Movie Title: Casino Royale
Genre: Action, Adventure, Mystery
Director: Martin Campbell
Writer: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Paul Haggis
Starring: Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen, Giancarlo Giannini, Jeffrey Wright, Judi Dench
Review: After receiving a license to kill, British Secret Service agent James Bond (Daniel Craig) heads to Madagascar, where he uncovers a link to Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), a man who finances terrorist organizations. Learning that Le Chiffre plans to raise money in a high-stakes poker game, MI6 sends Bond to play against him, gambling that their newest "00" operative will topple the man's organization.
The 2006 iteration of Casino Royale is a fantastic action movie that ushers in Daniel Craig and a new and improved era of James Bond films. Craig does a brilliant job playing the iconic James Bond character. There's a real emotional and humanizing element to Bond that hasn't been seen in quite some time and it comes across as both dark and authentic. Eva Green is also great as Bond's love interest and HM Treasury agent, Vesper Lynd. There's a scene in which Bond kills an adversary in a hotel stairwell where Vesper witnesses her first death. Green does an incredible job here making the audience truly believe that his traumatic experience has cut her deeply. The chemistry between Craig and Green is on-point, and Mads Mikkelsen plays a great villain with a quiet, confident mysteriousness to him.
Casino Royale is an incredibly entertaining action movie. The action is intense, exciting, and well-choreographed. The love story is authentic, and the ending is both emotional and a stark reminder of the consequences that come with Bond's line of work. This is a brilliant, fun, and exciting action movie, and one that surely has put the Bond franchise back on the map!
Fun Fact: Daniel Craig actually rejected the part of James Bond a year before, as he had felt that the series had settled into a standard formula. He changed his mind when he read the finished script.