#71-C: CASINO ROYALE (2006)

 THRILL SCALE 1-10

10

HAVE I SEEN IT BEFORE?

Yes, once, sometime around 2010

BEST SEQUENCE

For a movie with so many huge set pieces, this might be an unexpected choice, but I really liked the truck chase on the runway of the Miami airport

BEST LINE

Bond: "Dry martini"

Bartender: "Oui, monsieur"

Bond: "Wait. Three measures of Gordon's; one of vodka; half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it over ice, and add a thin slice of lemon peel."

- The Vesper martini, and the recipe I've used while watching these movies, although I had to substitute Lillet Blanc for the Kina Lillet

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE

94%

ROTTEN TOMATOES CRITICS CONSENSUS

"Casino Royale disposes of the silliness and gadgetry that plagued recent James Bond outings, and Daniel Craig delivers what fans and critics have been waiting for: a caustic, haunted, intense reinvention of 007"

IMDB SYNOPSIS

"After earning 00 status and a licence to kill, secret agent James Bond sets out on his first mission as 007. Bond must defeat a private banker funding terrorists in a high-stakes game of poker at Casino Royale, Montenegro."

THOUGHTS

• As has been established, I've seen relatively few Bond movies in my lifetime. However, I am nothing if not a student of pop culture, so while that may be the case I do feel like I have a good sense of what a Bond movie is. And if Goldfinger and GoldenEye are great Bond movies, Casino Royale is just a great action movie, period
• There may be some out there who watch Casino Royale and miss the typical trappings of the previous movies: the one-liners, the gadgets, the casual womanizing. But these are also the aspects of the older movies that make them feel incredibly dated and ripe for parody. Casino Royale takes itself seriously, and for my tastes that's what makes it the better movie
• Which is not to say Daniel Craig's Bond is entirely lacking in levity. He has great chemistry with Eva Green as Vesper, and there's some witty repartee in their dialogue scenes. And therein lies the distinction: this Bond's personality comes through in the dialogue scenes, not in the action scenes when he's actively being shot at or killing people
• Although, speaking of Bond movies being dated, this one has a parkour-running bad guy, a pivotal sequence at a Texas hold 'em poker tournament, and everyone's walking around on their Sony Ericssons. 2006. What a time to be alive
• As mid-2000s as it is, though, that parkour scene is awesome, probably the favourite sequence for many people. I love that Bond doesn't suddenly turn into a parkour expert, because of course he doesn't. Parkour guy swings through a two-foot-wide hole at the top of a wall of drywall, and Bond just smashes through it like he's the Kool-Aid Man. I also liked when the bad guy's gun is empty, so he just throws it at Bond, who catches it and chucks it right back
• It's impressive how gripping they could make a poker game, and a lot of that is thanks to Mads Mikkelsen's smug and sleazy villain, Le Chiffre. He's also very effective in the chair scene which follows the poker tournament. You know the one, when Le Chiffre interrogates Bond and Deez
• As mentioned, I first saw this movie over ten years ago. I remembered a lot of the big moments, a lot of the action sequences, but that truck chase at the Miami airport slipped my memory, and it just blew me away. It's true, I appreciate a good car stunt, and it also reminded me of my favourite action scene of all time, the truck chase from Raiders of the Lost Ark. In fact, I haven't read anything to indicate that this is the case, but it even struck me that this scene might have been a bit of an homage to Raiders
• Very cool opening credits sequence, and the song by Chris Cornell is a banger
• Finally, a little bit of James Bond trivia. We all know that Bond's codename is 007, but there's a bit more meaning behind this. The 00 number is only given to the agents who have a licence to kill. This may be a more well-known fact than I'm aware of, but I remember finding it interesting when I learned this

Up next: My last Bond review, and a movie I've never seen but always wanted to. Skyfall, from 2012

#71-B: GOLDENEYE (1995)

THRILL SCALE 1-10

7

HAVE I SEEN IT BEFORE?

Never, unless you count playing through the N64 game

BEST SEQUENCE

Probably the tank chase, but the opening sequence and the climactic showdown are also pretty awesome

BEST LINE

M: "You don't like me, Bond. You don't like my methods. You think I'm an accountant, a bean counter more interested in my numbers than your instincts."

Bond: "The thought had occurred to me."

M: "Good, because I think you're a sexist, misogynist dinosaur. A relic of the Cold War, whose boyish charms, though wasted on me, obviously appealed to that young woman I sent out to evaluate you."

Bond: "Point taken."

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE

80%

ROTTEN TOMATOES CRITICS CONSENSUS

"The first and best Pierce Brosnan Bond film, GoldenEye brings the series into a more modern context, and the result is a 007 entry that's high-tech, action-packed, and urbane."

IMDB SYNOPSIS

"Years after a friend and fellow 00 agent is killed on a joint mission, a Russian crime syndicate steals a secret space-based weapons program known as "GoldenEye" and James Bond has to stop them from using it."

THOUGHTS

• It's interesting how strongly the GoldenEye video game sticks out in my memory, considering I never even owned a Nintendo 64 myself. It was just so iconic that even just from playing it at friends' houses, I kept thinking about it while watching the movie for the first time. I'd recognize set pieces and action sequences, and the most recognizable aspect was probably the scenery
• That opening set piece is pretty fantastic, from the bungee jump that kicks off the movie to the (admittedly laugh-inducing) motorcycle jump off a cliff to catch up to a plummeting plane in midair. As silly as it all is, though, it's quite convincingly shot
• Which leads into the very trippy opening credits. Considering the cultural footprint that so many Bond themes have had over the years, it's worth mentioning that I've never heard the GoldenEye theme before in my life, and it's kind of a snooze. Noteworthy considering the pedigree - performed by Tina Turner, and written by Bono and the Edge. Also noteworthy about the opening credits, Sean Bean is billed right after Pierce Brosnan, so it was clearly pretty early in Bean's career if the name recognition wouldn't spoil the mid-movie twist
• And speaking of Brosnan - he's handsome, he's dapper, he's capable, but he's pretty bland. The movie around him is entertaining enough, but he's kind of just there. Henceforth I shall call him the Bland Bond (as opposed to Daniel Craig, who is the Blond Bond)
• I really liked Judi Dench in her brief screen time as M, and I look forward to her reappearing in the Daniel Craig movies. I also appreciated this movie's reckoning with the Bonds of the past, as exemplified by the quote up above
• Alan Cumming was really grating as Boris. I like him as an actor, but that character can take a hike. Also, it was an incredibly mid-'90s move to give him a character trait of fiddling with a pen while frantically typing one-handed on a keyboard trying to crack a computer code. Of course this computer whiz doesn't need two hands to type; he's just that good!
• This movie might be one of the most egregious examples of needing to suspend one's disbelief when foreign characters speak strongly-accented English instead of the language that they would most logically actually be speaking. There is absolutely no reason why a bunch of Russian characters, at a Russian control centre, would be speaking and typing in English to each other. Of course I understand the practical reasons why the filmmakers would go this route but once I noticed it happening I found it hard to ignore
• And speaking of things that are hard to ignore, boy oh boy, the CGI used in the outer space footage. Gravity, this is not
• It may seem like I'm ripping this apart, but I did actually have a good time with this movie. There's a lot of silliness, but the action is really solid. Big explosions, cool gun fights, a charismatic villain, and a great final fight scene
• But I shall leave you with the worst post-death quip of the film. After the secondary big bad dies from being crushed into a tree as a result of being tethered to a crashing helicopter, Bond says "She always did enjoy a good squeeze." Bond, you nitwit, that's not an expression! It doesn't count as a clever reference if it's a sentence that no one in the world has ever said before you!

Up next: It's the introduction of the aforementioned Blond Bond. Daniel Craig in Casino Royale