CASINO ROYALE

Review: James Bond’s first 007 mission takes him to Madagascar, the Bahamas and then on to Montenegro at Le Casino to meet with Le Chiffre for a high stakes poker game. Once he gets there things are not what they seem and he soon learns an important lesson which is to trust no one.
Director: Martin Campbell
Actors: Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Judi Dench, Mads Mikkelsen, Jeffrey Wright, Giancarlo Giannini, Caterina Murino, Simon Abkarian, Isaach De Bankole, Jesper Christensen, Ivana Milicevic, Tobias Menzies, Claudio Santamaria, Sebastien Foucan and Malcolm Sinclair
Year: 2006
Genre: Action, Adventure, Drama and Thriller
Conclusion: 4/5
Daniel Craig’s first feature film as James Bond. He was actually offered the part of James Bond a year before but rejected it as he had felt that the series had settled into a standard formula. He changed his mind once he read the finished script. It is reported that both Gerard Butler and Ewan McGregor turned down the role of James Bond; this was due to fears of typecasting. While filming a fight scene in Prague Daniel Craig lost his front two teeth, his dentist had to fly out from London to Prague to replace them. In Casino Royale what you do feel is the violence and action which is non stop all the way through. There were a few scenes at the beginning which did remind me of Dr. No (1962), for instance where Daniel Craig was coming out of the sea. The way that Bond orders his first vodka martini is lifted directly from the novels by Ian Fleming. This is a very long film standing in at about 2 hours 25 minutes and could have done with the 25 minutes taken out. In this particular Bond film I actually wasn’t impressed or cared about the love interest and for me that should have been taken out. It wasn’t at all convincing. On the BBFC website it states that during post-production, the distributor sought and was given advice on how to secure the desired classification. Following this advice, certain changes were made prior to submission. It then goes on to say that some of the reductions were to do with the torture sequence, including the removal of lingering shots of the rope, close shots of Bond’s facial reaction and the substitution of a more distant shot of the beating. At the Bafta Film Awards in 2007 this won for Best Sound.