12 Things You Learn Rewatching Casino Royale
10. Le Chiffre Is The Unique Villain The Series Desperately Needed
After the utterly inane shenanigans of Die Another Day's silly villains, the comparatively grounded nature of Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen) was enormously refreshing indeed.
Played with sinister yet understated relish by the great Mikkelsen, the villain has one foot planted in the classic hallmarks of earlier Bond antagonists - namely a physical deformity - and the other in something we've not really seen from Bond baddies before.
Le Chiffre is an extremely desperate antagonist who, after losing over $100 million thanks to Bond averting the Skyfleet disaster, has one final shot at getting out clean with a high-stakes poker game in Montenegro.
He may have a genius intellect, but his arc is almost completely unique among Bond villains, to the extent that he's attacked by other villains mid-way through the movie and ends up killed by more of them long before the end of the film.
Considering how mouldy the Bond villain tropes had become by 2006, it was great to see expectations being subverted so thoroughly.