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Casino Royale [2006] | ![Casino Royale [2006]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51SMoKA5M1L._SL160_.jpg)
 enlarge | Director: Martin Campbell
Actors: Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Eva Green, Claudio Santamaria, Jeffrey Wright
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Category: DVD
List Price: £9.99
Buy New: £4.44
You Save: £5.55 (56%)
New (18) Used (7) from £1.98
Rating:  60 reviews
Sales Rank: 311
Format: Pal
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 138
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.4 x 0.6
EAN: 5035822350892
ASIN: B000TQLIP6
Theatrical Release Date: 2006
Release Date: September 17, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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Amazon.co.uk
The most successful invigoration of a cinematic franchise since Batman Begins, Casino Royale offers a new Bond identity. Based on the Ian Fleming novel that introduced Agent 007 into a Cold War world, Casino Royale is the most brutal and viscerally exciting James Bond film since Sean Connery left Her Majesty's Secret Service. Meet the new Bond; not the same as the old Bond. Daniel Craig gives a galvanising performance as the freshly minted double-0 agent. Suave, yes, but also a "blunt instrument," reckless and possessed with an ego that compromises his judgment during his first mission to root out the mastermind behind an operation that funds international terrorists. In classic Bond film tradition, his global itinerary takes him to far-flung locales, including Uganda, Madagascar, the Bahamas (that's more like it) and Montenegro, where he is pitted against his nemesis in a poker game, with hundreds of millions in the pot. The stakes get even higher when Bond lets down his armour by falling in love with Vesper (Eva Green), the ravishing banker's representative fronting him the money. For longtime fans of the franchise, Casino Royale offers some retro kicks. Bond wins his iconic Aston Martin at the gaming table, and when a bartender asks if he wants his martini "shaken or stirred," he disdainfully replies, "Do I look like I give a damn?". There's no Moneypenny or "Q," but Dame Judi Dench is back as the exasperated M who, one senses, admires Bond's "bloody cheek." A Bond film is only as good as its villain, and Mads Mikkelsen as Le Chiffre, who weeps blood, is a sinister dandy. From its punishing violence and virtuoso action sequences to its romance, Casino Royale is a Bond film that, in the words of one character, 'makes you feel it', particularly during an excruciating torture sequence. Double-0s, Bond observes early on, "have a short life expectancy". But with Craig, there is new life in the old franchise yet, as well as genuine anticipation for the next one when, at last, the signature James Bond theme kicks in following the best last line ever in any Bond film. To quote Goldie Hawn in Private Benjamin, "now I know what I've been faking all these years". --Donald Liebenson
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| Customer Reviews: Read 55 more reviews...
 Sean who? December 8, 2007
17 out of 20 found this review helpful
As one of the only 12 people who was genuinely delighted at Daniel Craig's casting a year ago, I must admit I was more than a little worried about Casino Royale. Not the kind of paranoia that those newcomers who'd never experience the changing of the guard the series goes through every decade or the staggeringly venomous hate-mongering of the more fanatical Brosnan fans who felt compelled to start libellous hate-sites, though. After all those months of arguing that he was the perfect choice for the role (especially after some of the more moronic suggestions), was I setting myself up for a fall if he turned in a disappointing performance? Similarly there was the film itself. While the producers were making all the right noises about going back to basics, they'd done exactly the same with Licence To Kill and chickened out to deliver a sub-Roger Moore effort with Wayne Newton as a comedy relief villain, inept ninjas, pointless gadgets, laughable violence and monster truck stunts. Too often in the past the franchise had been over-reliant on the goodwill generated by the earlier films, rehashing earlier vehicles to decreasing returns secure in the knowledge that the audience would turn up anyway. Take away the Bond brand, and too many post-OHMSS entries simply wouldn't have stood up to scrutiny in the marketplace on their own merits: Bond had become a tradition, a ritual like going home for the holidays that you knew was never going to be as good as it was when you were a kid but which you still went through out of a mixture of hope and obligation.
I needn't have worried. Not only is it the best Bond film in 37 years, it's as if the Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan years never happened. After Brosnan's surprisingly lazy and slightly seedy turn in DAD, Craig delivers the most physical Bond since Lazenby, but this time matched by the acting chops to make the most of the best script the series has had in decades - at once plot and character led - as the rookie blunt instrument bulldozes his way through his mission until emotional awakening and betrayal starts to finesse him into the Bond we knew from the Connery days. Brosnan never could have delivered this kind of performance, either physically or emotionally, and, truth be told, neither could Connery in his prime: Craig is the first one to convince you that he's not a movie star or an actor but that he really IS James Bond.
The updating of the plot from the Cold War era to a post 9/11 world works surprisingly well, with the first act managing to provide a convincing motive for the high stakes poker game centrepiece while also providing a couple of superb action scenes that don't become too absurd and serve the plot in a series where in the past the plot was too often an excuse for the action. The much-criticised change from baccarat to poker is a smart one too. Where Baccarat is purely a game of luck (as Fleming himself found out when he went bust in three hands trying out the novel's premise on a Nazi spy), poker actually involves both strategy and psychology, making for more satisfying drama and tension.
There is, sadly, one concession to gadgetry that veers into the absurd - c'mon, who keeps a defibrillator in their glove compartment? - and is an unwelcome reminder of the days when old Roge would get out of a scrape with his buzz saw wristwatch or his projectile dart cufflinks thanks to lazy writing, but elsewhere it settles for using existing technology (most of it manufactured by Sony for some reason that escapes me) rather than veering into total fantasy. And it's good to see a Bond who needs hospitalisation after the villain goes Quasimodo on his nuts with a bell rope. The film's final sequence promises one helluva follow-up, and one can only hope the producers don't lose their nerve and throw it all away the way they did with Diamonds Are Forever. The real James Bond is indeed back.
While the 2-disc DVD is a disappointment by the standards of the previous EON entries, there isreportedly a more elaborate special edition planned in the future, so if you just want the film itself at a good price while you're waiting for that, this single-disc release fits the spot.
A superb and much needed "reboot" for the Bond franchise May 20, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
For the first time in many years, we finally get a Bond film based on a novel by Ian Fleming. The silly stuff - invisible cars, the "comedy" section with Q, etc has all been cast aside, and what we are left with is, by and large, a serious Bond film that easily outclasses the recent Bourne films.
The plot sticks to Fleming's first Bond novel quite closely, bar the changes needed to bring it into present day. A lot of criticism has been levelled at the film for not being "a true Bond film", but it's worth remembering that the Bond films, really ever since From Russia With Love, have veered away from Fleming's Bond and transformed him into the humourous, gadget and girl equipped Bond that most people, having never read the books, now see as the "true Bond".
The film has also been criticised for lack of continuity, but what continuity should there be? Continuity between the previous Bond films was always patchy at best, but now, Bond is at the start of his career as a 00 agent, so there isn't going to be any continuity between the previous films and this one.
All in all - a much needed return to form. Can't wait for the next one.
Bond is back on TOP of his game ! January 7, 2008
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
James Bond is back and he is alive and well. Any questions about Daniel Craig's worthiness are thrown out almost immediately as we are handed a film filled to the brim with exquisite action and explosive emotion. I squirmed in my seat with delight as I have not done since I was a child. What "Batman Begins" did for that franchise, "Casino Royale" does, and more, for Bond. For a while it seemed that he might not be able to well exist outside the confines of the cold war, but here we are given an entirely modern Bond with enough nods to the original that we can't be too upset. Maybe it's because this is the last novel yet to be filmed in the traditional Bond manner and it is Ian Fleming who has stolen our hearts not this incarnation of the super spy. However I like to think that someone actually just got their act together and concentrated on the film itself as opposed to who they could get the most product placement money out of. Congratulations. James Bond will live on for at least one more generation, and maybe forever. Great set pieces and one of the best chase sequences not involving cars ever put on screen, blended with beautiful locations and even more lovely women add up to the perfect cocktail with the twisting story line acting as the lemon peel in the martini, holding it all together. Many will come out saying that this is the best Bond film ever and I can not rightly say they are wrong at this point. Only time will tell that tale. However every fan can be assured that this ranks amongst the very upper crust of Bond movies, and Craig is no Lazenby. He lends a harsh wit and a thuggish charm to the character and by the end he's no longer the new guy, he is Bond, James Bond. A masterpiece of popular film-making and the movie we have been waiting for all year. See it early and often as it is sure not to diminish upon reviewing.
Raw and real - Back to Bond at his Best November 3, 2007
5 out of 8 found this review helpful
Thanks largely to a new actor in the lead role - the sixth so far - we see at long last a return to the days when James Bond was tough, ruthless and uncompromising instead of the dashing good-old-boys like Roger Moore and Piers Brosnan. Daniel Craig personifies that character that women desire and men want to be, just as Sean Connery did all those years ago. What he lacks in height and drop-dead-gorgeous looks Craig ably makes up for by being probably the most credible 007 yet, super-fit yet vulnerable, and basically coming across as the hard-as-nails hard-man that such a character really should be if he is to be convincing. There's even a decent story and script, with suitably evil villains who are not taken from a comic strip, and surges of action that at times take your breath away. Hats off to all those reponsible for breathing new life into this franchise, creating a film that's highly entertaining whether you've seen every single Bond film to date or if this is your first time out.
James Blond - raw and gritty October 18, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
James Bond is back with yet again a new look and one that has been quite contraversial. With a never seen before Blond Bond, Daniel Craig slides into the new 007 slot and adding his spin on being Bond. Craig has done extremely well against the critics and gives an excellent performance as the well known spy.
With many movies having gone significantly rough and raw with their action, so does Bond. Craig shows off his skills in the fight sequences which are energetic and brutally realistic but also does well in maintaining Bonds air of elegance and sophistication.
I thought the movie was very well made with the 'Batman Begins' idea of going back to the very beginning to how and where it all started. The black and white scene at the beginning was an excellent idea giving the start of the movie a different dimension. It was interesting to see where the famous 'turn and shoot' came from but what does it say it was in the mens lavatory? The quippy remarks were all but gone as well as the jovial light-hearted feel of the former bond movies too. I would say this is a good thing but some of you may disagree. With the growing emphasis on realistic and raw, this movie delivers. With a stunning action sequence by the master and founder of free running (Sebastien Foucan) this film delivers on 'Wows' in spades (and hearts, and diamonds and clubs too!). Although the usual intro of women and more women are gone, I thought that the animated sequence was excellent as well as Chris Cornell's accompanyment.
The overall DVD quality and display is very good and far better than some of the earlier Brosnan DVD releases like Tomorrow Never Dies which was just not smooth in transition in menus. The extras include a 'becoming Bond' featurette, a look at the film stunts and Chris Cornell's music video.
It seems as though Casino Royale was a great success despite some bold changes in look and style as well as casting. I think that Daniel is reported to be back for a bond sequel in Bond number 22 which i certainly look forward to.
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