Review - Casino Royale (2006) & Quantum of Solace (2008)

        Hey guys, Chuck here. Well, as we here in the United States are a week and a half from the release of No Time to Die, it's time for me to dive into the Daniel Craig era of the James Bond series with Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace. Directed respectively by Martin Campbell (director of GoldenEye) and Marc Forster, these two films are paired together for this review mainly because Quantum of Solace serves as a direct sequel to Casino Royale. This marks the first time that this sort of thing has happened in the Bond series. So, let's start with Casino Royale. 

          Casino Royale opens with Bond, still a rookie MI6 agent, going after a corrupt MI6 section chief named Dryden, as well as his contact, and kills them both, earning his 007 number is the process. Yeah, I should mention that Casino Royale is essentially a reboot of the Bond series due to the lackluster critical and audience response to Die Another Day, which was Pierce Brosnan's last outing as Bond. Anyway, we are then introduced to a man named Mr. White, who sets up an African warlord named Steven Obanno with another man named Le Chiffre, who acts as private banker to the terrorists of the world. Le Chiffre then bets all of Obanno's money on a potential stock market drop for a company called Skyfleet. But we'll get to that later. 

       Bond, meanwhile, goes after a bomb maker named Mollaka, and chases him in a sequence that involves a lot of free running and parkour, and eventually ends in a nearby embassy, where Bond shoots and kills him, taking his bag with explosives and a cell phone with a text message that reads "Ellipsis". Back in London, a furious M tells Bond to take some time off, and he heads to the Bahamas, which is where the text was sent. Bond then wins a game of poker against a Greek criminal named Alex Dimitrios, winning his Aston Martin DB5 in the process. Bond then hooks up with Dimitrios' wife Solange, getting some information from her on where her husband was going. Bond then goes after Dimitrios, spots another individual working with him, and follows the associate to the Miami Airport, where Skyfleet's prototype airplane would be launching from. Bond stops the bombing of the Skyfleet prototype, which causes Le Chiffre to lose all of Obanno's money. Back in the Bahamas, M shows Bond the dead body of Solange, and tells him about Le Chiffre, and the loss of money led him to set up a high-stakes poker game at Casino Royale in Montenegro. M decides to put Bond in the game, as Le Chiffre's defeat would force him to go to the British government for asylum in exchange for information. 

        On a train in Montenegro, Bond meets a bank representative named Vesper Lynd, who goes along with Bond to keep an eye on things. Bond and Vesper check into the hotel, and later meet a local contact named Rene Mathis. That night, the big poker game is set to begin. Bond, Le Chiffre, and the other players are all set and ready. Now, the card game between Bond and Le Chiffre in the original novel was Baccarat, bit for the movie to change the game to poker was a smart decision, as Texas Hold-'em was really popular at the time, especially among teenagers. Heck, I was in at least my sophomore year myself when I started playing Texas Hold-'em. Anyway, as the game goes on, Le Chiffre is attacked by Obanno, who wants his money, but Obanno and his men are ultimately killed by Bond and Vesper. Mathis hides the bodies in the trunk of a car belonging to one of Le Chiffre's men, and the man is arrested the next day. 

        In the second night, Bond loses out to Le Chiffre, who was tipped off about a sign of bluffing he gave during the game. While Vesper refuses to stake Bond back in the game, another one of the players offers to instead. This is CIA agent Felix Leiter, in the game for the same reason as Bond: apprehend Le Chiffre on behalf of the American government. Back in the game, Bond starts to win more and more, but is poisoned by Le Chiffre's girlfriend Velanka. With help from MI6, as well as Vesper, Bond manages to survive, and goes on to win $115 million with a straight flush. Bond and Vesper are later kidnapped by Le Chiffre, who tortures Bond for the password to access the account the money is to be transferred to. Bond refuses to talk, and Le Chiffre is killed by Mr. White. 

         Bond is healed at a medical facility, but he tips off MI6 brass that Mathis may be a traitor and Mathis is arrested. Bond decides to leave active service to live a quiet life with Vesper, who turns out to be the real traitor, as while she and Bond are in Venice, she withdraws the winnings and takes them to a contact, but when they spot Bond, a shootout ensues, and the building's foundations are destroyed, sinking it into the canal. Vesper, overcome with guilt, drowns herself and dies, despite Bond's efforts to save her. After a phone call with M, who tells of how Vesper was being blackmailed by the organization backing Le Chiffre to give up the winnings to save her French-Algerian boyfriend, Bond discovers a text for him that leads him to Mr. White. The movie ends with him apprehending Mr. White and saying his signature line for the first time: "The name's Bond. James Bond." 

        So, where to begin? Well, despite a number of fans being against the idea of Daniel Craig as Bond, even jokingly referring to him as "James Blond," he turned in an excellent performance here. Eva Green was terrific as Vesper, as were Made Mikkelsen as Le Chiffre, Jeffrey Wright as Felix, and Giancarlo Giannini as Mathis. I definitely enjoyed the return of Judi Dench as M, as the only holdover from the Brosnan films. What's absolutely terrific about this film is the absolute realism in the action, storytelling, and portrayal of Bond. Craig definitely humanized James Bond in a way we've never seen before. Last but not least, the film's main theme, "You Know My Name" by Chris Cornell, is a personal favorite of mine. Casino Royale is definitely a must-watch for both long-time Bond fans and newcomers to the Bond series, and I'm giving it a rating of 5/5. 

         Released two years after Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace picks up with Bond in a car chase, evading some bad guys, and delivering Mr. White to M. Mr. White mentions how his organization, Quantum, has people embedded all over the world, unseen and always around. One of these Quantum agents, a man named Mitchell, is in the room, and he tries to kill M. Bond gives chase and kills him, and Mr. White vanishes in the process. 

        Bond then heads to Haiti to find Mitchell's contact, where he meets Camille Montes, who takes Bond to Dominic Greene. Greene is working with Bolivian General Medrano, who Greene has agreed to get installed as the new president of Bolivia in exchange for some barren desert land. Medrano, it turns out, was the man responsible for the deaths of Camille's family. After a massive chase, Bond rescues Camille from Medrano, an she follows Greene to an opera in Austria. Bond then identifies, photographs, and sends the pictures of various Quantum agents to MI6, where M and her new aide Bill Tanner realize just how deep Quantum really goes. Bond is framed for the death of a bodyguard of Quantum member Guy Haines, who is a special advisor to the British Prime Minister. M then restricts Bond's movements, and his passports and credit cards are all revoked. Bond then heads to meet Mathis (who was proven innocent and given a nice new home after the events of Casino Royale), and convince him to help get back on Quantum's trail in Bolivia. 

      In Bolivia, Bond and Mathis are greeted by a local consular employee named Fields, whose job is to put Bond on the first plane back to London. The two head to a hotel, where Bond seduces her, and they attend a fundraiser being held that evening by Greene. All manner of havoc ensues, with Mathis getting killed by two Bolivian policemen, and Bond stays with Mathis until he dies. Camille and Bond end up in the desert, where they discover a vast underground water supply, and the two realize that Greene plans to monopolize this secret water supply. Back in La Paz, Bond learns from M that Fields was drowned and smothered in crude oil by Quantum agents. Later, Bond meets his CIA friend Felix Leiter, whose boss Gregg Beam has struck a deal with Greene, and points Bond to a hotel in the Atacama desert, La Perla de las Dunas, where Greene will meet Medrano. 

       At the hotel, Greene signs a deal with Medrano to be Bolivia's sole supplier of clean water. Bond kills the Bolivian police chief in retribution for Mathis' death, Camille kills Medrano, and Bond chases after Greene. Greene tells Bond everything about Quantum, Bond leaves him in the middle of the desert with a can of oil, and Bond and Camille bid each other farewell. Some time later, Bond goes to Kazan, Russia, where he meets Yusef Kabira, Vesper's former boyfriend, who is a Quantum agent that seduces women agents with valuable connections and fakes his kidnapping so they'll betray their governments to save him. Bond confronts him and saves a woman, Corrine Veneau, from being another of Kabira's marks. After a conversation, Bond leaves Kabira to be arrested by MI6, and M confronts him about Greene being found with oil in his stomach and two bullet wounds in his neck, and Beam losing his CIA job. The movie end with M asking Bond to come back, to which he responds: "I never left."

        Now, unlike Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace was not well liked by critics or fans. The leaps in logic and nonsensical plot were both an unfortunate casualty of the Writer's Guild Strike of 2007-2008. While Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Giancarlo Giannini, and Jeffrey Wright were all terrific once again as James Bond, M, Mathis, and Felix, only a few newcomers like Olga Kurylenko as Camille and David Harbour as Gregg Beam we're actually enjoyable. Mathieu Amalric as Dominic Greene was a forgettable villain, and Gemma Arterton was just okay as Fields. By the way, you'd have to watch the credits to learn that her full name is Strawberry Fields, as it's never mentioned in the movie itself. The movie's theme song, "Another Way to Die" by Jack White and Alicia Keys.is easily one of the worst Bond themes of all time, and really has no bearing on the film whatsoever. 

        Definitely not among my favorites of the series, and easily forgotten once it's over, I give Quantum of Solace a low rating of 2.5/5. 

       This is Chuck signing off, and I'll see you guys tomorrow as we wrap up our run down of the Daniel Craig James Bond films with my reviews of Skyfall and Spectre.