Best Bond ever ? No. Best Bond since the 60' No way. Best of the two last Bonds ? Not even.

Rating: 6/10 (21 November 2006)

What doe's make a Bond movie a good movie ? Why doe's a Bond movie is good ? A Bond movie is good because it's a Bond movie! A Bond movie wouldn't be as good if it was anything else than a Bond movie. What does a Bond need to be Bond ? -A well played James Bond -A potent but never very elaborate plot -A convincing, mysterious and fearable villain -Action, action, action -Breathtaking Bond girls -More action...and chases, always new ways of chasing -Bondness
Casino Royale 2006 has the potential to be a very good Bond, but this potential wasn't correctly exploited. We had an opportunity here, to learn how 007 became 007...they had an opportunity there, to tell how 007 became 007: all was set in place for a tremendous Bond movie; for a surprising recipe with the same old great ingredients. What do we get ? Classic scenario with priorities at the wrong places. We get a look at the first James Bond 007 mission that could easily have been any other than his first. Action scenes not very entertaining, not innovative at all. Lenghts, a lot of. Flaws, 2 big enough to make you drop out of the story. Lack of imagination, lack of new facts about Bond's first days as an agent. A Bond movies says: i'll entertain you from the beginning to the end, if not with the action scenes, with the Bond girls decolletes, with Bond's quotes, with the villain's mysteriousity, with the montage, with the music.... This Bond movie says: look at me, i'm trying so hard to show i'm a Bond movie that i forgot there was place for new stuff in Bond movies.
How did James Bond became James Bond ? Casino Royale won't tell you because in this movie, Bond is already Bond and all they add to him is his 007. This movie could have used a more developed pre-007, pre-MI6 Bond story. A better original score, since this one is i believe, the worst James Bond score ever. More poker scenes; since Texas hold'em is so popular these days why not, if done correctly. More Bondness : exaggeration is the way of Bond movies; exaggeration in a Bond movie is always tolerated because it's in a Bond movie, it's part of the tradition. What this movie could have accomplished is to justify the 20 Bonds that preceded it but, sadly, this movie hardly justify itself.