $10 million delivered by a most alluring messenger, Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), assigned to keep tabs on the coin.
Their initial meeting on board a Euro fast train fairly crackles with a sexual undercurrent as they perceptively size one another up. But Vesper intends to maintain a professional distance from her temporary colleague, whose contest of wills and luck with Le Chiffre in the hushed confines of a private gaming room is repeatedly interrupted during breaks by spasms of violence and attempts on Bond's life.
Yarn does tend to go on a bit once it sails past the two-hour mark, but final stretch contains two indelible interludes crucial to defining this new incarnation of Bond. Constrained nude to a bottomed-out chair, Bond is tortured by Le Chiffre who repeatedly launches a hard-tipped rope upon his nemesis' most sensitive area, and Craig once and for all claims the character as his own by virtue of the supreme defiance with which he taunts Le Chiffre even in vulnerable extremis. Later, the startling, tragic turn in Bond's relationship with Vesper provides a measure of understanding for his rake-like tendencies down the line.
Script by series vets Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, along with Paul Haggis, hangs together reasonably well and is rewarded for its unaccustomed preoccupation with character by the attentiveness to same by director Martin Campbell, back after having helmed the first Brosnan entry, "GoldenEye," 11 years ago. Dialogue requires Bond to acknowledge his mistakes and reflect on the soul-killing nature of his job, self-searching unimaginable in the more fanciful Bond universes inhabited by Brosnan and Roger Moore.
Shrewd and smart as well as gorgeous, Vesper Lynd is hardly the typical Bond girl (she never even appears in a bathing suit), and Green makes her an ideal match for Craig's Bond. Danish star Mikkelsen proves a fine heavy, an imposing man with the memorable flaw of an injured eye that sometimes produces tears of blood. Giancarlo Giannini has a few understated scenes as a friendly contact in Montenegro, and while Jeffrey Wright has little to do as CIA man Felix Leiter, he does get off a couple of the film's best lines, and one can hope he may figure more prominently in forthcoming installments. Sebastien Foucan does some eyebrow-raising "free running" stunts in the African chase.
"Casino Royale" is the first Bond in a while that's not over-produced, and it's better for it. Production values are all they need to be, and while the score by David Arnold, in his fourth Bond outing, is very good, the title song, "You Know My Name," sung by Chris Cornell over disappointingly designed opening credits, is a dud.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

From MSN:
http://movies.uk.msn.com/features/Casinoroyalereview_2006.aspx

From all the reviews I've seen, it seems that Craig gives a classic performance but the movie itself, while pretty damn good, is not great.

 

[HoldMyDrink]

New Yorker review is up.

“Casino Royale.”
by ANTHONY LANE
Issue of 2006-11-20
Posted 2006-11-13

Who said this: “It is interesting for me to see this new Bond. Englishmen are so odd. They are like a nest of Chinese boxes. It takes a very long time to get to the center of them. When one gets there the result is unrewarding, but the process is instructive and entertaining.” The speaker is Mathis, a kindly French liaison officer in “Casino Royale,” Ian Fleming’s first James Bond novel, published in 1953. More than half a century later, we are back with “Casino Royale,” No. 21 in the roster of official Bond films, and we are back with Mathis. As played by Giancarlo Giannini, who was recently seen having his intestines removed in “Hannibal,” he is pouchy, affable, and dangerously wise, and his presence hints that this new adventure will not be an occasion for silliness: no calendar girls, no blundering boffins, no giants with dentures of steel. The same goes for hardware, with rockets and gadgets alike being trimmed to the minimum. It is true that Bond keeps a defibrillator in the glove compartment of his Aston Martin, but, given the cholesterol levels of the kind of people who drive Aston Martins, a heart-starter presumably comes standard, like a wheel jack. Whether Bond has a heart worth starting is another matter.

He is now played by Daniel Craig, as the world knows, and, if I had my way, the world would have shut up about it for the past thirteen months and waited to see the result. Mathis was right: what we get is a Chinese box, although one’s initial impression is that the outermost box is a packing crate. I cannot prove it, but I suspect that God may have designed Craig during a slightly ham-fisted attempt at woodworking. His head is a rough cube, sawed and sanded, with the blue eyes hammered in like nail heads. He could beat a man’s brains out with his brow. That suits the Bond of “Casino Royale,” who has only lately acquired his license to kill, and, like a kid who’s just passed his driving test, is eager to step on the gas. He will slay anyone, if he so wishes, and the news is that he does so wish, and that he worries about the wishing—not enough to stop the killing, although at one point he tenders his resignation to M (Judi Dench), but enough to make him wonder if he’s fit for anything else. Craig has the courage to present a hollow man, flooding the empty rooms where his better nature should be with brutality and threat. His smile is more frightening than his straight face, and he doesn’t bother with the throwaway quips that were meant to endear us to the other Bonds. The only thing he throws away is a set of car keys, having borrowed a Range Rover and slammed it backward into a row of parked cars, in order to set off their alarms. Calm down, you want to tell him, have a Martini; and so he does. “Shaken or stirred?” the barman inquires, and Bond spits back at him, “Do I look like I give a damn?”

The plot, unusually for a Bond picture, leans heavily on the novel. Bond is up against Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), who has a six-foot-tall mistress, a weepy eye, and nothing to cry about. His pleasure is gambling, and his career as a banker takes him to selected trouble spots, where he likes to meet the locals and help them with their plans for terrorism. What sets Le Chiffre apart from Bond’s preceding nemeses is that he has absolutely no interest in running the planet, preferring instead to profit nicely from its ruin. This is a welcome twist, one of the pitiable things about the 007 franchise being its fixation on global conquest—a cheesy homage, I often think, to the ubiquity of the Bond brand itself. When Martin Campbell, the director of “Casino Royale,” made “GoldenEye,” in 1995, the outcome was spirited enough, but it also felt stupidly grand, all wall-size computer screens and electromagnetic pulses fired from space. The new film has a leaner streak, and the high-tech attack methods are as follows: drowning your enemy in the washbasin of a men’s room; throttling him in a hotel stairwell; and, best of all, chasing him through a construction site.

This chase goes on far longer than expected, like a theological discussion in a Bergman film, with both the fleeing baddie and the pursuant Bond careening off walls and cranes and anything else that juts into their path. Rather than zipping through some customized hideout beneath the waves, decked out with nuclear reactors and sharks, they are merely making the best of their environment. Could this be something new in movies: green violence? It looked pretty natural to me, with Bond forever getting nicked and bruised. “Casino Royale” is allegedly the first 007 saga to feature rain, and Craig is the first proper bleeder, standing in front of a bathroom mirror and contemplating his own downpour. (Look how he swallows a Scotch to numb the hurt, and then try to imagine the Roger Moore equivalent—the pensive sip, the appreciative smile at the distiller’s art.) This is still Bond, however, so the next scene finds him sliding into his seat at the poker table, in a bloodless white shirt; indeed, if my math is correct, he goes through three freshly ironed dress shirts in a single night, which suggests that he has off-loaded Q in favor of a silent Jeeves. Also, he has to look good for Vesper Lynd.

Miss Lynd is an accountant, employed by Her Majesty’s Government, and, just as “The Spy Who Loved Me” is said to have burnished the sales figures for Lotus sports cars, so “Casino Royale” should transform accountancy into the most erotically charged of the professions. (There is one horrific attempt at product placement, and I hereby propose an international ban on Omega watches.) Vesper is played by Eva Green, who retains from her role in Bertolucci’s “The Dreamers” an unnerving blend of the fleshly and the spectral, and one thing she definitely is not is a Bond girl. Vesper is a Bond woman—a Bond Lady of Shalott, I would say, with all the sufferings of the world reflected in her dark-shadowed eyes. Her skin is paper-pale and her lips are vampirically red, as if she hadn’t slept in a hundred years, although, whatever has been keeping her awake, it isn’t sex. She is the only woman with whom 007 partakes of coitus uninterruptus, and even that takes two hours to bring off. For a Bond picture, “Casino Royale” is amazingly short on lust. There is a moment when our hero lands in the Bahamas and glances over his shoulder at a couple of flirters in tennis gear, but Craig looks so embarrassed, almost insulted, by such levity that the experiment is never repeated. Bodies, it would seem, exist to be abused, not caressed, and Campbell takes care to incorporate, straight from the novel, a sequence in which Bond is denuded and tortured, with particular attention being paid to his organs of desire. Poor fellow. If ***** Galore showed up, he’d pour her a saucer of milk.

Things have been so moribund for so long in the Bond business that it was always going to take some major defibrillation to jerk it back to life. “Die Another Day,” the last film, was a gruelling nadir, although the producers would be right to point out that it earned four hundred and fifty million dollars, which is three times the purse that Bond and Le Chiffre battle for at the tables. This means that the sight of Pierce Brosnan driving an invisible car, though bound to dismay every Bond-revering adult, was catnip to the larger constituency of teen-age boys, who were comfortable with a film that felt like a video game. What they will make of “Casino Royale”—no babes, no toyland, and the poker not even online—is anyone’s guess, but the earnings of the new film will doubtless affect the look, and the casting, of the next. If Craig falters, then I guess it’s full speed ahead to Chris Rock as 007 and Borat as Blofeld. That would be a shame, because “Casino Royale,” though half an hour too long, is the first semi-serious stab at Fleming, and at the treacherous terrain that he marked out, since “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service,” in 1969. Like that film, this one ends in despair.

To be precise, it ends with Daniel Craig wearing a dark-blue three-piece suit and toting a machine gun, which is the best, though not the most cost-effective, way to overcome despair that he can think of. The name Le Chiffre means “the cipher,” but, once the stage is bare, it is Bond who remains the enigma—as unbreakable to the cryptographer as to the torturer, and even to himself. Raymond Chandler once challenged Fleming in a letter, saying, “I think you will have to make up your mind what kind of a writer you are going to be. You could be almost anything except that I think you are a bit of a sadist!” As with Fleming, so with his creation: the fledgling Bond of “Casino Royale” has yet to make up his mind what kind of a man he is going to be. The cruelty he can manage, with ease; what he still lacks is the license to live. Hence the scene in which, flush with winnings, he shares a late supper with Vesper, as if hoping to dine himself into being a gentleman. Even his grainy features are flattered by the soft lighting, and, savoring the mood, he pays his companion a wooing compliment, then blows it by adding, “I thought that was quite a good line.” Even James Bond, in other words, wants to be 007. Join the club.

 

[green]

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/casino_royale/

36 reviews, 94%...nice.

 

[Avangarde]

Goddam I cant believe Australia wont get it for another 3 weeks.............sigh*

 

[pointman]

lmao at Australia. Damn those guys really suffer. First they ban really good games, i.e. Vice city and now their release dates for movies are messed up.

 

[WorthyStevens]

http://www.aintitcool.com/?q=node/30733

An excerpt...

Congratulations are in order to everyone involved, and not least of all to Daniel Craig, who took a lot of heat while the film was in production. He kept his head down, and he stayed focused, and the result is a film that should turn him into a superstar. He’s already proven himself to be a gifted and complex actor, but he exhibits effortless charisma in this role, and he plays every face of Bond well. Vicious thug? Check. Shameless flirt? Check. Sarcastic sophisticate? Yep. He’s got it all. As I mentioned at the start of the review, everybody typically likes the Bond they grew up on. I know Roger Moore fans, Timothy Dalton fans, and heaps and heaps of Pierce Brosnan fans. I know OHMSS snobs. I know Connery hardcores. I know people who like every single Bond film indiscriminately. For the first time ever, I can see the potential here for a Bond that can finally unite Bond fans. As long as the films use this movie as a template, things look good.

 

[WorthyStevens]

It still has a 95% fresh rating over at RT. Wow, is it really that great? I don't want to get my expectations too high since I'll be seeing this tomorrow.

 

[Sam_298]

WOWZA! The reviews here in Canada are blooming as crazy! The Toronto Star gave it a 4 out of 4! As well as Paul Haggis' hometown London, gave it a 5 out of 5! It must be a brilliant film!

 

[The Caped Knight]

I saw the movie last night and i'm going to see it again today . BOND IS BACK & HE'S BETTER THAN EVER.

 

[The Caped Knight]

From USA TODAY

'Casino Royale': Put your money into this Bond
By Claudia Puig, USA TODAY
You could call Casino Royale "The Bond Identity."

The latest James Bond installment has less campy flavor and more pulse-stopping action (à la The Bourne Identity). It also sets the scene for Bond's evolution from a cocky brute into the sophisticated and suave spy we know and love.

Though Sean Connery and Pierce Brosnan distinguished themselves in previous movies, Daniel Craig has made Bond his own. His portrayal feels grittier and more complex than previous 007s. This is also partly the result of a better script, by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Oscar winner Paul Haggis, as well as top-notch directing by Martin Campbell (GoldenEye). Craig brings a sadistic edge and intensity to the role — along with a wondrously chiseled physique. He also has a vulnerability and dark wit.

His piercing blue eyes project a steely resolve and cool toughness. We believe he could kill mercilessly in a way that perhaps the more dashing Brosnan might not have persuaded us. Craig's Bond is arrogant to the point of blundering, which makes him a bit more human.

The action in the film also tops previous Bonds. The opening is a riveting, dialogue-free 20-minute foot chase between Bond and an African bombmaker with super-human agility.

Craig is thoroughly convincing physically in athletic sequences. Here, the action focuses more on human stunts than explosions. A chase involving an airport bomber and Bond atop his truck is more about the characters than the firepower.

Action sequences are leavened by an evolving romance between Bond and Vesper Lynd (Eva Green).

The film is about a half hour too long. The third act drags and an extended high-stakes poker game doesn't always keep our attention. But this is a superior Bond. Craig has signed on for more Bond action, which is good news. His menacing, but human, interpretation of the spy adds an intriguing dimension to the role and has reignited a rather tired and predictable series.

* * * (out of four)

http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/reviews/2006-11-16-review-casino-royale_x.htm