The man who designed the opening credits sequence is Daniel Kleinman. He’d also done all the Pierce Brosnan!Bond opening credits, and he also did Skyfall and Spectre’s opening credits.
Except in the novel LeChiffre uses a carpet beater and is working for and killed by SMERSH (Soviet intelligence) who carve the letter S into the back of Bond's hand to indicate that he's a spy (he has to have plastic surgery to remove the scar). Also in the novel, LeChiffre gives a speech in which he tells Bond that the "game of Red Indians" is over. "Red Indians" was Fleming's name for his own British intelligence group in WWII.
Yes, it was some not-so-modern writer's sadistic idea (unless of course said writer took inspiration from other sources) What are you implying? That only a modern writer would come up with something so perversely sadistic? As if people from the past were somehow more civilised? Give yourself a history lesson, and you'll realise that, when it comes to devising horrific ways to torture and/or kill people, humanity has been doing pretty good at it for centuries, and this particular scene is tame by medieval standards.
@@richieclean I think my point was just someone MIGHT think a modern screenwriter came up with that, thinking some novel from the '50s wouldn't have had something like that in it. Some people think that was some innocent time that wouldn't be so crude. Just assuring the reactioners that that scene was true to the novel.
The James Bond producers have always been looking for people developing new extreme sports, stunts, or cameras that can film in crazy conditions. When a James Bond movie has a crazy sequence of elaborate stunts, it's usually the first time it's ever been shown on film. Paraglider, gyrocopter, underwater filming, skydiving filming, barrel roll during a car jump, crawling on top of a plane in the air, and many more.
@@soulless_swede technically Foucan worked with David Belle to invent parkour and later they went separate ways because Belle wanted parkour to remain as we know it today (more pragmatic less aesthetic) whereas Foucan preferred to develop the more stylish freerun. In the movie he's using parkour though. ;)
@@kylo4343 David Belle always said that the inspiration for parkour came from his father experience in the military and before that from Hebertism which came a lot earlier than most film stars since it was developed in the first decade of the 1900 and especially in France it was very influential to the modernization of military physical training courses and methods.
Vespers final scene makes me cry every time🥺 Two gasps underwater….and then that horrified look of morbid realization that this is her death, and/or existential Terror on her face… It’s haunting. It’s so well acted. You can see the point where her eyes (while still open) go from aware and terrified…to blank and obviously lacking consciousness. Obviously dead….so effin haunting…
Yeah, although I don't think she need to kill herself, I mean the bad guy was dead, and yes she probably would have gone to prision (or not maybe she could make a deal, she seem to have some information) but I prefer prison over dying.
@@MCchaoz I mean given the reach and power of the people they are dealing with... how long would she really last in prison? And they may not make her death as quick as drowning, just look at the other lady in the film... she got it FAR worse.
I believe that the drowning scene is a true representation of how it really happens but the eyes being open after death I'm not too sure about.Never the less it was really well done.I'm just wondering if he had persevered could he have brought her back. ?.
@@andrewmccormack4295 Yeah drowning is one of the worst ways to die, not the way people would choose to go but we already see that she can't handle death and probably hasn't worked that out
The "every legend has a beginning" is because Casino Royale was the first book Ian Flemming wrote. It also was the first TV-feature as an episode of Climax! in 1954. And later on as star studded movie parody in 1967.
To be fair there's a lot of variations on poker and some are so far apart that they're barely the same game. I would suggest that "poker" is more like a genre of card gaming.
So in case you didn't know, this movie is actually a complete hard reboot of the Bond franchise. So where the first 20 Bond films were all loosely connected, this movie completely wipes the slate clean and starts before Bond is even 007. There are still some references to older films and in-jokes for longtime Bond fans. For example, When Vesper says "I'm the money" and Bond replies" Every penny of it?", that's a tongue-in-cheek reference to the character Ms Moneypenny from the classic movies. The 1960's Aston Martin is also a returning character, as is Judy Dench's M, although she would be playing a different version of the character in this reboot.
I think someone suggested, as a fantheory (SPOILERS for NTTD), that a way to integrate the og movies into the Craig canon was to make them stories told to Mathilde as NTTD ended with Madeleine telling about James to her
I find most of the previous Bond movies focus on a particular phase in Bonds life. With the Craig version attempting to show the entire time-line. The closest was Connery who covered a significant number of phases. While Moore and Dalton seem to occur inthe middle of the Connery time-line. While Pearce was near the end of the time-line.
I also picked up on Bond saying he didn't care how he wanted his drink served, and LeChiffe's remark about preferring simple torture to elaborate methods. It was all for people familiar with the franchise, and interestingly directed by the director of "Goldeneye," the first movie from the previous revival.
As a cocktail guy, I should probably put in a word on the Vesper cocktail featured in this movie. It's straight out of the original Casino Royale book, published in the 1950s. As such, one major ingredient, Kina Lillet, is no longer in production. There's a version of Lillet, called Lillet Blanc, but they reformulated the recipe in (I believe) the 1970s, and it doesn't taste the same. The closest currently available product I've found to Kina Lillet is called Cocchi Americano (and since there's multiple Cocchi bottles, that's the white one). They're both aromatized wines, so it'll be shelved with the vermouths.
A late addition to this excellent comment: Tempus Fugit Kina is also a wonderful substitute for the long out of production Kina Lillet. Tougher to find than Cocchi Americano, and more expensive, but it lasts longer in the fridge and gives a bit more of the KL quinine bitterness than CA, which is more gentian forward. It's also interesting to note that many cocktail historians now believe Fleming was referring to "Lillet Dry" (also long out of production), rather than Kina Lillet, in the Vesper. Finding information on the flavor profile of Lillet Dry is a lot more difficult as it was primarily a UK market product, and Lillet was very much French domestic market focused in their production at the time. Presumably it was less sweet than Kina Lillet but I don't know if the herbal balance differed significantly.
Thank you. A genuinely fun review for a fine movie. People often forget that Bond is, primarily, a killer, not a true spy; that's why casting is so important for the Bond character. Craig is absolutely believable, his Bond has true finesse, yet is still a cold-blooded killer (when he has to be).
@@JohnWick-yu6je The actor in question, Sebastien Foucan, was instrumental in the early development of parkour, and he was the founder of freerunning (parkour with points for style).
Everyone in the cinema burst into applause when the last line was his first use of the signature line 'The name's Bond, James Bond' and the Bond theme played for the first time. That was the point Craig became Bond!
Ian Fleming who created the James Bond franchise actually based the character on a real-life person, the legendary Christopher Lee who was his step-cousin. Before finding fame as an actor Lee was part of British intelligence during WW2 and for a brief time was a Nazi hunter as well.
1:34 I think the part everyone misses when they watch that part is that he was actually going to say, 'Well, you needn't worry. The second is always easier' after he told Bond, "Made you feel it, did he?" Bond's saying "Yes, considerably," was in response to what he was going to say.
Serious Bond is like a scientifically accurate Star Wars. It just doesn't work for me. But my first Bond was Connery so maybe I'm biased. Fully aware those aged poorly but some things should just die.
@@idhunepijl1404 The USSR are somewhat cantankerous frenemies to the British in more Bond films than they're the actual villains. The Bond series surprisingly (but arguably wisely, given that the Cold War ended peacefully) rarely cast the Soviets as the main villains. Even in From Russia with Love and The Living Daylights, arguably the Cold War-iest of the films, the Soviet villains are rogue actors.
Daniel Craig is my favorite James Bond. I started with Sean Connery being 007 when I was young, and he was my favorite until this series. Daniel Craig's version really does break several 007 stereotypes...and that's part of the reason I like it. That and the gadgets aren't quite so far fetched. I also think all of this series is well written.
In a lot of ways, I feel like the last half hour of Casino Royale serves as the first half hour of Quantum Of Solace. I also really like that in this film, Bond is a monster that is let off the chain to do MI6's dirty work. He's suave, but it's a mask. Under that mask, he's a brutal killer, which makes way more sense for such a character.
12:00 the skyfleet commercial plane was fictional but the biggest plane ever built in the world was the Antonov AN-225 Mriya, only one of her kind. She was unfortunately destroyed in Ukraine during the early days of the war at Hostomel Airport in February, 2022.
It's cool how you two know and see different things and support and complement each other! They play poker in the movie version. In the book (which is basically the second half of the movie), and in previous Bond movies, they play baccarat. Apparently it was changed because of the rising popularity of poker when this movie was made. The movie is so full of things I kind of wish it was divided into parts named by title cards. Even when I know that the last part is what it is, it still feels somewhat out of place. If you intend to watch more Craig Bonds, I recommend watching Quantum of Solace soon because it's basically an epilogue to this movie and can be quite difficult to follow if you've forgotten the details.
@@blinkachu5275 Hard same. I absolutely hated it in theaters. I watched it a few years later to see if I still hated it as much. I did. Oddly enough, it's the one Craig Bond I've seen the third time because I binged all Bonds last year, most of them for the first time as an adult, and I thought I'd just see how it fares in comparison. I don't know what happened but now I think the chase is pretty good. I've come to appreciate experimental editing, I guess. The rest of the movie... meanders and I definitely rewound it a few times just to keep track of the plot. But it's the only Bond movie that actually really follows up on the dramatic events of the last one and I love Craig's angst in it. So for all its weaknesses, it's surprisingly decent (and unique) epilogue to CR once you know what to expect. But I'm a huge fan of On Her Majesty's Secret Service and I like it when Bond actually gets emotional and feels human.
Hi George and Simone, For George: games played with decks of playing cards are usually referred to as "Cards" and not poker. Like you'll hear "Lets play some cards" and its generally something like poker or blackjack. There are many types of games with cards and many variants within them. There's Go Fish, War, Blackjack, Poker, Baccarat, Kings, Spades, Hearts, Rummy, Maverick, and the list goes on and on and on... The most popular gambling card games tend to be Blackjack, Poker, and Baccarat. For Simone: yay 'Run DnD' shirt!
Fun fact: The earlier Bond films usually had Baccarat as the card game of choice, and in the original Casino Royale novel (and '67 film version) Baccarat is what was being played. The rising popularity of Texas hold 'em poker led to the change of game being played as modern audiences are more familiar with Poker than they are with Baccarat.
Casino Royale quickly became and remains one of my all-time favorite Bond movies. And yes, the guy Bond chased in the beginning is played by one of the pioneers of freerunning and parkour. I loved that even though this one is a full reboot, they kept Judi Dench on as M. She's just SO good in the role! "Christ I miss the Cold War!" is one of my favorite lines of the whole franchise, in no small part because of Dame Judi's delivery :)
The jousting, interplay and raw charisma of Craig, Green and Mikkelsen is through the roof; it's what makes this film. And how it ends of course. It's my personal favorite 007 film. PS: Mads Mikkelsen and others were real life avid poker players when they made the film; he sometimes played for fun with various cast members and crew between scenes, at some mock-up poker table somewhere on the soundstages. :)
The movies really move Bond into all the hyper gadgets that James Bond is known for, but in the Ian Flemming novels, he's described as a 'blunt instrument'. I've been a Bond fan since Roger Moore, but I think that Daniel Craig is the closest to the character created by Flemming. FYI, the explosives expert that Bond kills in the beginning was one of the founders of parkour, Sébastien Foucan.
When this came out, I had little interest. I was surprised to find it the best Bond film, and I still think it is. Aside from adding a few opportunities for action set pieces, it follows the original novel shockingly closely, considering Bond films since the 70s have basically just used Bond titles, and made up their own stories. I think this and On Her Majesty's Secret Service are the films that best represent Fleming's novels.
I like how this film takes a closer look at the more "thuggish" side of this very dirty business. Not since Connery has the series acknowledged that Bond, while able to move and operate in high society, is a brutal killer when he needs to be.
Simone was insanely ON in this movie. She called the small bomb being moved to the bomb truck driver. She called the evidence of Mathis helping bond and it causing Le Chiffre to bleed from his eye. She deduced quite a bit that I never caught when I first watched.
If you want to see a more accurate depiction of how an actual British Intelligence spy operates please check out Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. It is a movie adaptation of a novel made by John Le Carre. He worked for British Intelligence during the height of the Cambridge Five or the Cambridge Spy Ring when Soviet moles infiltrated British Intelligence. His novels has been made into TV Adaptations and a Movie. The TV series is godly but the movie is amazing. The movie is stacked with powerful casts; John Hurt, Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Ciaran Hinds, Toby Jones, Tom Hardy and Benedict Cumberbatch. Its like a gathering of talented British actors.
A little fun fact about that car crash: at the time that movie hit the theaters, they got the world record for the most canon rolls in a car. Stunt double Adam Kirley played Bond in the scene in which a nitrogen cannon blows the car through the air.
19:00 Interestingly, although not directly mentioned in the films, in the books Bond doesn't use a cover. He uses his real name which is tied to working for "Universal Exports" (the cover company for MI6), and his cover story is basically a wealthy, playboy businessman.
You're right there. Occasionally I notice the films might have Bond mention he works for "Universal Exports" or "UnivEx", or the words appear on building signage or documentation associated with Bond and MI6, but it's hardly ever acknowledged as a particularly important aspect in the film series. It seems like its mostly just a detail added in there for fans of Fleming's books to notice, but for everyone else it kind of just flies under the radar and is barely picked up on.
The drink is called a Vesper, and is hard to make now since Kina Lillet was changed to Lillet Blanc and the recipe changed. You also need the Gordan's Gin from the UK not the US, yes, there is a difference. You can find lots of RUclips videos discussing the issue. The car crash was the world record holder for the number of flips, the driver walked away. The guy who shot Le Chiffre was the one who introduced him the the warlord at the start of the movie.
This to me, was absolutely perfect Bond. I grew up with the earlier incarnations and always thought that, for a spy, he was portrayed as being way too casual, too cavalier. But this, this was gritty, dark, realistic. Craig's Bond was a serious guy, ready to kill to get the job done. Perfect Bond.
I agree. This was one of the best Bond movies. He’s not some noodle armed hero, he has physical strength along with intelligence which is required for the realistic hand to hand fighting.
I discovered Eva Green exactly with this movie ❤ (I watched it in theater when it came out, with my father, who's an old fan of the Bond saga): she has became one of my favourite actress and the movie itself is one of my favourites of the franchise. I'm really glad you guys watched it too and liked it 😉👍🏻
I'm saddened that you didn't feel in your soul the amazing machine that was the Aston Martin DB9, or the horror that most of us felt when the car rolled (and set a world record in the process). The drink is a Vesper Martini, which I enjoyed long before the movie was made, because I read the 007 books long ago. I recommend using less than the amount of Lillet Blanc (the only version of Kina Lillet available anymore) called for in the recipe, otherwise it will overpower the cocktail to its great detriment.
Well actually it was an Aston Martin DBS...and somehow it wasn't...:-) The car in the movie is supposed to be the DBS, but that wasn't on sale until a year later (like the Ford Mondeo Bond drives on the Bahamas), so they used prototypes for filming and the stunt car that did the barrel rolls was indeed a DB9 made up to look like a DBS.
I hope this means you'll be reacting to more Bond; I'm dying to see Simone's facial expressions while watching old school Sean Connery and Roger Moore 007!
Quantum of Solace picks up minutes after Casino Royale ends; its the most direct sequel of the whole bond franchise. It's not the most well liked Bond movie, but it has grown on me over time.
Interesting thing, that scene where Bond flips his car instead of running over Vesper held the record for most rolls in a movie scene for about 8 years if I'm not mistaken, I've forgotten what took the record from it.
ATTN George: There is a fairly wide range of card games. You can invite someone to 'play cards' but that would be as informative as inviting someone to play 'sports'. Poker is the one you're most likely to encounter in films as it is synonymous with a lost of westerns, but there are other gambling games like Faro and Baccarat. Blackjack shows up in a few films, usually in relation to card counting (a specific skill that is generally against the rules of casinos). Away from movies, there are a whole range of 'patience' or solo games, with Free Cell, Klondike, Yukon, Gaps (aka Montana), Clock, and Pyramid possibly being the most famous. There are quite a few different families of games like trick-taking, bluffing, games based on runs and melds, on shedding your hand. If you've ever played Uno for example, that is an adaptation of a shedding game called Crazy Eights supposedly to clear out the house rules, but most people house rule Uno to death anyway! For both of you: If you want films in mundane locations, the UK has made a whole load of them, like The Full Monty, Brassed Off, Pride, Made In Dagenham, Cemetary Junction, Blinded By The Light, Bend It Like Beckham, Hot Fuzz, Attack the Block, 28 Days Later...
The thing about Bond here is he is intentionally provocative to throw people off. If anyone's ever watched Leverage, alot of their cons involve their leader playing an utter bastard to make the mark angry, invested, and reckless.
When "M" (Judi Dench) threatens to kill Bond if he "utters one more syllable," it's because her name is a secret. In the Bond universe, the head of MI-6 (British Intelligence) is always called "M." The first "M," in the books and early movies, was "Sir Miles Messervy." (He was played by Bernard Lee in the Sean Connery films.) Judi Dench's character is eventually revealed to be "Olivia Mansfield," and another "M" is named "Mallory."
- The Parkour sequence had a real parkour runner...Sebastien Foucan, who created the sport of parkour was the guy Bond was chasing and fighting. - Poker is the generic name of the game, but there are variations...Five Card Stud, Texas Hold'Em, etc. The basic winning hand combinations are the same, depending on which cards are "wild" cards, and how they hands play out. - The sparing between Bond and Vesper Lynd...basically they both read each other pretty accurately...example: Bond is an orphan. - The martini Bond orders is the exact recipie from the Ian Flaming novels. If you want a 007 martini...that is the way it is made. - Shortly after this film, Craig and Eva Green made another movie...Daniel played Lord Asriel and Eva played Serafina Pekkala in 'The Golden Compass' based on the Phillip Pullman novel with Nicole Kidman ( as Mrs. Coulter), Sam Elliott (Lee Scorsby), and Ian McKellen as the voice of Iorek Byrnison. - Jeffrey Wright is just the most recent actor to play Bond's best friend CIA agent Felix Leiter...but he does the role so well! My favorite Leiter so far, the second best was David Hedison (in 'Live and Let Die' with Roger Moore and 'License To Kill' with Timothy Dalton). - When the car rolls over after Bond swerves to not run over Vesper...that stunt broke the world record of the most rolls a car has made in a film stunt. It made 7 complete rolls. - The next film 'The Quantum of Solace' picks up about ten minutes after this one ends. - This director has guided two actors in their first outing as 007. Martin Campbell directed Pierce Brosnan in his first Bond film, 'Goldeneye' as well as Craig in this film. Campbell has also directed 'The Mask of Zorro' and 'The Legend of Zorro' with Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta Jones, and 'Green Lantern' with Ryan Reynolds. I wholeheartedly suggest 'The Mask of Zorro'...it's awesome!
The town that made Simone say "Holy shit" is actually somewhat inexpensive to live in. It's the small town of Loket, Czech Republic. It's a spectacular place, but not a huge tourist draw and some of the buildings are still in disrepair from the Soviet days, though less every year. Very cool place to visit though.
@@MasterBetty69 sadly you’re right, i love Craig’s Bond but i just can’t bring myself to watch QOS unless i really have to for some reason. All 4 other films are great tho
3:58 “a stuntperson did that“ Actually: no. The black guy is Sébastien Foucan, one of the two guys that invented parkour, and Daniel Craig, too, actually did that stunt. They were both on a wire of course, but they actually made the jumps.
The writer of James Bond was stationed in Jamaica for some time, which is why so many stories are set in the Caribbean. And in one movie where Bond has to infiltrate the diamond trade, they did make the joke "I always wanted to go to South Africa." - "You're going to Amsterdam."
Ian Fleming had a summer home in Jamaica where he wrote every one of the Bond novels. He called the house Goldeneye (used as the name of the 1995 Bond film) and it is still there and open as a tourist destination. Fleming wrote a chapter a day at Goldeneye according to a very precise routine that included taking a break to swim, etc. and hence cranked out a novel a year during his stays there. It's said that there was nowhere he was happier than during his visits to Goldeneye.
this is THE BEST Bond movie for me, All subsequent movies have good villains but they all lack something. It has so much happening that it could have been cut in two movies and the would still be two good movies. Mathis was not a traitor, he was just framed by LeChiffre in revenge for interfering with his plans.
Poker is a the name of the game. There are different versions of poker that change how the game plays out. But, generally speaking each version of poker is just that, poker. The version they are playing has each player receive two cards at the beginning of the turn. Basically, one has to pay a fee, an ante (an - tee), to participate with the two cards received and to see additional dealer dealt cards. Once multiple players have paid their ante the dealer will play 3 cards out onto the table. Additional fees are required to see an additional card, upto a total of 5 cards on the table. To have a winning hand requires you to use a combination of the two originally dealt cards and what is available via the community cards on the table. Ofc, bluffing, bullying, blinds and folding is all part of poker and is integral to how the game is played.
That hotel (the Casino Royale in Montenegro) is actually in Karlovy Vary (aka Carlsbad) in the Czech Republic. It's called Grandhotel Pupp. I think most of the scenes since the train till the torture were filmed in the Czech Republic. But Montenegro is really beautiful too, apparently :)
Given Simone's use of D&D related T-shirts I figure it might be appropriate to break down the opening chase/parkour sequence using D&D terminology. Parkour Guy: "I have maxed out dexterity and expertise in acrobatics!" *Proceeds to elegantly leap a gap and roll to his feet* Bond: "I HAVE HIT POINTS!" *Proceeds to leap a gap and land in a way that probably breaks bones but just ignores them because everything is a minor injury to him.*
Following this film are Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, SPECTRE and No Time To Die. Both this and the 60's version are adapted from the novel of the same name. Preceding Daniel Craig are Pierce Brosnan, Timothy Dalton, Roger Moore, George Lazenby and Sean Connery. The title song, "You Know My Name", is sung by the late Chris Cornell
The ball whipping scene explains why Bond never had kids in all of the movies lol Also all the male audiance when I saw this in the cinema had the same response as this guy watching it lol
The parkour scene at the beginning, the black guy is one of the creators of parkour . And is still one of the best opening scenes in a bond film , and yeah bond abit of a sledge hammer to the black guys amazingly graceful parkour balances beautifully . The scene where he nearly runs her over , I’m sure is or was a world record for car flips in a film scene at the time
Fun fact about James Bond: Ian Fleming based the character at least partly on Christopher Lee, who you may know as Saruman from Lord of the Rings or Count Dooku from Star Wars. Fleming and Lee were friends and both worked for British intelligence during World War 2 (and possibly after the war as well: I'm not sure when they retired), and Fleming has specifically said that Lee was an inspiration for Bond. So the next time you see a movie with Christopher Lee, remember what an absolute real life badass he was. Hell, Peter Jackson tells a story from the set of Return of the King in the scene where Saruman was stabbed in the back by Wormtongue. Peter Jackson wanted Christopher Lee to scream out in pain, but Christopher Lee asked him something along the lines of "Have you heard what it sounds like when someone is stabbed in the back? I have." So instead of screaming in pain like the director originally wanted, he made a strange noise as if the air that was already in his lungs was being forced out, because he knew from personal experience that's what it sounds like when someone is stabbed in the back.
The car role (when Vespa gets kidnapped, & left tied up in the road, is a world record for most car flips in a row (9 rolls). The guy doing parkour at the start, is the man behind it, was 1 of the 1st to do it (if not the 1st). The chair torture scene, when I saw it at the cinema, everyone except me reacted like you did, even after all these yrs, has no effect on me.
"Okay... I need to live there, I think." "There" not being the actual Montenegro, but Loket and Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic, where Casino Royale's 'Montenegro' exterior scenes were shot. :)
16:30 Fun Fact - They had a display of all the props at an exhibition in London, including those documents. Her cover name was indeed Stephanie Broadchest.
There is so much more in James Bond films when you know the history. This film to me seems like it’s the first film introducing you to 007 because most films somewhere in the beginning has him saying his name, the iconic phrase “Bond, James Bond”. This movie did it at the end which made me so happy it’s hard to explain. Hope you’ll get it one day…
There are several games of poker, for example draw, and stud poker. The particular game they are playing in this film is called Texas Hold Um, which was very popular at the time the film was made.
After Skyfall, probably my favorite Daniel Craig Bond film. Although, No Time to Die was really good too. I just liked how they introduced this version of the character. Plus, Vespa is a great character to play off of.
She’s amazing. I sometimes wish they had kept her alive for this film and had the same reveal/death for Quantum. I don’t know story-wise how that would be accomplished, but it would’ve been worth it to have Vesper around for another film.
Fun Fact: The Car flip scene is in The Guinness World Record Book for most flips in a car. I think it was something like 15 or 16. And yes they really did it, no CGI
this film delighted me so much when i first saw it. the franchise was rebooted definitely for me because i hadn’t liked a bond film in YEARS. daniel craig never disappointed.
@@VilleHalonen I mean.....It's a 747. The most famous widespread passenger aircraft in history. You can just say "a 747" without context, and people know what you're talking about. It's in literally HUNDREDS of movies and TV shows. They're fly to virtually every major country on Earth. They've been around so long that they're starting to be retired. Air Canada has or had 747s. Even if they don't anymore, other countries flying to Canada definitely do.
Just for general information, the British pronunciation if Craig has the same vowel sound as “paid”while the North American version has the same vowel sound as “said”. Daniel Craig therefore has the long vowel sound 😊
They're playing Texas Hold 'em which is arguably the most popular game of poker but there are tons of other types of poker. Omaha, 5 card draw, 7 card stud, Razz and 5 card stud are probably the most common aside from hold 'em.
Fun fact: The 'roll-over' accident with the Aston Martin, became a Guinness World Record for most flips done by a car!!! Also, did you recognize the actor who was M's main contact, would go onto be one of the Starks in GOT!!!
I was so glad they touched on that trope right at the start when someone has to put their hand to their ear when listening through an earpiece. That guy at the start was so frustrating.
George is laughing when the jet engine of the plane throws the cop car like it's a sheet of paper, but that is exactly how powerful they are. watch : Car vs Boeing 747 Engine | Top Gear
This movie is a personal favorite of mine. Your reactions mirrored my own when I saw it in the theater. As I watched the subsequent movies, it was clear that this movie was Bond starting on his path to become the legendary spy so he is very rough around the edges. The best example was the initial chase scene. He was very brute-force in his approach and continued like that throughout the movie. You know when he grabbed the steak knife from the platter after being wiped out in the game that LeChiffre was a DEAD man. Another example of him taking a brute-force approach when things are going badly. I really enjoyed the relationship with Vesper and it makes her death even more upsetting, but wow did it set up one of the best closing scenes for a movie while showcasing Bond becoming more sophisticated. The fourth act of this movie ends up driving Bond in the next two films. Someone else mentioned that the suave, sophisticated side of Bond is a mask and they were absolutely right. He is a very angry, tormented man underneath. Hope you enjoy them too!
I remember going to the theater, with very low spectatives and been blown away by the opening scene and then, Chris Cornell started to sing? Are You fucking with me?! I was sold by then.
Hi George and Simone, the aerial shot and narrow streets of "Montenegro casino" is in fact Loket castle and town in Czechia, so you can definitely visit the place :-) The hotel is Grandhotel Pupp in nearby Karlovy Vary (Carlsbad spa) and you can book a hotel room starting 200 CAD depending on season. And when being in Czechia, you can visit some Kingdom Come locations ;-)
In the novel they were playing baccarat but was changed to poker for the movie (specifically Texas Hold 'Em), presumably because at that time I can recall Texas Hold 'Em being quite popular (with the advent of online poker sites), thus there wouldn't have been as much of a need for a bunch of expository dialogue explaining the rules of the game.
That place where you said you need to live is Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic. The hotel is the Grand Hotel Pupp. There's a huge, prestigious international film festival there every July (I've attended three times). It's a beautiful, wonderful place. You truly should visit. And Prague is just a 90-minute drive away.
Simone the largest plane to ever fly flown was the An-225. (only one was produced) The An-225 held several records, including heaviest aircraft ever built and largest wingspan of any aircraft in operational service. It was destroyed when Russia invaded Ukraine this year
Can we take a moment to appreciate Chris Cornell's Bond intro and whoever did the backdrop? First-rate, among the best, which is saying something.
Absolutely one of my favorite Bond themes, and an interesting break with tradition to have a man sing it.
Absolutly SPLENDID
The man who designed the opening credits sequence is Daniel Kleinman. He’d also done all the Pierce Brosnan!Bond opening credits, and he also did Skyfall and Spectre’s opening credits.
@@LokRevenant Thank you!
Not only the music theme song by Chris Cornell,
but the opening graphics/titles by Daniel Kleinman were excellent.
Incidentally, that "chair torture" scene was done to him in the original novel, too. It wasn't some modern writer's sadistic idea.
Except in the novel LeChiffre uses a carpet beater and is working for and killed by SMERSH (Soviet intelligence) who carve the letter S into the back of Bond's hand to indicate that he's a spy (he has to have plastic surgery to remove the scar). Also in the novel, LeChiffre gives a speech in which he tells Bond that the "game of Red Indians" is over. "Red Indians" was Fleming's name for his own British intelligence group in WWII.
Yes, it was some not-so-modern writer's sadistic idea (unless of course said writer took inspiration from other sources)
What are you implying? That only a modern writer would come up with something so perversely sadistic? As if people from the past were somehow more civilised?
Give yourself a history lesson, and you'll realise that, when it comes to devising horrific ways to torture and/or kill people, humanity has been doing pretty good at it for centuries, and this particular scene is tame by medieval standards.
@@Wittynametag I'm perfectly calm dude. Calmer than you are.
@@richieclean I think my point was just someone MIGHT think a modern screenwriter came up with that, thinking some novel from the '50s wouldn't have had something like that in it. Some people think that was some innocent time that wouldn't be so crude. Just assuring the reactioners that that scene was true to the novel.
@@richieclean "Calmer than you are". If we look his comment and then yours, which is needlessly snide, it's evident you're the least calm one there.
4:10 "They definitely hired a 'Parkourist'."
They hired the guy who literally"invented" Parkour 😂
The James Bond producers have always been looking for people developing new extreme sports, stunts, or cameras that can film in crazy conditions.
When a James Bond movie has a crazy sequence of elaborate stunts, it's usually the first time it's ever been shown on film. Paraglider, gyrocopter, underwater filming, skydiving filming, barrel roll during a car jump, crawling on top of a plane in the air, and many more.
@@soulless_swede You're right. Don't know why I thought it was the other way round. My mistake
Oh wow!! Didn’t know that
@@soulless_swede technically Foucan worked with David Belle to invent parkour and later they went separate ways because Belle wanted parkour to remain as we know it today (more pragmatic less aesthetic) whereas Foucan preferred to develop the more stylish freerun. In the movie he's using parkour though. ;)
@@kylo4343 David Belle always said that the inspiration for parkour came from his father experience in the military and before that from Hebertism which came a lot earlier than most film stars since it was developed in the first decade of the 1900 and especially in France it was very influential to the modernization of military physical training courses and methods.
I truly appreciate that George recognized instantly what was going to happen during the torture scene 😂
I saw the movie when it came out, I still feel it...
every male in a 10 mile radius: man down! MAN DOWN!!!
He didn't "instantly" recognise it. He saw the knot then said it
He said it like 2 seconds before it started mate chill
@@rachelBrady-ni take your own advice mate
@@Hoganply stay quiet child
Vespers final scene makes me cry every time🥺 Two gasps underwater….and then that horrified look of morbid realization that this is her death, and/or existential Terror on her face…
It’s haunting. It’s so well acted. You can see the point where her eyes (while still open) go from aware and terrified…to blank and obviously lacking consciousness. Obviously dead….so effin haunting…
Yeah, although I don't think she need to kill herself, I mean the bad guy was dead, and yes she probably would have gone to prision (or not maybe she could make a deal, she seem to have some information) but I prefer prison over dying.
@@MCchaoz I mean given the reach and power of the people they are dealing with... how long would she really last in prison? And they may not make her death as quick as drowning, just look at the other lady in the film... she got it FAR worse.
I believe that the drowning scene is a true representation of how it really happens but the eyes being open after death I'm not too sure about.Never the less it was really well done.I'm just wondering if he had persevered could he have brought her back. ?.
@@MCchaoz I'd rather die than set foot in a prison so we are two different people.
@@andrewmccormack4295 Yeah drowning is one of the worst ways to die, not the way people would choose to go but we already see that she can't handle death and probably hasn't worked that out
The "every legend has a beginning" is because Casino Royale was the first book Ian Flemming wrote.
It also was the first TV-feature as an episode of Climax! in 1954.
And later on as star studded movie parody in 1967.
"This is like the game they play in Red Dead"
"...Yeah, fucking Poker dude."
To be fair there's a lot of variations on poker and some are so far apart that they're barely the same game. I would suggest that "poker" is more like a genre of card gaming.
@@dougallen9689 It's not even that, it's a SPECIFIC popular card game with multiple variations, only a few widely well known ones though
@@dougallen9689 I have always preferred 5-card stud to Texas Hold Em.
@@leniobarcelos1770 apparently they are not into research, film history and cinematography either. Well…. We no know anyone can be a reviewer.
It kinda felt like they reversed rules when they were talking about all card games being poker
So in case you didn't know, this movie is actually a complete hard reboot of the Bond franchise. So where the first 20 Bond films were all loosely connected, this movie completely wipes the slate clean and starts before Bond is even 007. There are still some references to older films and in-jokes for longtime Bond fans. For example, When Vesper says "I'm the money" and Bond replies" Every penny of it?", that's a tongue-in-cheek reference to the character Ms Moneypenny from the classic movies. The 1960's Aston Martin is also a returning character, as is Judy Dench's M, although she would be playing a different version of the character in this reboot.
I think someone suggested, as a fantheory (SPOILERS for NTTD), that a way to integrate the og movies into the Craig canon was to make them stories told to Mathilde as NTTD ended with Madeleine telling about James to her
I find most of the previous Bond movies focus on a particular phase in Bonds life. With the Craig version attempting to show the entire time-line. The closest was Connery who covered a significant number of phases. While Moore and Dalton seem to occur inthe middle of the Connery time-line. While Pearce was near the end of the time-line.
Nicely put & I didn’t catch that reference to Moneypenny, thanks. I loved all the Craig movies, but my mind is not made up yet on the last one…
My favorite joke in CR is Vesper's cover identity "Stephanie Broadchest", clearly a stab at the likes of Pussy Galore, and Vesper's reaction to it.
I also picked up on Bond saying he didn't care how he wanted his drink served, and LeChiffe's remark about preferring simple torture to elaborate methods. It was all for people familiar with the franchise, and interestingly directed by the director of "Goldeneye," the first movie from the previous revival.
As a cocktail guy, I should probably put in a word on the Vesper cocktail featured in this movie. It's straight out of the original Casino Royale book, published in the 1950s. As such, one major ingredient, Kina Lillet, is no longer in production. There's a version of Lillet, called Lillet Blanc, but they reformulated the recipe in (I believe) the 1970s, and it doesn't taste the same. The closest currently available product I've found to Kina Lillet is called Cocchi Americano (and since there's multiple Cocchi bottles, that's the white one). They're both aromatized wines, so it'll be shelved with the vermouths.
A late addition to this excellent comment: Tempus Fugit Kina is also a wonderful substitute for the long out of production Kina Lillet. Tougher to find than Cocchi Americano, and more expensive, but it lasts longer in the fridge and gives a bit more of the KL quinine bitterness than CA, which is more gentian forward. It's also interesting to note that many cocktail historians now believe Fleming was referring to "Lillet Dry" (also long out of production), rather than Kina Lillet, in the Vesper. Finding information on the flavor profile of Lillet Dry is a lot more difficult as it was primarily a UK market product, and Lillet was very much French domestic market focused in their production at the time. Presumably it was less sweet than Kina Lillet but I don't know if the herbal balance differed significantly.
Thank you. A genuinely fun review for a fine movie. People often forget that Bond is, primarily, a killer, not a true spy; that's why casting is so important for the Bond character. Craig is absolutely believable, his Bond has true finesse, yet is still a cold-blooded killer (when he has to be).
The guy who does parkour is the guy who invented it
No it is not.
@@JohnWick-yu6je The actor in question, Sebastien Foucan, was instrumental in the early development of parkour, and he was the founder of freerunning (parkour with points for style).
If you discount Jackie Chan 😉
@@gregghelmberger That might very well be true. However i would argue that David Belle is the true founder of Parkour.
Actually, evolution and gravity created parkour.
Everyone in the cinema burst into applause when the last line was his first use of the signature line 'The name's Bond, James Bond' and the Bond theme played for the first time. That was the point Craig became Bond!
Ian Fleming who created the James Bond franchise actually based the character on a real-life person, the legendary Christopher Lee who was his step-cousin. Before finding fame as an actor Lee was part of British intelligence during WW2 and for a brief time was a Nazi hunter as well.
1:34 I think the part everyone misses when they watch that part is that he was actually going to say, 'Well, you needn't worry. The second is always easier' after he told Bond, "Made you feel it, did he?" Bond's saying "Yes, considerably," was in response to what he was going to say.
"That poor woman" "I think she's fine" **dies 15 minutes later**
@@Jupiterblitz it was released on Patreon 9 days ago
Pierce Brosnan was my first Bond, but I really like Daniel Craig’s take on the character
Yeah me too. Those movies were just pure anti Soviet Russian propaganda. I think the next Bond era might do the same 😅
Serious Bond is like a scientifically accurate Star Wars. It just doesn't work for me. But my first Bond was Connery so maybe I'm biased. Fully aware those aged poorly but some things should just die.
@@mormacil There was always certainly a "comic" element to the movies prior to Craig's batch.
Mine was Roger Moore and really enjoyed his films - and recently discovered his fantastic run in the series The Saint.
@@idhunepijl1404 The USSR are somewhat cantankerous frenemies to the British in more Bond films than they're the actual villains. The Bond series surprisingly (but arguably wisely, given that the Cold War ended peacefully) rarely cast the Soviets as the main villains. Even in From Russia with Love and The Living Daylights, arguably the Cold War-iest of the films, the Soviet villains are rogue actors.
Daniel Craig is my favorite James Bond. I started with Sean Connery being 007 when I was young, and he was my favorite until this series. Daniel Craig's version really does break several 007 stereotypes...and that's part of the reason I like it. That and the gadgets aren't quite so far fetched. I also think all of this series is well written.
R.I.P. Chris Cornell. Such a badass addition to the long list of great Bond songs!
In a lot of ways, I feel like the last half hour of Casino Royale serves as the first half hour of Quantum Of Solace.
I also really like that in this film, Bond is a monster that is let off the chain to do MI6's dirty work. He's suave, but it's a mask. Under that mask, he's a brutal killer, which makes way more sense for such a character.
Hey Matthew, you are right Quantum Of Solace took place right after Casino Royale
@@ThreadBomb I agree
12:00 the skyfleet commercial plane was fictional but the biggest plane ever built in the world was the Antonov AN-225 Mriya, only one of her kind. She was unfortunately destroyed in Ukraine during the early days of the war at Hostomel Airport in February, 2022.
It's cool how you two know and see different things and support and complement each other!
They play poker in the movie version. In the book (which is basically the second half of the movie), and in previous Bond movies, they play baccarat. Apparently it was changed because of the rising popularity of poker when this movie was made.
The movie is so full of things I kind of wish it was divided into parts named by title cards. Even when I know that the last part is what it is, it still feels somewhat out of place.
If you intend to watch more Craig Bonds, I recommend watching Quantum of Solace soon because it's basically an epilogue to this movie and can be quite difficult to follow if you've forgotten the details.
Huh, funny, I remember watching QoS in theatres and absolutely hating it (especially that extremely badly shot car chase at the start)
Not just Poker but hold'em, where you only get 2 cards to yourself and have to rely on the cards dealt to the table to make a hand.
@@blinkachu5275 Hard same. I absolutely hated it in theaters. I watched it a few years later to see if I still hated it as much. I did. Oddly enough, it's the one Craig Bond I've seen the third time because I binged all Bonds last year, most of them for the first time as an adult, and I thought I'd just see how it fares in comparison.
I don't know what happened but now I think the chase is pretty good. I've come to appreciate experimental editing, I guess. The rest of the movie... meanders and I definitely rewound it a few times just to keep track of the plot. But it's the only Bond movie that actually really follows up on the dramatic events of the last one and I love Craig's angst in it.
So for all its weaknesses, it's surprisingly decent (and unique) epilogue to CR once you know what to expect. But I'm a huge fan of On Her Majesty's Secret Service and I like it when Bond actually gets emotional and feels human.
@@fettel1988 Thanks! I don't know the variations that well. I've always gone by "if it has full house, three-of-a-kind, royal flush etc, it's poker".
@@fettel1988 Texas Hold 'em, that is.
Hi George and Simone,
For George: games played with decks of playing cards are usually referred to as "Cards" and not poker. Like you'll hear "Lets play some cards" and its generally something like poker or blackjack. There are many types of games with cards and many variants within them. There's Go Fish, War, Blackjack, Poker, Baccarat, Kings, Spades, Hearts, Rummy, Maverick, and the list goes on and on and on... The most popular gambling card games tend to be Blackjack, Poker, and Baccarat.
For Simone: yay 'Run DnD' shirt!
Fun fact: The earlier Bond films usually had Baccarat as the card game of choice, and in the original Casino Royale novel (and '67 film version) Baccarat is what was being played. The rising popularity of Texas hold 'em poker led to the change of game being played as modern audiences are more familiar with Poker than they are with Baccarat.
Between shirtless Daniel Craig and Eva Green...being Eva Green, there was someone in this movie for EVERYONE in the audience to crush on back in '06.
Then you add Mads M. for all the Mads fans...
For me it was Mads🥰
Casino Royale quickly became and remains one of my all-time favorite Bond movies. And yes, the guy Bond chased in the beginning is played by one of the pioneers of freerunning and parkour. I loved that even though this one is a full reboot, they kept Judi Dench on as M. She's just SO good in the role! "Christ I miss the Cold War!" is one of my favorite lines of the whole franchise, in no small part because of Dame Judi's delivery :)
The jousting, interplay and raw charisma of Craig, Green and Mikkelsen is through the roof; it's what makes this film. And how it ends of course. It's my personal favorite 007 film.
PS: Mads Mikkelsen and others were real life avid poker players when they made the film; he sometimes played for fun with various cast members and crew between scenes, at some mock-up poker table somewhere on the soundstages. :)
The movies really move Bond into all the hyper gadgets that James Bond is known for, but in the Ian Flemming novels, he's described as a 'blunt instrument'. I've been a Bond fan since Roger Moore, but I think that Daniel Craig is the closest to the character created by Flemming. FYI, the explosives expert that Bond kills in the beginning was one of the founders of parkour, Sébastien Foucan.
This was the Bond movie most faithful to the original books in decades. No wonder it was so good.
When this came out, I had little interest. I was surprised to find it the best Bond film, and I still think it is. Aside from adding a few opportunities for action set pieces, it follows the original novel shockingly closely, considering Bond films since the 70s have basically just used Bond titles, and made up their own stories. I think this and On Her Majesty's Secret Service are the films that best represent Fleming's novels.
I like how this film takes a closer look at the more "thuggish" side of this very dirty business. Not since Connery has the series acknowledged that Bond, while able to move and operate in high society, is a brutal killer when he needs to be.
@@-M0LE I disagree. One of Connery's first kill is absolutely cold.
"You've had your six." *executes with no remorse*
Dalton
timothy daltons bond had some pretty dark moments
@@-M0LE As opposed to a non-military soldier.
@@FrancoisDressler yeah Dalton is goat in being close to the books and giving impression of cold assasin while at the same time had class
That's one thing I love about the Bourne movies. They're not in exotic or crazy ritzy places. Feels so... grounded.
Simone was insanely ON in this movie. She called the small bomb being moved to the bomb truck driver. She called the evidence of Mathis helping bond and it causing Le Chiffre to bleed from his eye. She deduced quite a bit that I never caught when I first watched.
Director Martin Campbell has a knack for reviving franchises. Hence, I recommend checking out GoldenEye (1995) & The Mask of Zorro (1998).
Campbell also has a cameo in Casino Royale. He's the airport employee who gets his neck snapped when the fuel truck is stolen.
Goldeneye is probably my favorite Bond Film
@@ThreadBomb Not really a revival.
If you want to see a more accurate depiction of how an actual British Intelligence spy operates please check out Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
It is a movie adaptation of a novel made by John Le Carre. He worked for British Intelligence during the height of the Cambridge Five or the Cambridge Spy Ring when Soviet moles infiltrated British Intelligence. His novels has been made into TV Adaptations and a Movie.
The TV series is godly but the movie is amazing. The movie is stacked with powerful casts; John Hurt, Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Ciaran Hinds, Toby Jones, Tom Hardy and Benedict Cumberbatch. Its like a gathering of talented British actors.
That's an amazing film, the series was pretty good too
Ian Fleming was SOE too, so I'd say he knew it wasn't all that realistic. Not that I have a lot of sympathy for the guy.
A little fun fact about that car crash: at the time that movie hit the theaters, they got the world record for the most canon rolls in a car. Stunt double Adam Kirley played Bond in the scene in which a nitrogen cannon blows the car through the air.
19:00 Interestingly, although not directly mentioned in the films, in the books Bond doesn't use a cover. He uses his real name which is tied to working for "Universal Exports" (the cover company for MI6), and his cover story is basically a wealthy, playboy businessman.
You're right there. Occasionally I notice the films might have Bond mention he works for "Universal Exports" or "UnivEx", or the words appear on building signage or documentation associated with Bond and MI6, but it's hardly ever acknowledged as a particularly important aspect in the film series. It seems like its mostly just a detail added in there for fans of Fleming's books to notice, but for everyone else it kind of just flies under the radar and is barely picked up on.
The drink is called a Vesper, and is hard to make now since Kina Lillet was changed to Lillet Blanc and the recipe changed. You also need the Gordan's Gin from the UK not the US, yes, there is a difference. You can find lots of RUclips videos discussing the issue. The car crash was the world record holder for the number of flips, the driver walked away. The guy who shot Le Chiffre was the one who introduced him the the warlord at the start of the movie.
That thumbnail.... nearly killed me.
This to me, was absolutely perfect Bond. I grew up with the earlier incarnations and always thought that, for a spy, he was portrayed as being way too casual, too cavalier. But this, this was gritty, dark, realistic. Craig's Bond was a serious guy, ready to kill to get the job done. Perfect Bond.
I do like Craig, but my favorite bonds will always be Moore and Connery. The suaveness to me is quintessentially British.
I agree. This was one of the best Bond movies. He’s not some noodle armed hero, he has physical strength along with intelligence which is required for the realistic hand to hand fighting.
@@jacobwalsh1888I actually really like how they made CraigBond grow into that suaveness throughout the movies - at least to me he does
Sébastien Foucan the actor at the beginning is basically one of the progenitors/founders of modern parkour/freerunning
I discovered Eva Green exactly with this movie ❤ (I watched it in theater when it came out, with my father, who's an old fan of the Bond saga): she has became one of my favourite actress and the movie itself is one of my favourites of the franchise.
I'm really glad you guys watched it too and liked it 😉👍🏻
I'm saddened that you didn't feel in your soul the amazing machine that was the Aston Martin DB9, or the horror that most of us felt when the car rolled (and set a world record in the process). The drink is a Vesper Martini, which I enjoyed long before the movie was made, because I read the 007 books long ago. I recommend using less than the amount of Lillet Blanc (the only version of Kina Lillet available anymore) called for in the recipe, otherwise it will overpower the cocktail to its great detriment.
Well actually it was an Aston Martin DBS...and somehow it wasn't...:-) The car in the movie is supposed to be the DBS, but that wasn't on sale until a year later (like the Ford Mondeo Bond drives on the Bahamas), so they used prototypes for filming and the stunt car that did the barrel rolls was indeed a DB9 made up to look like a DBS.
The bomb maker he chases in the beginning is not just any Parkourist. He is one of the two men who invented the sport.
I hope this means you'll be reacting to more Bond; I'm dying to see Simone's facial expressions while watching old school Sean Connery and Roger Moore 007!
@@OriginalPuro Dude it’s just an expression
Shame they tended to age badly but it could be very entertaining.
@@OriginalPuro You must be a blast at parties.
@@OriginalPuro Ladies and gentlemen I give you the person who inspired Drax, "Nothing goes over my head. My reflexes are too fast. I would catch it."
Quantum of Solace picks up minutes after Casino Royale ends; its the most direct sequel of the whole bond franchise. It's not the most well liked Bond movie, but it has grown on me over time.
QoS gets better with age honestly. I remember being disappointed with it at first, but it got better after later viewings.
Interesting thing, that scene where Bond flips his car instead of running over Vesper held the record for most rolls in a movie scene for about 8 years if I'm not mistaken, I've forgotten what took the record from it.
ATTN George:
There is a fairly wide range of card games. You can invite someone to 'play cards' but that would be as informative as inviting someone to play 'sports'. Poker is the one you're most likely to encounter in films as it is synonymous with a lost of westerns, but there are other gambling games like Faro and Baccarat. Blackjack shows up in a few films, usually in relation to card counting (a specific skill that is generally against the rules of casinos).
Away from movies, there are a whole range of 'patience' or solo games, with Free Cell, Klondike, Yukon, Gaps (aka Montana), Clock, and Pyramid possibly being the most famous. There are quite a few different families of games like trick-taking, bluffing, games based on runs and melds, on shedding your hand. If you've ever played Uno for example, that is an adaptation of a shedding game called Crazy Eights supposedly to clear out the house rules, but most people house rule Uno to death anyway!
For both of you:
If you want films in mundane locations, the UK has made a whole load of them, like The Full Monty, Brassed Off, Pride, Made In Dagenham, Cemetary Junction, Blinded By The Light, Bend It Like Beckham, Hot Fuzz, Attack the Block, 28 Days Later...
The thing about Bond here is he is intentionally provocative to throw people off. If anyone's ever watched Leverage, alot of their cons involve their leader playing an utter bastard to make the mark angry, invested, and reckless.
When "M" (Judi Dench) threatens to kill Bond if he "utters one more syllable," it's because her name is a secret. In the Bond universe, the head of MI-6 (British Intelligence) is always called "M." The first "M," in the books and early movies, was "Sir Miles Messervy." (He was played by Bernard Lee in the Sean Connery films.) Judi Dench's character is eventually revealed to be "Olivia Mansfield," and another "M" is named "Mallory."
Love the shade being thrown at Edmonton, home of beloved actor Nathan Fillion, and...um...
- The Parkour sequence had a real parkour runner...Sebastien Foucan, who created the sport of parkour was the guy Bond was chasing and fighting.
- Poker is the generic name of the game, but there are variations...Five Card Stud, Texas Hold'Em, etc. The basic winning hand combinations are the same, depending on which cards are "wild" cards, and how they hands play out.
- The sparing between Bond and Vesper Lynd...basically they both read each other pretty accurately...example: Bond is an orphan.
- The martini Bond orders is the exact recipie from the Ian Flaming novels. If you want a 007 martini...that is the way it is made.
- Shortly after this film, Craig and Eva Green made another movie...Daniel played Lord Asriel and Eva played Serafina Pekkala in 'The Golden Compass' based on the Phillip Pullman novel with Nicole Kidman ( as Mrs. Coulter), Sam Elliott (Lee Scorsby), and Ian McKellen as the voice of Iorek Byrnison.
- Jeffrey Wright is just the most recent actor to play Bond's best friend CIA agent Felix Leiter...but he does the role so well! My favorite Leiter so far, the second best was David Hedison (in 'Live and Let Die' with Roger Moore and 'License To Kill' with Timothy Dalton).
- When the car rolls over after Bond swerves to not run over Vesper...that stunt broke the world record of the most rolls a car has made in a film stunt. It made 7 complete rolls.
- The next film 'The Quantum of Solace' picks up about ten minutes after this one ends.
- This director has guided two actors in their first outing as 007. Martin Campbell directed Pierce Brosnan in his first Bond film, 'Goldeneye' as well as Craig in this film. Campbell has also directed 'The Mask of Zorro' and 'The Legend of Zorro' with Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta Jones, and 'Green Lantern' with Ryan Reynolds. I wholeheartedly suggest 'The Mask of Zorro'...it's awesome!
37:20 I adore that David Arnold completely held back using the 'James Bond' stanza throughout the movie until Craig enters the immortal line here.
The hint of blending the horn into You Know My Name during the tux scene
The chap that Bond is chasing in the first scene is Sebastian Foucan, he's actually one of the inventers of parkour.
The town that made Simone say "Holy shit" is actually somewhat inexpensive to live in. It's the small town of Loket, Czech Republic. It's a spectacular place, but not a huge tourist draw and some of the buildings are still in disrepair from the Soviet days, though less every year. Very cool place to visit though.
in the Parkour's scene, the black parkour guy in the real life is the one who had invented Parkour, he's french Sebastien Foucan.
I love all of the Daniel Craig Bond movies, but I think I enjoyed Skyfall the most. There are several beautiful, artsy shots that are just incredible.
Skyfall is amazing. Skip the movie in between, but you guys have to watch Skyfall.
@@jculver1674 you can't skip Quantum of Solace if you plan on watching the entire Craig era.
@@MasterBetty69 sadly you’re right, i love Craig’s Bond but i just can’t bring myself to watch QOS unless i really have to for some reason. All 4 other films are great tho
@@MaxzLive oh I know, it's quite a drag, but for the overall story to feel complete you need to see it especially for Vespers's involvement.
@@MaxzLive like as a first time viewer watching the series
3:58 “a stuntperson did that“
Actually: no. The black guy is Sébastien Foucan, one of the two guys that invented parkour, and Daniel Craig, too, actually did that stunt. They were both on a wire of course, but they actually made the jumps.
The writer of James Bond was stationed in Jamaica for some time, which is why so many stories are set in the Caribbean.
And in one movie where Bond has to infiltrate the diamond trade, they did make the joke "I always wanted to go to South Africa." - "You're going to Amsterdam."
Ian Fleming had a summer home in Jamaica where he wrote every one of the Bond novels. He called the house Goldeneye (used as the name of the 1995 Bond film) and it is still there and open as a tourist destination. Fleming wrote a chapter a day at Goldeneye according to a very precise routine that included taking a break to swim, etc. and hence cranked out a novel a year during his stays there. It's said that there was nowhere he was happier than during his visits to Goldeneye.
Really great spot on the Mathis LeChiffre incongruence, and shows the writers and other staff were also paying attention to the details.
"They just hired a Parkorist"
Specifically, the guy who coined the phrase "parkor".
I was stunned when I learned Eva Green (Vesper) was French!
this is THE BEST Bond movie for me, All subsequent movies have good villains but they all lack something. It has so much happening that it could have been cut in two movies and the would still be two good movies. Mathis was not a traitor, he was just framed by LeChiffre in revenge for interfering with his plans.
I think Skyfall is the best with this being an extremely close second.
Poker is a the name of the game. There are different versions of poker that change how the game plays out. But, generally speaking each version of poker is just that, poker.
The version they are playing has each player receive two cards at the beginning of the turn. Basically, one has to pay a fee, an ante (an - tee), to participate with the two cards received and to see additional dealer dealt cards.
Once multiple players have paid their ante the dealer will play 3 cards out onto the table. Additional fees are required to see an additional card, upto a total of 5 cards on the table. To have a winning hand requires you to use a combination of the two originally dealt cards and what is available via the community cards on the table.
Ofc, bluffing, bullying, blinds and folding is all part of poker and is integral to how the game is played.
That hotel (the Casino Royale in Montenegro) is actually in Karlovy Vary (aka Carlsbad) in the Czech Republic. It's called Grandhotel Pupp. I think most of the scenes since the train till the torture were filmed in the Czech Republic. But Montenegro is really beautiful too, apparently :)
Given Simone's use of D&D related T-shirts I figure it might be appropriate to break down the opening chase/parkour sequence using D&D terminology.
Parkour Guy: "I have maxed out dexterity and expertise in acrobatics!" *Proceeds to elegantly leap a gap and roll to his feet*
Bond: "I HAVE HIT POINTS!" *Proceeds to leap a gap and land in a way that probably breaks bones but just ignores them because everything is a minor injury to him.*
George: I thought Poker was Generic.
>> Next Movie needs to be “Maverick” with Mel Gibson, James Garner, Jodie Foster.
Good call.
It was funny, "Card Games", is the sport descriptor George was looking for, and Poker is one. Maverick would be a fun way to dig deeper.
Rounders
Following this film are Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, SPECTRE and No Time To Die. Both this and the 60's version are adapted from the novel of the same name. Preceding Daniel Craig are Pierce Brosnan, Timothy Dalton, Roger Moore, George Lazenby and Sean Connery. The title song, "You Know My Name", is sung by the late Chris Cornell
The ball whipping scene explains why Bond never had kids in all of the movies lol
Also all the male audiance when I saw this in the cinema had the same response as this guy watching it lol
you sure he didnt?
@@treles lol ah ah ah… no spoilers friend. I’m guessing some people haven’t completed the series like some of us.
The parkour scene at the beginning, the black guy is one of the creators of parkour . And is still one of the best opening scenes in a bond film , and yeah bond abit of a sledge hammer to the black guys amazingly graceful parkour balances beautifully . The scene where he nearly runs her over , I’m sure is or was a world record for car flips in a film scene at the time
Fun fact about James Bond: Ian Fleming based the character at least partly on Christopher Lee, who you may know as Saruman from Lord of the Rings or Count Dooku from Star Wars. Fleming and Lee were friends and both worked for British intelligence during World War 2 (and possibly after the war as well: I'm not sure when they retired), and Fleming has specifically said that Lee was an inspiration for Bond.
So the next time you see a movie with Christopher Lee, remember what an absolute real life badass he was. Hell, Peter Jackson tells a story from the set of Return of the King in the scene where Saruman was stabbed in the back by Wormtongue. Peter Jackson wanted Christopher Lee to scream out in pain, but Christopher Lee asked him something along the lines of "Have you heard what it sounds like when someone is stabbed in the back? I have." So instead of screaming in pain like the director originally wanted, he made a strange noise as if the air that was already in his lungs was being forced out, because he knew from personal experience that's what it sounds like when someone is stabbed in the back.
I didn't know that, and Lee played Scarmunga in "The Man With The Golden Gun".
@@Madbandit77 Indeed he did!
Christopher Lee was also present at the last official execution by guillotine in France.
@@matthewganong1730 Really? Damn, I hadn't heard that... There seriously needs to be a biopic about him.
The car role (when Vespa gets kidnapped, & left tied up in the road, is a world record for most car flips in a row (9 rolls).
The guy doing parkour at the start, is the man behind it, was 1 of the 1st to do it (if not the 1st).
The chair torture scene, when I saw it at the cinema, everyone except me reacted like you did, even after all these yrs, has no effect on me.
Fun fact - the car crash set a world record for most rollovers... not CGI... they crashed that Aston...
2:08 - Gave me Lord of War memories - "Some sort of War Lord" - "Thank you but I prefer it my way"
Hurray!! I was hoping you would do the Daniel Craig Bond Series!!
George, that version of the Martini is called 'The Vesper'
MI6 Physician: "Push the button, do it now!"
Simone: "HE'S TRYING!!!"
My god that was hilarious and adorable all at once.
My favorite opening theme. RIP Cornell.
Such a great movie. So many amazing shots. This had a big impact on making 'reboots' and 'soft reboots' a viable option, I feel.
"Okay... I need to live there, I think."
"There" not being the actual Montenegro, but Loket and Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic, where Casino Royale's 'Montenegro' exterior scenes were shot. :)
16:30 Fun Fact - They had a display of all the props at an exhibition in London, including those documents. Her cover name was indeed Stephanie Broadchest.
I don't really know what is more dramatic. Bond or Simones "Oh my god!!!".
There is so much more in James Bond films when you know the history. This film to me seems like it’s the first film introducing you to 007 because most films somewhere in the beginning has him saying his name, the iconic phrase “Bond, James Bond”. This movie did it at the end which made me so happy it’s hard to explain. Hope you’ll get it one day…
lt does not play the james bond theme until then either, which makes the scene extra bad ass...
@@Valkyrie77 Now I’ve got to watch it again, thanks!
There are several games of poker, for example draw, and stud poker. The particular game they are playing in this film is called Texas Hold Um, which was very popular at the time the film was made.
After Skyfall, probably my favorite Daniel Craig Bond film. Although, No Time to Die was really good too.
I just liked how they introduced this version of the character. Plus, Vespa is a great character to play off of.
Eva Green is perfection. The train scene is just the best :-) "How's your lamb? Skewered..." 😅
She’s amazing. I sometimes wish they had kept her alive for this film and had the same reveal/death for Quantum. I don’t know story-wise how that would be accomplished, but it would’ve been worth it to have Vesper around for another film.
Fun Fact: The Car flip scene is in The Guinness World Record Book for most flips in a car. I think it was something like 15 or 16. And yes they really did it, no CGI
this film delighted me so much when i first saw it. the franchise was rebooted definitely for me because i hadn’t liked a bond film in YEARS. daniel craig never disappointed.
George: "All card games are poker."
Simone: **looks at regular 747** "Do they make planes THAT big!??!?"
It's not that regular in all parts of the world. Don't know about Canada, tho.
@@VilleHalonen I mean.....It's a 747. The most famous widespread passenger aircraft in history.
You can just say "a 747" without context, and people know what you're talking about.
It's in literally HUNDREDS of movies and TV shows.
They're fly to virtually every major country on Earth.
They've been around so long that they're starting to be retired.
Air Canada has or had 747s.
Even if they don't anymore, other countries flying to Canada definitely do.
Just for general information, the British pronunciation if Craig has the same vowel sound as “paid”while the North American version has the same vowel sound as “said”. Daniel Craig therefore has the long vowel sound 😊
They're playing Texas Hold 'em which is arguably the most popular game of poker but there are tons of other types of poker. Omaha, 5 card draw, 7 card stud, Razz and 5 card stud are probably the most common aside from hold 'em.
Fun fact: The 'roll-over' accident with the Aston Martin, became a Guinness World Record for most flips done by a car!!!
Also, did you recognize the actor who was M's main contact, would go onto be one of the Starks in GOT!!!
There's lots of variations on poker. The most popular today, and what's shown in this movie, is called Texas Hold'em.
I was so glad they touched on that trope right at the start when someone has to put their hand to their ear when listening through an earpiece. That guy at the start was so frustrating.
George is laughing when the jet engine of the plane throws the cop car like it's a sheet of paper, but that is exactly how powerful they are. watch : Car vs Boeing 747 Engine | Top Gear
This movie is a personal favorite of mine. Your reactions mirrored my own when I saw it in the theater. As I watched the subsequent movies, it was clear that this movie was Bond starting on his path to become the legendary spy so he is very rough around the edges. The best example was the initial chase scene. He was very brute-force in his approach and continued like that throughout the movie. You know when he grabbed the steak knife from the platter after being wiped out in the game that LeChiffre was a DEAD man. Another example of him taking a brute-force approach when things are going badly. I really enjoyed the relationship with Vesper and it makes her death even more upsetting, but wow did it set up one of the best closing scenes for a movie while showcasing Bond becoming more sophisticated. The fourth act of this movie ends up driving Bond in the next two films. Someone else mentioned that the suave, sophisticated side of Bond is a mask and they were absolutely right. He is a very angry, tormented man underneath. Hope you enjoy them too!
11:26 Director cameo, Martin Campbell as the guy that got his neck broken.
I remember going to the theater, with very low spectatives and been blown away by the opening scene and then, Chris Cornell started to sing? Are You fucking with me?! I was sold by then.
16:03 - “How was your lamb?” - “Skewered.” 🤣🤣💀
Hi George and Simone, the aerial shot and narrow streets of "Montenegro casino" is in fact Loket castle and town in Czechia, so you can definitely visit the place :-) The hotel is Grandhotel Pupp in nearby Karlovy Vary (Carlsbad spa) and you can book a hotel room starting 200 CAD depending on season. And when being in Czechia, you can visit some Kingdom Come locations ;-)
In the novel they were playing baccarat but was changed to poker for the movie (specifically Texas Hold 'Em), presumably because at that time I can recall Texas Hold 'Em being quite popular (with the advent of online poker sites), thus there wouldn't have been as much of a need for a bunch of expository dialogue explaining the rules of the game.
That place where you said you need to live is Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic. The hotel is the Grand Hotel Pupp. There's a huge, prestigious international film festival there every July (I've attended three times). It's a beautiful, wonderful place. You truly should visit. And Prague is just a 90-minute drive away.
The CIA agent is the character Felix Leiter, who shows up in lots of Bond stories and movies. He'll show up a couple more times in the Craig movies.
Simone the largest plane to ever fly flown was the An-225. (only one was produced)
The An-225 held several records, including heaviest aircraft ever built and largest wingspan of any aircraft in operational service.
It was destroyed when Russia invaded Ukraine this year