Casino Royale

It is incredibly gratifying when 150 minutes of a film passes like an hour and you are still having a good time. Although I thought No Time to Die set the bar so high as to be the best Bond film to date, Casino Royale catches up to it and is every bit as gripping. Perfect action, the poker games were damn thrilling, Mads Mikkelsen as the bad guy is excellent as always, Daniel Craig and Eva Green are equally so, and as a whole the film just feels polished and wonderfully consistent. A very strong four-stars and I can imagine how much this kick-off to the 007 franchise must have pleased back in 2006. (04/10/2021)

After a year and a half, I’m changing my review. Maybe it's because I've started to enjoy poker, maybe it's because more bombastic action like the opening in Madagascar would only hurt it, and mostly maybe it's because I’m finally willing to separate the terms "Bond" and "Bourne," whilst also acknowledging that a similar concept doesn't mean plagiarism. Instead, I enjoyed two and a half hours of a thrilling adventure that Daniel Craig is happy to drag you through with him. It’s all done with such vigor that you'll take punches too, and when Eva Green whispers sugarplums in your ear, you'll melt. A couple of hours after watching it, I am unbearably tempted to put the disc in the DVD player again. Could a film have a better calling card? (09/11/2008)

After "Bond" (Connery), "Strange Bond" (Lazenby), "Funny Bond" (Moore), "Rambo Bond" (Dalton) and "Mixed Bond" (Brosnan), here's another guy. Daniel Craig - "Rough Pissed Off Bond". Casino Royale is a gripping film that will keep you interested from start to finish. The "crane and all that" scene is one of the most bombastic action spectacles I've ever seen in a movie theater, and clearly the best of the entire film. But the rest of the Casino is not far behind. For example, I would never have believed that it is possible to film poker games in a thrilling and entertaining way. The new generation Bond did not disappoint - Craig is likable, he is human and not a machine seducing busty nymphs, he is tough as nails and entertaining. Great! (28/08/2009)

At least for me, Casino Royale was the biggest surprise of this season (but no wonder just 24 days after its release :-). Martin Campbell succeeded in the restart for the Bond brand that didn’t work even in Golden Eye. Bond is simply better than ever before. This is greatly due to the excellent Daniel Craig and I’m glad that the misgivings about his being cast as 007 were wrong because it’s him who is the powerhouse of the whole movie. The action sequences are simply genius (I was thrilled by the whole Miami / Ruzyně airport operation), and not to few, not too many of them. The romantic storyline is enchanting and very well conceived, at last we have the chance to see inside James Bond. And no shortage of dry lines and jokes. Almost every other wisecrack is a Bond-movie cliché and it is really great to follow the gradual evolution of Bond’s character... I’m just curious if this great movie will be trumped by the third Bourne next year. (07/12/2006)

It was a terrible blow at the time. After four adventures with the elegant Pierce Brosnan, along came tough guy Daniel Craig, an uncompromising sharpshooter, a bleeding brawler, a tormented sarcastic, and a rough mountain of secret agent potential. I almost cowered under the seat out of respect for his charisma, but he still didn't fit my previous perception of the Bond brand. The dry lines remained, the technical toys gave way to dirty action, and it was only after a long 14 years since the premiere that I finally realized, during a specific "regeneration", how perfectly balanced the Montenegrin card spectacle turned out to be. From the black and white intro to the Italian shot. (05/12/2006)