HennessyROB's "Casino Royale" Review (1 Viewer)

[RJ in Lafayette]

I just watched the movie on DVD. 8 out of 10 (had it ended 20 minutes earlier, a 9).

It has much going for it--the best Bond movie since On Her Majesty's Secret Service, a realistic script, Daniel Craig as the best James Bond since Sean Connery, the best fight scenes in a Bond movie since the 1960s, no stupid gadgets, and for my money one of the best Bond girls in the series with Eva Green as Vesper Lynd.

What I didn't like: Too long. The ending (in some respects like the book's). The torture scene (though it's in the novel). James Bond almost as a hit man. And the accents of the actors at times making the lines difficult to understand.

 

[MickelMouse87]

I watched it on DVD last night and still love it. I'm in the process of watching it again.

 

[RJ in Lafayette]

Thinking about the movie a bit more, I am reminded of the Jason Bourne movies with the eleaborate fight scenes and constant betrayals. But Craig reminded me of Edward Fox as the assassin in a terrific early 70s movie called The Day of the Jackal about political opponents of de Gaulle hiring a professional assassin to kill the French president in the early 60s. If you have not seen that movie, you need to rent it.

And I had never heard of Eva Green before this movie, but though young she is stunning (and physically the epitome of the Bond heroine in the Ian Fleming books), and the scenes between her and Craig before the Venice ending crackle with tension and contain perhaps the best sustained dialogue in the entire series. I particularly enjoyed her opening scene involving the verbal jousting on the train.