Best Ever!
The Best Bond film ever with superb action and a great story with Daniel Craig playing Bond better than anyone!
Great!

Amazing!
Fantastic Bond film, great acting, great action and great story!
I reccommend this DVD!

GREAT BOND ACTOR - POOR BOND STORY
Daniel Craig is the best Bond actor of all times - undeniably. But the poor story lets him down. After the great 5 minutes the story just sluffs off. I really like Judi Dench as M - the UK has some of the very best actors right now.
Unfortunately most of the story is a total bore. Nonetheless it's successor QUANTUM OF SOLACE is a great improvement, being the best Bond of all times.

Good but not great.
Having now seen the new movie -Quantum of solace- it seems that Casino Royale is the one lone high point of the last 9 years. Craig in his debut gives a good and strong performance and a lot of the stunt work (some of which he done himself) is brilliant. But some sceanes are not of a bond movie the torture stuff although done very well does not belong in a bond movie. That said with what has come before and after the film was very good.

Craig's Bond won me over
I have to admit at first I was pretty skeptical about Casino Royale. I was a big Brosnan fan and was sad to see him go and with 4 years between Die Another Day and Casino Royale I generally lost interest in Bond. I had little interest in going to see Casino Royale when it came out and it took me until about a month ago and the hype surrounding Quantum of Solace to make me interested in it.

I purchased the no-frills single disc edition of this film and I didn't really know what to expect. I had heard that the film was a re-boot of the franchise and it was going to be different from most of the previous films. I approached it with an open mind and I have to say I really enjoyed it.

Gone are the days of an almost invincible Bond who doesn't really like to kill people and when he does he takes out the pain by cracking a few witty one-liners. This is Bond before he became the Bond we all know. He has an ego problem, he's arrogant and reckless and he lets his emotions interfere with his mission. He's a vulnerable rookie, just recently promoted to "00" status and out to prove himself on his first mission. He appears more human than he has ever done before.

A lot of people had a problem with the casting of Daniel Craig and at first I was in agreement with them. However after seeing Casino Royale I can honestly say that Daniel Craig's depiction of Bond is first class. Having read some of the novels, Craig appears to be the closest to Ian Fleming's original image of Bond. Craig plays the role to perfection and he comes across as the most realistic and believable Bond that has ever been portrayed.

Onto the film itself then and without giving too much of the plot away Bond has just been promoted to a double-0 agent and his first mission is to win a game of poker arranged by terrorist banker Le Chiffre in order to bankrupt him so his only option would be to turn to MI6 for protection from his lenders and in return they want to know about the organisations he represents. It seems simple enough and the film isn't very difficult to follow.

The way that the focus is on characters and story this time, rather than on stunts and gadgets is a breath of fresh air and again this is more in keeping with Fleming's original Bond. There are few gadgets used in this film and what gadgets are used are mostly just more advanced versions of current technology (e.g. a mobile phone with a tracking device etc.). Modern technology it seems has caught up with Bond .

The film does a great job of showing how Bond changes throughout the course of his mision. The toll that it takes on him, both physically and mentally is something that has rarely been seen before in a Bond film. Craig's Bond actually seems to enjoy killing and he is much more cold hearted than any previous Bond.

From beginning to end I very much enjoyed this film. It may not be to everyone's liking, especially die-hard Bond fans who want the old Bond back, but it is great to see Bond being brought into the 21st century and revitalised. The film doesn't end where you think it will, the story gets a bit deeper and I was actually surprised at how it ended, however I won't ruin it for those that haven't seen it.

Some have criticised this film and said it is more of a generic action film than a Bond film. I would have to disagree. It is not the usual Bond but in my opinion it is a great change for the franchise and a fantastic film. After 5 viewings in less than a month I still love it and it's a must if you are interested in watching Quantum of Solace.

Overall I would whole-heartedly recommend Casino Royale. It's a great film and I believe it takes the Bond franchise in a new and exciting direction.

If you want a load of extra features and the like, aswell as a nice presentation box then get the new deluxe version, however if you're not interested in that then by all means just plump for this no-frills single disc version.

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