Casino Royale: Deluxe Edition

Introduction

The novel Casino Royale has one of the most interesting histories of any book subsequently adapted into a film. It's chequered history involves the rights being purchased by an Egyptian émigré, them being split between two people, adapted into an episode (the only one) of the TV show Climax!, the spoof spy caper of the same name starring David Niven, Peter Sellers and Orson Welles (designed to rival the successful Cubby Broccoli-produced franchise) and finally MGM and Columbia coming to an agreement to make a film the book deserves.

I should probably begin this by stating that I am in no way a James Bond fan - I don't dislike the films either - but haven't seen many, if any, more than once. I've never read one of Fleming's novels and was so tired of the films that by the time I was frequenting the cinema I didn't bother going to see the later films starring Pierce Brosnan.

It seems that my boredom with the franchise around the 19th and 20th films was shared by producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson who decided to discontinue the increasingly gadget obsessed nature of the Bond movies and look for something else, even considering Jinx, a spin-off from Die Another Day, before deciding to re-launch the franchise with an adaptation of the first Bond book and make a proper version of Casino Royale.



Taking the character back to the beginning, the film starts with MI6 spy James Bond in the office of a corrupt station chief in Prague - Bond at this point has yet to gain full '00' status - and, in a gritty black and white prologue, he dispatches the agent. We next see Bond as a field operative in Madagascar chasing down a bomb maker in a superb sequence involving free-running and he breaks one of the most sacred agreements in international relations by pursuing the man into his embassy and killing him. This wouldn't normally be a problem but his actions were caught on CCTV and leaked to the press by the wronged country.

Bond shows his savvy and cheek by breaking into M's home and using her computer to track a message on the bomber's cell phone so when M tells him to take a break, Bond does so and follows the lead to the Bahamas from where the message was sent. There he follows the lead, travels to Miami to foil a plot to blow up the World's biggest airliner which implicates Le Chiffre, a financier of global terrorism. Having bet much of his clients' money on the collapse of the airline's stock, Le Chiffre is desperate for money so organises a high stakes poker game at the Casino Royale in Montenegro.

Video

Directed by GoldenEye helmer Martin Campbell, this is a fantastic action film which has made the jump to Blu-ray for the second time and shows exactly how good the format can look. The location shooting in the Bahamas pays dividends with some beautiful scenery, gorgeous beaches and sea and some sequences that can be used as 'showreel' for the format. Lindy Hemming's costumes are fantastic and the mise-en-scène is excellent, with great work by director of photography Phil Méheux.

*The pictures contained in this review are for illustrative purposes only and do not reflect the image quality of the disc.*

Audio

From the opening prologue, with the gritty fight scene, to the excellent Chris Cornell theme song 'You Know My Name' and David Arnold's excellent score, this is a mightily impressive soundtrack and the dialogue and effects aren't bad either. The sound is crisp and appropriately bassy when called for, with clear dialogue and action scenes that give your amp and speaker system a workout.

Extra Features

The first disc contains:
Picture-in-Picture Commentary with director Martin Campbell and producer Michael Wilson - this a waste of PiP as all the box shows is them talking and is not even on screen the whole time. The commentary is very good and well delivered, but the PiP is pointless.
Crew Commentary - this has scene-specific comments and observations from just about everyone from executive producers to the composer and costume designer.
Know Your Double -O: The Ultimate James Bond Trivia Quiz - with single or two player options, this has enough questions about all the bond films to keep both the casual and ardent fans happy. Needless to say, I did pretty badly but still managed to get 00 status!
Trailers for 21, Vantage Point and Hancock.
BD Live on both discs currently with downloadable clips and information about Quantum of Solace as well as the usual trailers.

The second disc has hours of supplementary material:
Deleted Scenes (HD) - these are actually four extended scenes, which were quite rightly trimmed.
The Road to Casino Royale (HD, 27 minutes) - This is a fascinating featurette about the torturous journey of how this film came to be made.
Ian Fleming's Incredible Creation (HD, 21 minutes) - A look at the birth and continued success of James Bond.
James Bond in the Bahamas (HD, 24 minutes) - A look at Bond's relationship with the island, with footage of all the films set or filmed there.
Ian Fleming: The Secret Road to Paradise (HD, 24 minutes) - A look at Bond's creator's relationship with the Bahamas and the history of the island.
Death in Venice (HD, 23 minutes) - A comprehensive look at how the final scene in Venice was created.
Becoming Bond (HD, 27 minutes) - Daniel Craig discusses the process behind how he was cast and the filming of Casino Royale.
James Bond: For Real (HD, 25 minutes) - A look at the stunts and action sequences and how they fit the 'new' Bond style.
Bond Girls are Forever (2006) (SD, 49 minutes) - This three-part documentary looks at the history and place of many of the most memorable Bond Girls.
The Art of the Freerun (HD, 14 minutes) - The freerunning scene was one of the most memorable and this is a look at Sébastien Foucan and the development of Parcours.
Catching a Plane: From Storyboard to Screen (HD, 14 minutes) - Features outtakes and never-before-seen footage
Storyboard Sequence: Freerun Chase (HD, 10 minutes) - Watch the storyboards presented in sketch form, or view them in comparison to the finished film sequence.
Filmmaker Profiles (HD, 53 minutes) - I thought this would be a page about each person but it is a series of in-depth conversations Martin Campbell (director), Chris Corbould (special effects), Phil Méheux (director of photography), Gary Powell (stunt coordinator), Alexander Witt (second unit director) and David Arnold (composer).
Chris Cornell Music Video (SD) - The video of the theme song.

All these are subtitled in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese, Chinese, Dutch, Korean and Thai.

Conclusion

It's taken over fifty years to make a serious film adaptation of Casino Royale and it's a case of third time lucky, following the TV episode and spoof film. There was much consternation in the press and online when Daniel Craig was announced as the next Bond and I must admit that I had my reservations, I thought that Clive Owen might have made a good 007, but I think just about everyone is in agreement that Craig makes a terrific Bond and is generally considered as, together with Connery, one of the best and I think this performance edges him over the Scot. Only time will tell if his is the definitive Bond but Craig is a fantastic actor, with an extremely varied filmography from his breakout role in Our Friends in the North to playing a lecturer in Enduring Love, a charismatic drug dealer in Layer Cake, a killer in Infamous and Paul Newman's temperamental and flawed son in Road to Perdition. His Bond isn't the suave gadget wearing silver-tongued quip merchant that his predecessors were but a ruthless trained killer who can look at you as if he wants to bed you or rip your head off.

Alongside him is Eva Green's Vesper Lynd, one of the more impressive and believable 'Bond girls' who is the equal of the hero as she demonstrates when she effortlessly deconstructs him when they first meet on the train to Montenegro. The trend had been for Bond's female companion to be someone attractive on his arm who he'd bed and then forget about, with the exception being Diana Rigg in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. In the most recent films, the female star had more to do, fighting alongside the British Spy, but here Lynd is a complex character and only the second with whom Bond falls in love.



This is a tightly written spy thriller which benefits from the lack of an über villain - Le Chiffre is only a main player in the second act but is believable and played with real menace by Mads Mikkelsen - and the network of criminals extends to the immediate sequel. After the high-octane first act, the entire middle section centres on a game of poker which, to the spectator, isn't the most exciting of activities, yet it is a tense and gripping game, aided in no small part by the off-table events.

This is almost a Bond film for people who don't generally like Bond films - I suspect it was subconsciously influenced by the Bourne movies which arguably breathed life into the dying espionage action genre - and is perhaps the reason I like it so much.

Although being slightly too long, Casino Royale is an excellent film and one of the best looking Blu-ray Discs I've seen. The extensive extras package make this a must buy for anyone, regardless of their feelings towards the previous Bond films.