{"id":4068,"date":"2024-09-16T22:13:25","date_gmt":"2024-09-16T22:13:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=4068"},"modified":"2024-10-12T21:30:24","modified_gmt":"2024-10-12T21:30:24","slug":"casino-royale-2006","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/09\/16\/casino-royale-2006\/","title":{"rendered":"Casino Royale (2006)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Casino Royale<\/strong> (2006)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Columbia\/Action-Adventure\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 144 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (intense sequences of violent action, a scene of torture, sexual content, nudity)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Martin Campbell\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Paul Haggis\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: David Arnold\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Phil Meheux\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: November 17, 2006 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen, Giancarlo Giannini, Caterina Murino, Simon Abkarian, Isaach De Bankole, Jesper Christensen, Ivana Milicevic, Tobias Menzies, Claudio Santamaria, Jeffrey Wright, Judi Dench. Free running stunts by Sebastien Foucan.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Opening Song: \u201cYou Know My Name\u201d by Chris Cornell\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $167.4M (US)\/$594.2M (World)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *** \u00bd <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0James Bond 007 has officially been brought into the 21st century with Casino Royale<\/strong>, a rebooting of the popular film series that began in 1962. Daniel Craig (Munich) is the new 007, both in the series and the British Secret Service. Welcome to the party, pal.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In the pre-credits sequence, Bond earns his 00 status by killing a traitorous MI6 section chief and his associate. Bond’s first assignment is to follow the movements of an international bomb maker in Madagascar, but it turns into a wild free running chase through the streets and a building under construction. It ends at the embassy where Bond kills the man despite orders to bring him back alive. Naturally, it creates an international incident which his boss M (Dench, Shakespeare in Love) catches hell for from her superiors.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Something good does come out of the fiasco. Bond learns the dead bomb maker is connected to a man named Alex Dimitrios (Abkarian, The Serpent) who\u2019s been hired to facilitate a terrorist attack at a Miami airport on behalf of Le Chiffre (Mikkelsen, After the Wedding), a private banker whose client list consists of international criminals and terrorist groups. Naturally, Bond foils the plan which puts Le Chiffre in hot water with Obanno (Bankole, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai), an African war lord who trusted him with $100 million of his own money. If Le Chiffre doesn\u2019t get it back, he\u2019s dead.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In order to recoup his losses, the banker sets up a high-stakes, winner-takes-all poker tournament with a $10 million buy-in at Casino Royale in Montenegro. Bond is entered into the tournament in the hopes that Le Chiffre will try to protect himself by providing sensitive information to MI6 if should he lose the game to 007. The buy-in money is provided by Vesper Lynd (Green, The Dreamers), a Treasury agent who we all know will eventually succumb to Bond\u2019s charms. What neither of them expects is that they\u2019ll fall in love with each other.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Directed by Martin Campbell (GoldenEye), Casino Royale <\/strong>is a great action movie and a great James Bond movie. Craig isn\u2019t the 007 we all grew up with. He\u2019s darker, rougher, grittier James Bond who M aptly describes as a \u201cblunt instrument\u201d. He\u2019s a cold sort who doesn\u2019t make quips after dispatching bad guys. He\u2019s good at his job, but he has a lot to learn, especially about leaving his ego out of the equation and never letting it get personal. He also hasn\u2019t decided what he likes to drink although he has a fondness for a self-created shaken concoction consisting of vodka, ice and a thinly sliced lemon peel. In his first time out, Craig does a great job, redefining the popular character while still retaining familiar traits like the womanizing and natural inclination towards action.<\/p>\n

\u00a0One of the things I love about the modern Bond movies is how they depict M as more than just a boss issuing assignments from behind a desk. As much as I loved original M player Bernard Lee, he was never much more than the chap in charge. Dench takes it to a whole new level with the fierceness she brings to the role. Her M is one tough broad, an iron lady if you will. She acts as mentor to the new Bond, coldly reminding him of what his job entails. She reprimands him for not playing by the rules while admitting he gets results. It\u2019s a relationship that will be developed over the next few entries.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The action scenes in Casino Royale<\/strong> are impressive. They\u2019re bigger, wilder and more elaborate than anything we\u2019ve seen in the past. The sequence where Bond and the bomb maker do battle while climbing around a building under construction is breathtaking. The airport sequence is both exciting and intense. Although there\u2019s something to be said for the relative simplicity of the early Bond movies, I get why the makers felt the need to up the ante. In a world where Ethan Hunt and Jason Bourne consistently wow audiences, it\u2019s necessary to keep a relic like James Bond in the running. He\u2019s a 007 for the 21st<\/sup> century.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Although I felt the poker game slowed things down a bit, it\u2019s still filled with tension as Bond and his nemesis try to outfox each other. At one point, Le Chiffre tries to poison 007, but he\u2019s not about a let a little thing like impending death stop him from saving the world. In the role, Mikkelsen does a decent job even though he\u2019s weak compared to other Bond baddies. He is scary looking though with how he weeps blood from his left eye (it\u2019s called haemolacria if you want to know).<\/p>\n

\u00a0Green, on the other hand, is a great Bond Girl. She\u2019s tough and resourceful, but is she being completely honest with Bond? She\u2019s a mysterious sort, that one. Good or bad, she\u2019s easy on the eyes, but don\u2019t take that to mean she\u2019s just eye candy. Green really is a good actress.<\/p>\n

\u00a0As you can tell, Casino Royale<\/strong> is James Bond redefined for 21st<\/sup> century audiences with all the technological advancements and post-9\/11 paranoia in place of Cold War fears. I didn\u2019t think it would work, but it does. Granted, I will be partial to old school James Bond with its hollowed-out volcanoes, megalomaniacs bent on world domination and silly gadgets invented by Q who\u2019s not present for this inaugural outing. Still, I had a blast watching Casino Royale<\/strong>, a more serious adaptation than the 1967 spoof. It runs a little longer than it needs to, but Craig keeps the momentum going under the expert direction of Campbell. It\u2019s a great start to a new phase in the 007 story.\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Casino Royale (2006)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Columbia\/Action-Adventure\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 144 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (intense sequences of violent action, a scene of torture, sexual content, nudity)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Martin Campbell\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Paul Haggis\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: David Arnold\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Phil Meheux\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: November 17, 2006 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen, Giancarlo Giannini, Caterina Murino, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4660,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-james-bond-movies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Casino-Royale-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4068"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4661,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4068\/revisions\/4661"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}