#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