10 Things Nobody Wants To Admit About Daniel Craig's Bond Movies

10. Casino Royale Is A Step Above All The Other Flicks

It's kind of weird to think that Skyfall, a far more inferior movie to Casino Royale, is deemed - by the majority of critics and audiences, at least - to be a better movie. Sure, it's arguably prettier, was helmed by a big name director and has Javier Bardem as a villain, but when you look at these two flicks side by side, there's a clear winner. And it's Casino Royale. What most people seem to have missed is that Casino Royale is probably the greatest Bond movie ever made. It has a proper story, proper characters, and - for the most part - it makes proper sense. The logic is there, it feels grounded in reality, and yet it never lets things get too serious. Its bad guy, Le Chiffre, feels Bond-like, but he's a real person. Not to forget that the action scenes and the central love story are the best-realised in the canon. Skyfall is a good movie, but there's a seriousness to it - Bond as "art" - that doesn't quite work. The action scenes, though good, pale in comparison to those in Casino Royale, and the plot... well, it makes no sense at all, does it? It's just about the most convoluted plot in recent cinema history. A second viewing of Skyfall withers alongside Casino Royale. Because Casino Royale is the Bond movie as a modern masterpiece; it's endlessly rewatchable, exciting, tense, romantic and the soundtrack is fantastic, too. It's time that audiences revisited this movie and realised that Casino Royale is the pinnacle of Bond.
Contributor

Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.