161 - Casino Royale

    Having just achieved his 00 status, Bond uncovers a peculiar plot, which involves shorting the stock of an airline, and a man who acts as an investment banker for organized crime and terrorists.  Bond has to beat him at poker to force him to lose his client's money.
    I've never been a big Bond fan.  I saw Goldeneye when that came out.  I enjoyed it.  Then I tried to watch it a second time, and I found it intolerable.  I think I saw the next one (The World is Not Enough?) and didn't remember anything about it.  When Casino Royale came out, I didn't really give it any attention.  I saw it sometime after it came out on DVD, and I really liked it.  I was enthusiastic enough that I went to see Quantum of Solace in theaters, and I really liked that as well.
    Casino Royale is balanced very well.  There's some great action, but there's a lot of Bond fumbling and figuring out what he can do.  He doesn't make perfect decisions.  In contrast though, there are also plenty of sequences of Bond doing very clever things, and acting like a superb agent.
    What makes the movie noteworthy is the emotional depth that Bond gets to enjoy.  He has a romance, one that he feels involved in.  He's willing to leave his work for her.  And he never gets the resolution he would like from it.  This makes Bond more fleshed out than prior movies let him get.
    Like the Bourne movies, I like to revisit Casino Royale now and then.  It's such a satisfying watch.