Casino Royale (Two-Disc Collector's Edition + BD Live) [Blu-ray]

The DVD casino royale is not compatible to my austrian DVD player, so please can you send me a german version of it. We love James Bond and do not want to have something else, it is a present for christmas.

I was never a big James Bond fan. The first one I ever saw at the cinema was GOLDENEYE. Though many people who saw it with me and many people now say it was the best, I thought it wasn't worth the money or the time. And since it was supposed to be the "best Bond" I didn't see much reason to watch any of the others.

But I was told that the remake of CASINO ROYALE was a new and different James Bond picture. So, I gave it a chance, and I loved it. I think what separates Daniel Craig's Bond from all the others is that he brings a more human element to the role. His Bond can get tired. He can get hurt. He can be vulnerable. He can make mistakes. He can be nervous and scared. He can even die! That's an action hero that I can watch again and again. I can't relate to someone who sweeps the beautiful dame off her feet immediately after death-defying stunts as if nothing had ever happened. But I can relate to someone who after a tough foot-chase or a battering brawl has to stop and catch his breath.

I have heard that this new era of Bond does not have many of the critics or many of the hard-core fans happy. But it leaves me satisfied enough. Not only satisfied enough to watch CASINO ROYALE tonight but also to go see QUANTUM OF SOLACE tomorrow.

I have unfortunately joined the other angry reviewers who have bought this DVD only to find that it does not play on their equipment. I suggest that Amazon post a notice on Sony products warning possible purchasers that there are serious compatibility issues. None of us should be wasting money shipping DVDs to and fro because Sony is dishonest about its products.

My interest in James Bond died the day I saw Pierce Brosnan shoot a machinegun. Gone were the careful headshots of a man who was an expert with his pistol. Replacing that deadly accuracy was frenetic scenes, random gunfire, and Bond bending the laws of reality. The Bond films had become a parody of themselves.

Enter Casino Royale, which makes up for the shambling travesty that was the Casino Royale Bond spoof. Daniel Craig takes on the role of Bond as a newbie, a newbie who is a ruthless killer. Gone are the delicate acrobatics that were the trademark of other Bonds. This Bond is a hulking brute, smashing through walls, ruthlessly shooting people, and otherwise achieving his missions through sheer brute force. It seems jarring at first, but this is the origin of Bond, from thug to international assassin.

The plot, bound by the rules of the original novel, doesn't entirely make sense. Why the entire world, including both the U.S. and British authorities, feel that beating a criminal at a card game is the best way to coerce him is beyond me. But if you're willing to buy into that fact (a requisite, really, for the spy genre where nothing is ever so simple and direct) then the film has a certain cadence to it that really enthralls.

Until the end. The part where, we are led to believe, Bond is going to settle down with Vesper Lynd, a treasury agent, in Venice. Yeah, right.

About ten minutes could have been cut from this scene alone. We get that Bond is enamored with Lynd, that he wants to give it all up for her, but after the torture, the shooting, the gambling, the chasing, the movie becomes something of a snore until it picks up again. And then we're off to the beginning of another movie, with no resolution whatsoever.

Casino Royale is a much improved film, but it's the foundation for the Bond mythology, and as such it breaks previous expectations and struggles to establish new ones. It's much better than the Bond films that went before it, but they set the bar pretty low. As a book-end to Quantum of Solace, Casino Royale can't be really appreciated without seeing the two movies back-to-back.

Its got everthing: intrigue, suspense, great special effects, good acting, excellent cast, and proper character development for a 2 hour movie. Excellent!