Casino Royale (2 Disc Collector's Edition) [2006] (DVD)

James Bond With A Twist! I really liked the new Bond - the writers introduced the new actor really well with some witty unexpected variations on the standard Bond theme - for example - the phrase "do I look like I give a damn" when asked if he wanted his martini shaken or stirred. The stunts are all performed by Daniel Craig which is really good too and there is the usual mix of painful and unbelievable stunts to entertain us right the way through! A must for everyone in my book.

Let Down By The Ending This is the first Bond film I've ever seen (to be honest, the idea of a womanising assasin in a load of action flicks aimed mainly at guys has just never appealed to me) but after hearing all the brilliant reviews about Casino Royale I thought it was about time I gave in and took the plunge into my first Bond film. I wasn't dissapointed! You'd have to have been on another planet the last couple of years to have not heard all the criticsim Daniel Craig has had in this part - I hadn't even seen the film yet I could recite all the faults - 'He's too ugly to play Bond', 'He's too old', 'He's just awful!' so you can imagine how pleasently surprised I was to find that not only did Daniel Craig not resemble a troll (as some haters would have you believe) and definatley was not too old to be believeable in the role, but that his acting was also top notch. As I've said, this is the first Bond film so I can't compare Craig to the other actors who've portrayed Bond, but I felt like he did a fine job with the script he had and have no reason to complain. Likewise, I really liked Judi Dench as M, and though Mads Mikkelsen played a very good villain in Le Chiffre, but Eva Green didn't really bring anything to the character Vesper apart from perhaps looking the part. My complaints of this film have to be a) the script (the romantic lines between Vesper and Bond in the last 40 minutes or so are cringe-worthy) and b) the ending, though I've heard it's less cheesy than most bond films. I guess it's the only ending they could have to keep true to Bond and the previous films, which is a shame because it takes this film down from a 5 star rating to a 4 in my eyes. But there is plenty in this film to make up for it's few faults. I felt that all the Casino royale scenes were done brilliantly, script, acting, + direction, and, as a little side note, I also love the main song for this film, Chris Cornell's 'You Know My Name'. Take a chance on this film, especially if you've never seen a Bond film before. You might be pleasently surprised!

not the best finaly got round to watching this dvd and i never thought i'd say this about a bond film but it was pants it seemed to me they were trying to pretend the past 30 odd years of bond never happened with things like bond had only just been given 00 status i know this was the first book written but if they wanted to start a the begining it should have been set in the 1950's it just didn't jel no moneypenny no q it just wasn't bond

..The Best Bond Film Yet. ..At last, we get Bond as he always should have been. No stupid lasers, invisible cars, flying landboats, or improbable gadgets that defy the laws of physics. No idiotic, one dimensional clichéd bad guys with impossible plans to rule the world. No smartass wisecracks from an invincible ubermensch. Just plain old espionage. After many false starts, and many ridiculous, preposterous sequels, "Casino Royale" is very possibly the best Bond film of all time. Everything that was wrong, stupid, patronising and obviously corporate about the last few has been thankfully, and gloriously discarded : John Cleese? Impervious Killers Who Feel No Pain? Audiences openly laughing at the dreadful CGI and the preposterous diamond-faced baddies? All, finally, thrown away into the rubbish where they belong. Instead, what we have in "Casino Royale" is an intelligent, brilliant thriller. Here Bond is just a man. He feels, he bleeds, he makes mistakes, he gets tired. His actually feels, and acts like a real human being, instead of some kind of bizarre Action Man cipher. Craig's Bond is the best Bond there has been. By getting an actor in, instead of a good-looking set of limited cheekbones, Bond becomes something other than a killing, quipping sex machine. It's a shame that "24", and "The Bourne Identity" have had to come first to show Bond how pathetic tripe like "Die Another Day" had become, but this essential reimagining destroys the established knowledge and instead casts Bond in a taut, plausible thriller. It also takes us back to the beginning of Bond. In "Dr.No", Sean Connery just arrived fully formed and moulded, like a plastic soldier. Here, we see the new Bond being born. We understand why he is so repressed, why he hides his feelings, why he doesn't trust. He's just like the rest of us, betrayed in a relationship and thus, wary of all mankind. You can see it in Craig, the moments where he grapples with emotions inside his head. You can see the moments where he reverts to autopilot, a man trained to kill. And the moments after, as he rationalises his actions. He starts off unlikable but human, and over the course of the film, he changes : he becomes cold, detached, efficient. And you can see that this is the real world Bond now lives in, not some implausible hyperstylised videogame reality. And the violence? The violence feels real. No jokey sound effects. No slow motion punches. Punches connect. They feel real. Bodies need to be hidden. Bond even gets arrested. The action setpieces are rooted in the world we inhabit - not a place of gigantic supertankers, space shuttles and nuclear submarines, but of construction sites, airports, town plazas and offices. But "Casino Royale" is far from perfect. It's at least 10 minutes too long, the pacing is as erratic as a stopped clock, the tone is uneven. It feels a couple of scenes too long, and there are moments where it feels as if the producers are subscribing to the fetish for ever longer running times, and an extra, final act that goes further than the narrative needs. It still feels, in places, as if it needs a nip and tuck in some scenes, especially near the end of the picture. "Casino Royale" is the best Bond film yet - an enjoyable, intelligent and realistic modern thriller that would stand up as a superior movie even if it didn't have the Bond name plastered on it. After thirty five years of near-constant, insulting silliness, finally there has been the Bond film that Bond fans have been waiting for.

Oh dear The packaging says 'best bond for decades'. Oh. Problem is I have seen them all, have them all, and this is...well. Graphics based on computer games rather than real life, so aimed at new generation I guess, but is there really any need to carry over the limitations of games graphics into a film when real actors are available? Dialogue - oh dear. Pace - tedious. Plot - well, I guess there was one. Music - probably. Action - repetitive. Poker - oh, so sophisiticated. Yawn.

Bond has turned into a hooligan Miscasted Bond folks.. If Cubby Broccoli were alive he probably would not approve.. The movie doesn't work for me, and the attempt at realism is not all that realistic anyway.. Why reinvent a well established suave and debonair character like James Bond and turn him into a hooligan? it isn't even larger than life anymore, almost boring for the most part.. Sad really but then again things change and you can choose to accept it or not. 21 bond films was really enough for me but I had my hopes up for another until I heard that they were casting Craig who really doesn't fit the mold.