007 Week: Casino Royale

Hello again Bond fans and welcome to the final day of 007 week.  Hope that didn't sound too ominious.  As this is the 21st installment to the franchise the team decided to go back to its roots and tap into Ian Fleming's original character as much as possible.  Weapons, timeline and politics are updated of course, but the source material is true to form as a new Bond is on the scene in his first mission.  With being a fresh field agent, learning to shut down his emotions and do the business at hand, Bond has his hands full with this assignment in shutting down a banker to known warlords and terrorist cells.  This is Casino Royale.

Yes, I am a trifle smug.

James Bond: M really doesn't mind you earning a little money on the side, Dryden. She'd just prefer it if it wasn't selling spoilers.




After dispatching a traitorous MI6 section chief and his contact for classified documents, James Bond (Daniel Craig of Our Friends in the North, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Layer Cake, The Golden Compass, Quantum of Solace and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) he makes his double 0 status and has been given the designation of 007.  He must travel to Madagascar to find a bomb maker and ends up chasing him down to an embassy.  Hopelessly outnumbered he shoots the bomb maker, defuses the bomb in his pack and swipes the maker's cell phone.

Tracking down the bomb maker's contact he discovers a Alex Dimitrios (Simon Abkarian of Ararat, Casino Royale, Persepolis and Zero Dark Thirty) a contact and associate of the banker and financier Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen of Bleeder, Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself, Unit 1, King Arthur, After the Wedding and Hannibal) who plots to destroy a plane company financially with a bomb and causing his shares to sky rocket.  Bond heads to Miami to stop yet another bomber, thwart the impending plane explosion and save the day.

None of your cheek, mister.

Up to his eyeballs in debt, Le Chiffre enters a high stakes poker game to recoop his losses of his client's money.  M (Dame Judi Dench of A Study in Terror, Theatre 625, A Midsummer Night's Dream, A Fine Romance, Henry V, As Time Goes By, Casino Royale and J. Edgar) feels if Bond eliminates Le Chiffre in the card game he will have no choice but to come to British Intelligence to spill his contacts and dealing in order to save his own skin.   So Bond is off to Montenegro for the card game meeting HM Treasury agent Vesper Lynd (Eva Green of Kingdom of Heaven, Franklyn, Camelot, Dark Shadows, 300: Rise of an Empire and Penny Dreadful) bankrolling this event with $100 million and another 5 million on standby.   With pressure on, Bond hammers through a card game that holds so much going for it and to slip up here may cost him his life.

A few notations about the film now.
In one afternoon's shooting schedule three Aston Martin DBS were destroyed in the car roll cut scenes, each tallying $300,000 a piece.   The way Craig orders his first vodka martini is lifted completely from the novel Casino Royale.  Daniel Craig had to put on 20 pounds of muscle and quit smoking for the role's cardio driven escapades.  Rather than the standard high-stakes game of Baccarat from the novel they changed it up to a series of Texas Hold' Em poker.  

This is also the first Bond film since Dr. No there were no jiggly girls dancing in the opening title sequence.
Former Bond Roger more was reported to have been so impressed with the movie he went out and bought a DVD copy of it.   Now that is a plug you can count on.

Well that is plenty of eye candy in one shot.