Armed with a license to kill, Secret Agent James Bond sets out on his first mission as 007, and must defeat a private banker to terrorists in a high stakes game of poker at Casino Royale, Montenegro, but things are not what they seem.
Bond's loyalty to M is tested when her past comes back to haunt her. When MI6 comes under attack, 007 must track down and destroy the threat, no matter how personal the cost.
A cryptic message from 007's past sends him pitted against a mysterious terrorist organization called Spectre, and learns of its involvement in previous events of his most dangerous missions.
James Bond teams up with the lone survivor of a destroyed Russian research center to stop the hijacking of a nuclear space weapon by a fellow Agent formerly believed to be dead.
Director:
Martin Campbell
Stars:
Pierce Brosnan,
Sean Bean,
Izabella Scorupco
James Bond is sent to investigate the connection between a North Korean terrorist and a diamond mogul, who is funding the development of an international space weapon.
Jason Bourne dodges a ruthless C.I.A. official and his Agents from a new assassination program while searching for the origins of his life as a trained killer.
James Bond goes rogue and sets off to unleash vengeance on a drug lord who tortured his best friend, a C.I.A. Agent, and left him for dead and murdered his bride after he helped capture him.
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 partner, enters the most important poker game in his already dangerous career. But if Bond defeats Le Chiffre, will he and Vesper Lynd remain safe?Written by
simon
Diane Hartford: She features as Card Player #3 in the credits, and has the longest gap between appearances in Bond movies. She had three lines playing a girl in the Kiss Kiss Club in Thunderball (1965), a gap of 41 years. See more »
Goofs
In the chase scene at the start of the film, Mollaka climbs a 'wooden' ladder - it's actually an aluminium ladder, painted to appear wooden. You can tell it's aluminium because it has holes down the sides where the rungs join. See more »
Quotes
James Bond:
[Vesper Lynd presents her business card]
Vesper? I do hope you gave your parents hell for that.
See more »
Crazy Credits
The opening MGM and Columbia logos are in black & white to coincide with the pre-title sequence. See more »
Alternate Versions
US version is cut in the toilet fight and the stairwell fight scene to secure a PG-13 rating. In the later, Obanno's henchmen hitting the ground and Obanno crashing into the glass window are the most obvious cuts. However, additional punches, elbows, and shoving are removed and the struggle at the bottom of the stairwell was heavily shortened. The music score has also been remixed to accommodate the edits, and alternate footage used to smooth over some of the edits. See more »
In the original Bond series, only a handful of films really attempted to touch base with the novels of Ian Fleming. "Dr. No" showed the Fleming feeling for character and action, but introduced elements to the plot that detracted from the 'hard-boiled' spy story that Fleming thought he was writing; "Thunderball" came close, but that was because Fleming developed the story on commission for the film. "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" had the book's plot pretty down pat, and was made in a kind of 'grand adventure' style, but of course it suffered from the choice of Lazenby - a professional model, not an actor - as Bond. "The Living Daylights" showed the producers' interest in returning to the roots, but Dalton was uncomfortable playing Bond, and uncomfortable with the wisecracks which had become part of the character's schtick - and which were really badly written for the Dalton films. "Goldeneye" was admirable attempt to update the Fleming milieu for the end of the Cold War, but left the character himself as yet without an 'updated' definition.
The decision to make a 21st Century version of Fleming's first Bond novel - and, beyond the update, to remain true to the novel, sans comic patter, sans sci-fi techno-schtick, sans major rewrite of the basic plot - promised to present Bond fans of all ages with a direct challenge. Do we want the hard-boiled spy Fleming first envisioned - patterned after Chandler's Philip Marlowe and W. Somerset Maughm's Ashenden ("or: The British Agent")? Or would we really rather have the suave stand-up comedian and Playboy magazine contributor introduced by Broccoli, Maibaum, Young, and company, in the second Connery film, "From Russia With Love"?
Well, the votes are still being tallied on that.
As someone who came to Bond reading "Goldfinger" at the tender age of twelve (the phrase "round, firm, pointed breasts" has been an inspiration to me since), the closer the films came to the sense of the novels, the happier I was.
So of course, this version of Bond is a joyous surprise for me - my youthful daydreams have been vindicated and at last fully satisfied. There are indeed elements added to the plot, but they are completely congruent with it. There is the use of current technology, but no techno-schtick - i.e., no Q. and no "gadgets". There are the luscious Bond babes (2 - the minimum Bond requirement), but there is no attempt to reduce them to photogenic sex-toys.
Fleming's plot actually requires the film's addition of some heavy action sequences (all done very snappy, with a brutally realistic edge), because the novel is very claustrophobic; the original TV version of the story (1955, with Barry Nelson as 'Jimmy Bond'), only used three indoor sets, because it could - except for the car chase and an attempted bombing at an outdoor café, Fleming's novel took place almost entirely within Bond's hotel suite and the gaming room. The film's opening this novel out to the world is actually quite welcome, and does not affect the central plot or its theme.
The character of Bond presented in this film may disappoint followers of the original films, but the news is, this is FLEMING's Bond - an orphan uncertain of his own identity, a disillusioned romantic trying hard to pretend he's incapable of emotions, a middle class, middle-brow, middle-level management type who just happens to kill people for a living. But he does it extremely well.
The other problem some general viewers may have is the level of violence in the film; having determined to film the novel realistically, director Martin Campbell has decided to ditch the 'B-movie' violence of most of the earlier films, and present us the violence with a hard 'British neo-noir' edge to it. Given the romantic plot twist toward the end, this would be a perfect date movie - except that the violence left some of the female viewers in the theater I attended clearly unsettled. That's not necessarily a bad thing, it just is part of the gestalt of the film's experience.
Cambell's direction is very good; the writing is crisp; production values are very high; the photography is stunning. Some of the stunt work is truly remarkable, worthy competition for Jackie Chan. The acting is rock-solid and believable for these characters. There is plenty of muscle for the action-film fan, and some real brains for the more general viewer to ponder later.
This film is best viewed with minimal reliance on knowledge of the previous series. In fact, it functions perfectly well as a 'one-off', a film without a series.
But of course, the ending invites a sequel. In Godzilla terms, Connery and Moore having given us the 'showa' Bond, Dalton and Brosnan the "Heisei" Bond, we now have the "Millenium" series James Bond - not a prequel nor even a 'reboot', but, really, an entirely new series about the same character. It is probably too much to hope for, but maybe they can make the sequels just as good as this.
As a genre film it never quite lifts above its genre; so normally I would only give it "nine stars" as a film.
However, as a film within its genre, it is top-of-the-line - so it gets a ten.
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In the original Bond series, only a handful of films really attempted to touch base with the novels of Ian Fleming. "Dr. No" showed the Fleming feeling for character and action, but introduced elements to the plot that detracted from the 'hard-boiled' spy story that Fleming thought he was writing; "Thunderball" came close, but that was because Fleming developed the story on commission for the film. "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" had the book's plot pretty down pat, and was made in a kind of 'grand adventure' style, but of course it suffered from the choice of Lazenby - a professional model, not an actor - as Bond. "The Living Daylights" showed the producers' interest in returning to the roots, but Dalton was uncomfortable playing Bond, and uncomfortable with the wisecracks which had become part of the character's schtick - and which were really badly written for the Dalton films. "Goldeneye" was admirable attempt to update the Fleming milieu for the end of the Cold War, but left the character himself as yet without an 'updated' definition.
The decision to make a 21st Century version of Fleming's first Bond novel - and, beyond the update, to remain true to the novel, sans comic patter, sans sci-fi techno-schtick, sans major rewrite of the basic plot - promised to present Bond fans of all ages with a direct challenge. Do we want the hard-boiled spy Fleming first envisioned - patterned after Chandler's Philip Marlowe and W. Somerset Maughm's Ashenden ("or: The British Agent")? Or would we really rather have the suave stand-up comedian and Playboy magazine contributor introduced by Broccoli, Maibaum, Young, and company, in the second Connery film, "From Russia With Love"?
Well, the votes are still being tallied on that.
As someone who came to Bond reading "Goldfinger" at the tender age of twelve (the phrase "round, firm, pointed breasts" has been an inspiration to me since), the closer the films came to the sense of the novels, the happier I was.
So of course, this version of Bond is a joyous surprise for me - my youthful daydreams have been vindicated and at last fully satisfied. There are indeed elements added to the plot, but they are completely congruent with it. There is the use of current technology, but no techno-schtick - i.e., no Q. and no "gadgets". There are the luscious Bond babes (2 - the minimum Bond requirement), but there is no attempt to reduce them to photogenic sex-toys.
Fleming's plot actually requires the film's addition of some heavy action sequences (all done very snappy, with a brutally realistic edge), because the novel is very claustrophobic; the original TV version of the story (1955, with Barry Nelson as 'Jimmy Bond'), only used three indoor sets, because it could - except for the car chase and an attempted bombing at an outdoor café, Fleming's novel took place almost entirely within Bond's hotel suite and the gaming room. The film's opening this novel out to the world is actually quite welcome, and does not affect the central plot or its theme.
The character of Bond presented in this film may disappoint followers of the original films, but the news is, this is FLEMING's Bond - an orphan uncertain of his own identity, a disillusioned romantic trying hard to pretend he's incapable of emotions, a middle class, middle-brow, middle-level management type who just happens to kill people for a living. But he does it extremely well.
The other problem some general viewers may have is the level of violence in the film; having determined to film the novel realistically, director Martin Campbell has decided to ditch the 'B-movie' violence of most of the earlier films, and present us the violence with a hard 'British neo-noir' edge to it. Given the romantic plot twist toward the end, this would be a perfect date movie - except that the violence left some of the female viewers in the theater I attended clearly unsettled. That's not necessarily a bad thing, it just is part of the gestalt of the film's experience.
Cambell's direction is very good; the writing is crisp; production values are very high; the photography is stunning. Some of the stunt work is truly remarkable, worthy competition for Jackie Chan. The acting is rock-solid and believable for these characters. There is plenty of muscle for the action-film fan, and some real brains for the more general viewer to ponder later.
This film is best viewed with minimal reliance on knowledge of the previous series. In fact, it functions perfectly well as a 'one-off', a film without a series.
But of course, the ending invites a sequel. In Godzilla terms, Connery and Moore having given us the 'showa' Bond, Dalton and Brosnan the "Heisei" Bond, we now have the "Millenium" series James Bond - not a prequel nor even a 'reboot', but, really, an entirely new series about the same character. It is probably too much to hope for, but maybe they can make the sequels just as good as this.
As a genre film it never quite lifts above its genre; so normally I would only give it "nine stars" as a film.
However, as a film within its genre, it is top-of-the-line - so it gets a ten.