429. Casino Royale (2006)

Starring: Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen

Director: Martin Campbell

Running Time: 144 mins

Casino Royale is a British film and is the twenty first film in the James Bond franchise. In this adventure, 007 must face the ruthless villain: Le Chiffre, in a tense game of poker, but there is a wider threat to Bond’s, and the world’s, safety.

This film is, shall I say, different. Taking on a much more tension and storyline-oriented character, Casino Royale completely changes the Bond series from a fun adventure saga to an exciting action-based one, both for better and for worse.

On the side of the things this was better on in comparison to the classic Bonds, it had a very intelligent and intriguing story, avoiding all of the clichés of obvious moles and preposterous espionage, making it a lot more realistic, exciting and tense to watch.

Also, the serious tone this film takes on does give you much more interesting look into the character of Bond. Rather than being this glamorous and near-unstoppable agent, you see various sides to 007, such as his darker and more gruesome side, which isn’t presented in older Bond films, as well as his potentially weaker side, not just to beautiful women, but also to ruthless evil men, which is an interesting thing to see.

However, the loss of that quite silly element to the atmosphere isn’t something I really wanted to see. The double entendres, farcical characters and cheesy lines were always a welcome break from the action in previous Bonds, however Casino Royale is on the whole a much more overly serious and occasionally melancholy film, creating an atmosphere that isn’t at all as entertaining to watch.

Also, despite it being tense and interesting, this film’s story is very slow-paced for an action movie. Taking at least an hour to properly kick off with all of the peril that Bond must face, it does often become quite boring to watch, and you lose your patience gradually with tension building as the film goes on.

Overall, though, I’ll give this a 7.5, because it has a different, clever, interesting and largely exciting story, however it misses some of those classic elements of Bond films of yesteryear.