Casino Royale (2006)

Armed with a license to kill, Secret Agent James Bond sets out on his first mission as 007 and must defeat a weapons dealer in a high stakes game of poker at Casino Royale, but things are not what they seem.

Director:

Martin Campbell

Writers:

Neal Purvis (screenplay), Robert Wade (screenplay),

Stars:

Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Judi Dench

Won 1 BAFTA Film Award. Another 17 wins & 29 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Daniel Craig	...	James Bond
Eva Green	...	Vesper Lynd
Mads Mikkelsen	...	Le Chiffre
Judi Dench	...	M
Jeffrey Wright	...	Felix Leiter
Giancarlo Giannini	...	Rene Mathis
Caterina Murino	...	Solange
Simon Abkarian	...	Alex Dimitrios
Isaach De Bankolé	...	Steven Obanno (as Isaach De Bankole)
Jesper Christensen	...	Mr. White
Ivana Milicevic	...	Valenka
Tobias Menzies	...	Villiers
Claudio Santamaria	...	Carlos
Sebastien Foucan	...	Mollaka (as Sébastien Foucan)
Malcolm Sinclair	...	Dryden

Storyline

James Bond goes on his first ever mission as a 00. Le Chiffre is a banker to the world's terrorists. He is participating in a poker game at Montenegro, where he must win back his money, in order to stay safe among the terrorist market. The boss of MI6, known simply as M sends Bond, along with Vesper Lynd to attend this game and prevent Le Chiffre from winning. Bond, using help from Felix Leiter, Mathis and having Vesper pose as his wife, enters the most important poker game in his already dangerous career. But if Bond defeats Le Chiffre, will he and Vesper Lynd remain safe?

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Plot Keywords:

terrorist | casino | money | montenegro | banker | 

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Taglines:

Daniel Craig is James Bond. Deal with it.

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Genres:

Action | Crime | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violent action, a scene of torture, sexual content and nudity

Details

Official Sites:

Official site Official site [ru]

Country:

UK Czech Republic USA Germany Bahamas

Language:

English French

Release Date:

17 November 2006 (USA)

Also Known As:

James Bond 21

Filming Locations:

Mladá Boleslav, Czech Republic

Box Office

Budget:

$150,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

£13,370,969 (UK) (17 November 2006)

Gross:

$167,007,184 (USA) (23 February 2007)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Columbia Pictures, Eon Productions, Casino Royale Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

144 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital SDDS DTS

Color:

Black and White Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Daniel Craig is the first actor to play James Bond who is younger than the series itself.

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Goofs

As confirmed by the "ELLIPSIS" text message, Bond's assault on the Nambutu Embassy in Madagascar takes place on 6th July 2006. The news website showcasing the CCTV footage of the incident, however, has Tuesday 28th highlighted on its web calendar. (Further confirmation that this is the wrong date is shown via the later attack on the Skyfleet S570 at Miami Airport, which explicitly takes place in the early hours of 9th July 2006.)

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Quotes

[first lines]
James Bond: M really doesn't mind you earning a little money on the side, Dryden. She'd just prefer it if it wasn't selling secrets.

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Crazy Credits

The opening MGM and Columbia logos are in black & white to coincide with the pre-title sequence.

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Connections

Referenced in House: House Training (2007)

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Soundtracks

"Linstead Market"
Traditional
Arranged and Performed by Gary Trotman
Courtesy of Arc Music Productions International Ltd.

User Reviews

A Royale without cheese.

Casino Royale is a major step-up from the flamboyant Die Another Day. Pierce Brosnan has been replaced by a young-ish Daniel Craig, there is no Q, no campy gadgets, no silly naked women silhouettes in the opening credits, no world-dominating super-colossus villains, no Miss Funnyfanny (or whatever), and no silly one-liners after killing bad guys. Basically everything that can date Bond film very quickly is gone. I never expected international espionage to look the way it has in past few Bond outings and I'm glad someone had the balls to go back to the hard-edged nature of the series, last seen in Licence to Kill.

The longest Bond movie so far, at 145 minutes, but it breezes by even though it reigns in on the normally excessive action scenes and depicts spying a more 'mundane' and 'realistic' manner (or at least as true as the series has been so far). But the one-thing that bugs me about action movies, particularly the Bond franchise, is that they are, most of the time, childish male fantasies with an indestructible hero who has fun shooting up the place and beds beautiful women. I would like something new for a change but Casino Royale does have Bond get hurt and go through more pain than he has previously.

Daniel Craig got a lot of hassle over his casting as Bond but not only does he have his youth as an advantage (he's the first 30-something to be cast in the role since Lazenby), he's also pretty damn trim, has the intensity Brosnan lacked and is surprisingly loose in a role that usually requires actors to be stiff and unemotional. It's also good to a fresh face in the role and who cares if he is blonde? Or the shortest actor to play him so far? I would have preferred that composer David Arnold went too. They didn't seem to be holding back on the amount of regular production team members who got axed. Even Vic Armstrong didn't return. I've never liked Arnold's work on the movies and I hate to think of it as something that's now exclusively HIS baby.

Unfortunately, as good as this fresh start to the franchise was, all of the goodwill that director Martin Campbell earned was completely undone by the follow-up Quantum of Solace, which is not only the worst Bond film so far, but one of the worst action films, and one of the worst films overall, that I have ever seen.

If Craig and Co. ever get around to making another, they've got a LOT to make up for.