Royale, but hold the cheese

Introduction

"No Mr Bond, I expect you to die"

The words of one Auric Goldfinger there. And after Roger Moore's rather laughable appearances in Octopussy and A View to a Kill, I was rather expecting the Bond franchise to die. But then along came Timothy Dalton, who brought us hints of a darker Bond, more like the one on the printed page. Sadly, he was a rather short lived appointment, swiftly replaced by Pierce Brosnan. Despite not always having the best scripts to work with, Brosnan brought something new to the role, whilst recalling some of the Bond of old.



But even Brosnan's Bond was dogged by too many gadgets and over the top villains (Carver from Tomorrow Never Dies instantly springs to mind). So, not too long ago it was decided to start Bond all over again, by going back to Casino Royale and starting afresh.

To this end, Daniel Craig was elevated to the role of Bond, and there was much debate about whether he could fill such massive shoes.

Casino Royale introduces us to a man named James Bond before he holds his license to kill. He is soon elevated to "00" status and M soon sends him on his first mission which leads him around the globe to face a man named Le Chiffre. Bond is not alone, and is joined by Treasury official Vesper Lynd.

Video and Audio

As I've said quite a few times now, we are finally reaching a point where these sections are becoming redundant for big blockbusters (of which Bond is still one). The video and audio are both excellent as you would expect and there's nothing whatsoever to moan about. It looks and sounds great. And there's the usual great mix of Bond locations on show, all of which look great on film.

Whilst some things from the more recent Bond films have been ditched, the David Arnold scores have not, which is great news.

Extra Features

Lots of stuff here, and even more than the previous release. Let's deal with that first:-

Becoming Bond Documentary
James Bond: For Real Documentary
Bond Girls Are Forever Documentary
Chris Cornell Music Video

All of these features are as featured on disc 2 of the previous DVD so I won't talk about them here.



What's new:-

On disc 1 we get 2 commentary tracks, one featuring director & producer, the other featuring various crew members. They are both interesting and engaging at various times, and are worth a listen.

On disc 3 we start out with a selection of deleted/extended scenes (easy to see why they were excised).

There are more documentaries here too, including "The Road to Casino Royale" - the story of why it took over 50 years to tell this story on film, "Ian Fleming's Incredible Creation" - which concentrates on Fleming and the character of Bond and "James Bond in the Bahamas" - a look at the various Bond films that have found their way to the Bahamas. We also have "Ian Fleming: Road to Paradise", which tells you more about Fleming and his life.



There are also features that concentrate specifically on Casino Royale, "Death in Venice" concentrates on a specific section of the film, "The Art of the Freerun" takes a look at the freerunning chase and the freerunning technique with the sport's founder, Sebastien Foucan. There are also storyboard sequences that can be compared with the finished film.

And there's also a selection of "filmmaker profiles" which are conversations with the director, special effects man Chris Corbould, the DP, the stunt co-ordinator and composer David Arnold. David Arnold's is probably the most interesting.

A very well rounded extras package which finally makes this film complete on DVD.

Conclusion

Casino Royale is a great film, and it's a great Bond film. In fact it's one of the very best. Daniel Craig could just turn out to be the best of the Bonds, if the scripts can keep delivering. This was the perfect way to rewind to the start and give someone the chance to grow into Bond. And it was seized with both hands, delivering a Bond for the brain as well as for the eyes and ears.

This DVD is probably what should have been released first time round, but we all know that studios are far more cynical than that and prefer to stich us up with average releases first time round and then get us to buy the improved version second time round.

If you don't own the film on DVD, then this set is the one to go for.