Casino Royale (2006) Review: Bond, Rebuilt From Scratch

Is Casino Royale worth watching?

Yes. Casino Royale is the Bond film that reinvented the series, a tough, emotionally serious spy thriller that also delivers some of the best action of its decade. Daniel Craig strips 007 back to a blunt instrument still learning the job, and Eva Green gives him a genuine match. The only real reservation is length: at 144 minutes, the story keeps going after it feels finished, and the final stretch is looser than everything before it.

What is Casino Royale about?

Casino Royale goes back to the beginning. James Bond (Daniel Craig) has just earned his licence to kill and is already proving reckless, headstrong and difficult for his superiors at MI6 to control. His first major assignment points him towards Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), a private banker who manages money for terrorist organisations and has got himself into serious financial trouble.

Le Chiffre’s plan to recover his losses is a high-stakes poker game in Montenegro, and MI6 sends Bond to beat him at the table. Keeping an eye on the government’s money is Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), a sharp Treasury official who is unimpressed by Bond from their first meeting. Judi Dench returns as M, and Jeffrey Wright and Giancarlo Giannini play allies of uncertain reliability.

Martin Campbell directed this British production, adapted from Ian Fleming’s first Bond novel. It is in English and runs 144 minutes.

Craig’s Bond bleeds, and it changes everything

Craig’s casting was controversial at the time, and the film makes the doubters look foolish within minutes. His Bond is physical, arrogant and wounded, a man whose charm is a tool rather than a personality. He sweats, gets hurt and makes mistakes, and the film treats those mistakes as consequential. That vulnerability gives the traditional Bond pleasures, the tuxedos, the cars and the one-liners, a new edge, because this version has to grow into them.

Eva Green’s Vesper is the best-written Bond woman in decades. Their first conversation, a verbal sparring match on a train, is as thrilling as any stunt, and the relationship that follows gives the film an emotional weight the series had rarely attempted. Mikkelsen is a cold, precise villain, his menace rooted in desperation rather than grandiosity.

Action with weight and invention

Campbell stages action with a clarity that makes most modern blockbusters look muddled. An early foot chase across a construction site, all cranes, girders and freerunning, is a masterclass in escalating spatial logic, and a sequence at Miami airport builds tension from a simple race against time. The fights are close, messy and bruising, closer to Jason Bourne than to the gadget-heavy Bond films that preceded it.

Just as impressive is the card game. Poker is not naturally cinematic, but the film turns the Montenegro tournament into a gripping duel of nerves, interrupting it with bursts of violence and poisonings that raise the stakes outside the room. The theme song, Chris Cornell’s “You Know My Name”, sets the harder tone from the opening titles.

Where it runs past the finish line

The film’s structure is its one clear flaw. After the central poker showdown, the story continues for a substantial stretch, and while it is essential to the emotional arc, the momentum dips before a final set piece. Viewers unfamiliar with poker may also find some of the table talk opaque, though the film is careful to make the stakes clear through performance.

Who should watch Casino Royale?

It is the natural starting point for anyone new to Bond, and it is essential for fans of intelligent action thrillers who prefer grit to gadgets. Set aside nearly two and a half hours. Expect frequent violence, some of it brutal, including a notoriously harsh interrogation scene, along with mild language and sexual content.

Where to go from here:

• Skyfall, Craig’s other great Bond film, which looks harder at the character’s past and his relationship with M.
• No Time to Die, which closes the Craig era and pays off threads first laid down here.
• The Dark Knight Rises, for another franchise from the same era that took its hero seriously and let him get hurt.

The verdict

Casino Royale gave James Bond a pulse, a past and a heart, without losing the glamour and spectacle that made the series famous. A slightly baggy final act is the only thing keeping it from perfection; everything else is among the best the genre has produced.

Rating: 4.5/5