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Casino Royale [DVD] [2006] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC] :
Casino Royale [DVD] [2006] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]
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Price: £5.92
as of 09/09/2010 23:29 BST
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Aspect Ratio: 4:3 - 1.33:1
Binding: DVD
EAN: 0043396151901
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Colour, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
Item Dimensions: 34
Label: Sony Pictures
Languages: EnglishSubtitledFrenchSubtitledSpanishSubtitledEnglishOriginal LanguageDolby Digital 5.1FrenchDubbedUnknownSpanishDubbedDolby Digital 5.1
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
MPN: 043396151901
Number Of Discs: 2
Number Of Items: 2
Publisher: Sony Pictures
Region Code: 1
Release Date: March 13, 2007
Running Time: 144 minutes
Studio: Sony Pictures
Theatrical Release Date: November 17, 2006
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Editorial Review:
Amazon.co.uk:
The most successful invigoration of a cinematic franchise since Batman Begins, Casino Royale offers a new Bond identity. Based on the Ian Fleming novel that introduced Agent 007 into a Cold War world, Casino Royale is the most brutal and viscerally exciting James Bond film since Sean Connery left Her Majesty's Secret Service. Meet the new Bond; not the same as the old Bond. Daniel Craig gives a galvanising performance as the freshly minted double-0 agent. Suave, yes, but also a "blunt instrument," reckless and possessed with an ego that compromises his judgment during his first mission to root out the mastermind behind an operation that funds international terrorists. In classic Bond film tradition, his global itinerary takes him to far-flung locales, including Uganda, Madagascar, the Bahamas (that's more like it) and Montenegro, where he is pitted against his nemesis in a poker game, with hundreds of millions in the pot. The stakes get even higher when Bond lets down his armour by falling in love with Vesper (Eva Green), the ravishing banker's representative fronting him the money.
For longtime fans of the franchise, Casino Royale offers some retro kicks. Bond wins his iconic Aston Martin at the gaming table, and when a bartender asks if he wants his martini "shaken or stirred," he disdainfully replies, "Do I look like I give a damn?". There's no Moneypenny or "Q," but Dame Judi Dench is back as the exasperated M who, one senses, admires Bond's "bloody cheek." A Bond film is only as good as its villain, and Mads Mikkelsen as Le Chiffre, who weeps blood, is a sinister dandy. From its punishing violence and virtuoso action sequences to its romance, Casino Royale is a Bond film that, in the words of one character, 'makes you feel it', particularly during an excruciating torture sequence. Double-0s, Bond observes early on, "have a short life expectancy". But with Craig, there is new life in the old franchise yet, as well as genuine anticipation for the next one when, at last, the signature James Bond theme kicks in following the best last line ever in any Bond film. To quote Goldie Hawn in Private Benjamin, "now I know what I've been faking all these years". --Donald Liebenson
Average Rating:
Rating: -
When this review, now the 380th in Amazon UK, was originally written in 2007, it was the 195th review of "Casino Royale" to appear in Amazon US. (I see that the total number of US reviews stands currently at 1,211.) I had looked over the previous 194 Amazon US reviews. The great majority of them praised this movie to the skies. Most adhered to one form or another of the "Best Since Connery" mantra. Some wild-eyed radicals are even breaking through all the barricades to proclaim Daniel Craig the best Bond ever.
The great majority of reviewers approached this Bond feature entirely as a film in a series of films. The underlying basis of their criticism, whether favorable to or revolted by the current "Casino Royale," rests on the joint creation of producer Albert R. (Cubby) Broccoli, directors such as Terrence Young and Guy Hamilton, and, of course, Sean Connery. To these people, the long-ago contributions of an obscure individual named Fleming hover somewhere between invisible and irrelevant.
A tiny remainder of reviewers trotted out the memory of Fleming, but mostly to declare that "Casino Royale" is a faithful reproduction of his novel of the same name. By "faithful," it is evident they meant on the one hand that the plot of the movie is roughly congruent to that of the book and, on the other hand, they mean the new Bond is not decked out with all manner of gaudy, deadly toys, fripperies and gimcracks. Only one of the then 194 US reviewers, Mr. William R. Hancock,and one annotator amid the comments offered convincing evidence that they have read more than a couple of pages of Fleming's writings in all their lives.
This new Bond, Daniel Craig, is very much a Bond for the Twenty-first Century. He is the man of the people that many men of the people like to imagine themselves to be--one many women of the people would simply like to like: straightforward, tough, competent ... hard in any of several senses: a demotic Bond.
Fleming's Bond was different. Fleming's operative was no man of the Twenty-first Century, and barely one of the Twentieth. His Bond was partly Sidney Reilly, who operated against the Germany of the Kaiser and the Russia of the Bolsheviks. The greater part of Bond, though, was a romanticized, idealized Ian Fleming.
Fleming was educated at Eton, Sandhurst, Munich University and the University of Geneva. In 1939 he was recruited by the Director of Intelligence for the Royal Navy. By the end of the war, he had risen to the rank of commander. In 1941, American General William Donovan asked him to write a memo detailing the operations of an intelligence and operations service. Parts of that memo were incorporated into the Charter of the OSS. Fleming enjoyed telling an anecdote in which he stumbled upon an Axis paymaster gambling in some neutral location. It had struck him that it would be a very useful thing to bankrupt the man at the tables, thus opening him up to control by British intelligence. Even more, he enjoyed admitting that he had gone broke in just three hands while trying to carry out his hare-brained scheme.
After the war, he took up the time-honored profession of washed up, highly educated, gentleman spies. He wrote potboilers for money. He remembered the name of a fellow member of his London club, one Blofeld, just as he remembered that Axis paymaster at the gambling table.
In his first novel, "Casino Royale," Fleming created an operative who held the rank of commander in the Royal Navy. Commander Bond was a member of an exclusive London gentleman's club. During the war years, while he had been busy assassinating Axis agents in New York and other exotic locales, he had stored away his beloved Bentley, which he now drove at excessive speed over English roads. He was a gentleman, defined in his mind as a man who never harms anyone--unintentionally. Commander Bond, like Fleming, was a frightful snob. He had very specific, even finicky ideas on proper behavior, gamesmanship (not always legal ones), brand-named merchandise, and the correct mixing of drinks.
Now, compare Fleming's Bond with the Craig's demotic model. That Bond's no commander in any man's navy. If he has a military background, it's as an "other ranks" SAS man. That Bond in a London club? As a dishwasher, perhaps. That Bond, a graduate of Eton, polished in foreign universities? Hardly--a year at a red brick school, maybe, and a desultory go with the Open University, at most.
Take the dinner jacket that Bond wears in the big gambling scene. It's brand new and fits him perfectly. Fleming, like his friend Noel Coward, really wore the things on a regular basis. They wore cuts slightly out of fashion and slightly but exquisitely baggy and threadbare. They owned the things, you see, and took pains to preserve them, so as not to be taken for freshly-tailored, nouveau riche bounders. Craig could pass for the bouncer ... Read More
Rating: 
-
With Brosnan blown out of the water by Bourne (released in the same year as Broasnan's last Bond outing), the producers clearly faced a crisis of confidence. Their answer was Daniel Craig, and what a perfect riposte it was. Craig is the best actor (apart from Tim Dalton) ever to tackle Bond and he has made a terrifying fist of it. He is massively helped by the use of an original novel on which the story is (pretty much) based. The whole style is different from earlier Bonds, closer to Fleming's original conception of the character, and the human element to the story lifts it to a different level. Too bad the sequel couldn't keep up!
Whatever happens to the franchise hereafter, in Casino Royale the Eon team has created a classic Bond movie. And Craig is the lifeblood.
Rating: -
if this is not the best James Bond film ever I would like to know which one is better. Daniel Craig is on the border of being the very best 007 ever. I was never very keen on Sean, or Timothy, I would watch them but not really fired up by them. This guy is brilliant, menacing yet friendly, and thos chase scenes in the beginning are just up there with the best, or even better than any before. I will never tire of watching this film.
Rating: -
I rubbished this film after seeing it in the cinema... too much change too soon, and i thought i liked change.
But this really is a kickass action movie, very stylish and no fancy gimmicks or nudge-nudge-wink-wink, dad-like one liners. Craig is the perfect Bond, as cold as a professional killer would be. It's also fun for a non Fleming fan to see how he became so cold towards women. The women and villians are perfectly cast, and above all it's believable, which, after the Day Another Day waterskiing farce, is very welcome.
I only hope Daniel Craig decides to stay on for a while.
PS Paul Greengrass always gets the kudos for Bourne when it was Doug Liman who set the franchise up, and made it's best film.
Rating: 
-
What more can I say, this is appalling drivel. The spirit of the original books was hijacked by the flash bang brigade a long time ago but now they've even disposed of script writers and a story line.
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