Casino Royale - Movie Review

Casino Royale is directed by Martin Campbell and stars Daniel Craig in his very first outing as James Bond and before this movie came out in 2006 people had some very interesting things to say you want to have some fun go back and read some old internet articles from 2005 and early 2006 people hated the idea of Daniel Craig as bond do you know why because he has blonde hair and blue eyes sometimes the internet is really dumb but when Casino Royale came out and people actually saw it this film was so good that it made the naysayers ashamed no one likes to admit that they hated on Daniel Craig in this movie before it came out anymore everyone's afraid to be like yeah I was one of those I was one of those people because the movie was actually that great so let's talk about Casino Royale and as you guys probably figured out by now this review is going to contain some spoilers you've been warned and since this is a James Bond review I thought I would spiff it up a little bit the movie opens with a tense and suspenseful black-and-white scene in which we get to witness bond take out his first two people making him a double O agent and what a lot of people miss in this opening scene is when bond does kill the second man you get a quick flash of his family photo this film introduced bond as a cold dark assassin he will take you out even if you're a family man if that's his job he's gonna get the job done the last time we saw a bond like this was Timothy Dalton and license to kill and it was so refreshing to see another actor take on Ian Fleming's character and make him just like Ian Fleming had envisioned him a man of few words he gets in he gets out he gets the job done and he leaves he isn't some smiley Winky Austin Powers like guy who just wants to sleep with a lot of women he's basically Vincent from collateral yo homie my briefcase now I've seen every single James Bond movie every single one even never say never again the unofficial James Bond movie before Casino Royale we had all become accustomed to how these films played out every single film opened with the famous gun barrel sequence where Bond walks in a white room he turns any fires and the blood drips down the screen this film changed that it opened as I said with a suspenseful black-and-white scene finally at the end of this scene when you think his first person he killed is dead he turns around he grabs his gun and James turns and fires and then we get our first Daniel Craig gun barrel sequence it was brilliant it was such a great reversal of the formula we're so used to seeing this leads us into Chris Cornell's you know my name which i think is a very underrated Bond song it's one of my favorites it's only real competition in my mind is actually Adele Skyfall I think this is a great song another reason I love Casino Royale so much is because of Liz she's one of the best Bond villains if not the best Bond villain of all time played by the incredibly versatile Mads Mikkelsen I mean if you've never seen the movie the hunt then you have no idea just how versatile this guy is in that movie he made me care so much about him I felt such sympathy for him but in this film he just emotes this evil sense you feel it's seeping off of him he's such a terrific actor and one of the reasons I think he's such a good Bond villain is because he isn't 1 per se he doesn't have some mountain fortress he doesn't have a satellite in space that's gonna laser the earth and melt the polar ice caps die another day what were you thinking he's a guy who owes money to people who are even more dangerous than he is so he's desperate he's at the end of his rope he has nothing left he's a person a real human being and this film understands that to make compelling characters it has to recognize that all these people are people with real motivations and early on in this movie we have what I consider one of the best action scenes ever conceived the parkour chase this thing is like 8 minutes long it never stops and it's filled with practical truly quite literally mind-blowing stunts you've seen critics quoted on blu-rays or movie trailers saying something is mind-blowing but it never actually really blows your mind the stunts and the practicality of this sequence made my head explode for real and David Arnold's score the African run-down track is extremely fun it's great I listen to it a lot it's a great workout song and two of my favorite parts of this sequence are when the guy he's chasing does this crazy maneuver to get through this window and bond just explodes through the wall and the other moment is when the guy is out of bullets and he throws his gun at bond and he just catches it in midair and tosses it right back at his head and last but not least when he falls like two stories lands on the ground and just shakes it off and starts running fucking great shit something else that's impressive about Casino Royale is its three-act structure the first act is very action heavy a little bit mistery oriented as bond gathers a lot of Intel and I'll talk more about how the film branches between those two acts later but as bond gets involved with this girl we think we know where this is going we've seen a ton of Bond movies they're making out they're laying down you think they're gonna have sex but as soon as bond figures out what he needs to know where this guy is that he's pursuing he leaves he doesn't have sex with this woman he just leaves he leaves her there alone this is not Roger Moore this is an assassin who is on the job he's not going to let some frivolous sex get in the way of that I love that about this movie this brings us to an incredible pursuit sequence through an airport which leads to a very Raiders of the Lost Ark light truck chase and which bond is inside the cab of this truck fighting with this guy who's trying to blow up this plane it's all magnificent stuff it's extremely riveting almost every action scene in this movie could be the finale action scene of any normal action film it's all handled that well after that the second act of this film begins with the setup of a high-stakes poker game at Casino Royale the shieff is trying to win back money to pay back the people that he owes who are terrorists bond is sent because he's the best player in the service to try to win all of that money so that this terrorism is no longer funded and on the train there he meets Vesper Lynd the best Bond girl of all time because just like leshiy f-- this is not the definition of a Bond girl this is an actual real woman who through some amazing banter and great dialogue bond realizes is probably one of the first times he's ever felt challenged by a woman and that's one of the reasons why they work so well together a characters and why Vesper is such an interesting character herself now look I love my wife but Daniel Craig man you can wear that suit now what I consider to be the best poker game ever put to film begins bond versus lashya as well as some other people like felix leiter played by jeffrey wright martin campbell utilized a lot of cross dissolves throughout this scene to let us know when time had passed as well as to create more suspense it's wonderfully old-fashioned not too many films use cross dissolves anymore and this film's usage of it made it feel more like it was taking place in the 60s now we're all used to bond ordering a drink and we're expecting him to order it in a certain way but the way bond orders the drink in this film it makes me want to drink and I don't drink alcohol it made me want to try that drink I was like yeah it sounds really good that was actually straight out of Ian Fleming's novel as well now during a break in the poker game an amazing stairwell fight breaks out between some men who are actually after leshiy f-- for the money that he owes it's a very great sequence it's intense it's exciting and Vesper ends up helping bond kill the last guy and she feels like she has blood on her hands and runs off what we get next is a scene we've never seen in a Bond movie to my knowledge bond in a bathroom cleaning blood off of his body staring into a mirror thinking about his life there's never been a scene like this in a Bond movie in which we see bond after he's done something that perhaps maybe part of him regrets but he has to tell that part of him to not feel that way because this is his job in the other films we've seen him do so much crazy shit he's James Bond but we've never seen him standing there cleaning blood off of himself just this small little scene added so much humanity to the character of Bond now as I said Vesper felt very guilty for assisting bond in that final kill and she's now underneath a shower with all of her clothes on in fact that was Daniel Craig's idea the script had her in her underwear and Craig argued that if she had ran in there she wouldn't have taken the time to undress herself great idea that respects the Vesper character and makes her less of a sex object and more of an actual woman and this scene does not end with them in bed in fact the filmmakers make it a point to show that they woke up in separate rooms now in the next poker sequence list sheath cleans out bond I mean he destroys him and I adore the shot of everyone exiting the table slowly with bond just sitting there staring at the table which brings me to one of my favorite scenes in James Bond history locomote an chicken was to give it him this film so magnificently took all of the James Bond tropes and cliches that were used to seeing and turn them all upside down so as I said Jeffrey Wright portrays Felix Leiter from the CIA who agrees to stake Bond in the game he lets him continue with some of his money so adding to the already huge amount of suspense in this poker game the sheave poison's bond leading to a very intense scene in which bond has to walk out to his car to get his defibrillator and after he is resuscitated by Vesper he walks back and says the film's best line I'm sorry that lost hand and it killed me so as you guys probably know eventually bond wins with a straight flush he cleans out leshiy f-- he's got all the money for himself and I've always loved how he tosses the dealer $500,000 like it's nothing I want to be that dealer I mean I just made half a million dollars sitting there dealing this poker game what kind of job is that that's a good job till the Shiva's pissed he kidnaps Vesper bond goes after her to try to save her leading to what at the time of its release was the most car flips ever in a scene and this is one shot no cuts there isn't multiple angles of this car flipping over cable new we just need the one shot we don't need to show this a billion different ways the next scene in the film is one that for any man is rather difficult to watch yeliseev whips bond in the nutsack yeah this is without a doubt the closest we've ever gotten to a rated R James Bond and it is by far the most hardcore pg-13 I've ever seen during this scene leshiy fizz interrogating Bond trying to find out the password so that he can get all the money for himself now I'm going to say this and I don't care Daniel Craig is oscar-worthy in this scene I don't care if he's playing James Bond in a big studio movie fuck that he is truly worthy of that trophy in this scene just a sequence in which he's laughing telling the Sheep to itch him in the nutsack with this whip it's fucking fantastic it's the best acting I have ever seen in a James Bond movie what's also so great about this movie is that as the second act ends loose chief is killed by one of the people he owes money to not by bond and not during the finale of the movie as I said this is a perfect three act movie and the third act is a tragic love story as bond Falls for Vesper he wants to resign and travel around the world with her and we're in past Bond films the love story halted the movie because it was just like hey here's a girl have sex who cares in this movie it works because you really do feel like bond is in love with this girl and she's in love with him but after it's revealed that she is double-crossing him to try to get that money we get a thrilling action sequence as his house is literally sinking into the ocean where bond has to try to save Vesper who eventually gives in and allows herself to drown right in front of him and it's her betrayal that is so integral to the bond character when he's on the phone with em and he says forget about it the bitch is dead which is by the way straight out of Ian Fleming's novel that scene is bond becoming James Bond as we know him now in the final scene James Bond tracks down the last guy involved with this whole ordeal looks him in the eye and says the names bond James Bond and then for the first time in the entire movie we get to hear James Bond's theme he has now become Batman no but seriously he's now become James Bond it's so brilliant Casino Royale is one of the best action movies ever made it is not just a great Bond movie it is a great film and Casino Royale absolutely deserves and a-plus now I love this movie so much I actually went out and bought a licensed deck of cards from this movie it came with the collector's edition set of Casino Royale as well as a poker chip and last but not least if you really like Daniel Craig as bond why don't you check out the movie layer-cake a lot of people consider this to be the movie that actually won him the role it was directed by Matthew Vaughn and pretty good also I want to give a big thank you to jack threads.com they provided this suit that I'm wearing I was more than happy to wear it and if you guys would like to check out their website if you go to jack threads.com slash kris and use the coupon code kris when you check out you can get 20% off your order they have tons of stylish clothes I like that site that has a lot of great stuff if you're a man you know you like to wear watches and ties and cool pants and shoes and stuff like that every once in a while it's nice to dress up I don't always wear graphic t-shirts so guys go to jack threads.com slash Kris and use the coupon code Kris when you check out for 20% off guys thank you so much as always for watching my James Bond series I'm looking forward to reviewing Spectre very soon as always if you like this you can click right here and get stuck mine eyes

Channel: Chris Stuckmann

Views: 769,710

Rating: 4.9489698 out of 5

Keywords: Casino Royale, Movie Review, Chris Stuckmann, 2015, James Bond, 007, Video Game, Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Judi Dench, Mads Mikkelsen, Jeffrey Wright, Martin Campbell, Spectre, Skyfall, Quantum of Solace, Scene, Clip, HD, Full Movie, Teaser, Trailer, Parkour, Freerunning, Chase, Airport, Poker, Game, Finale, Ending, Fight, Reviews, Film, Theme, David Arnold, Soundtrack

Id: 19IMQq8jeSQ

Length: 13min 29sec (809 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 27 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/ManOfLaBook]

Love that Commando 12" figure behind him.