It's...good...

Rating: 7/10 (21 January 2018)

I hadn't watched any Bond movies other than the most recent Spectre, and I decided to go back to Daniel Craig's first outing as Bond back in 2006. Quite honestly, I enjoyed the movie, just not enough.
Casino Royale sees James Bond get his 007 status before going on a sinister mission to take down a man running a ''high-stakes poker game'' that has been betting against big world corporations.
Honestly, I enjoyed a large part of the film. The first half of the film is enjoyable, quality, smart action that breezes by you spectacularly. I highly praise both the chase in Uganda and especially the airport scene. Daniel Craig plays Bond as a matter-of-fact, smug agent for this half of the movie (and, actually, the entire movie really).
It's just the second half of the film that really gets too drawn out and confusing for me. James Bond goes to Montenegro with Vesper Lynd, going to participate in the poker game with Le Chiffre. Everything after this becomes slow and drawn out. Honestly, I would be fine with this slow pacing, except the whole plot felt a bit confusing for me. Maybe I'm just dumb, because this movie got universal acclaim, but it just felt like too much at times for me.
That's not to mention that this movie is 2 hours 20 minutes, and for the entire last half hour I was just waiting for the movie to end. The best of the action is over by about the one hour mark in my opinion, and the entire remainder of the movie just feels boring. The little action that is left is, albeit, good, just not enough.
Okay, so this movie doesn't need to just be non-stop action; that would be unreasonable. But the casino scene is just boring for me, which was a shame since it takes up a large part of the second half of the movie.
Still, I digress; Casino Royale is a good movie. I enjoyed every bit of it, even if not the second half as much as the first half. Daniel Craig shines as James Bond, and the film is visually stunning. I have high hopes for the entire franchise going into the future. Maybe this film didn't wow me as much as it did others, but I still thought it was a good, enjoyable movie.