Episode #815: Casino Royale (2006, W❤️M)
Added 2025-08-07 10:00:09 +0000 UTC“If a dummy’s taking a fall, I’m clapping, I’m loving it!” - Eric on stunt work
On this month’s W❤️M, we’re chatting about the fantastic flick that kicked off Daniel Craig’s reign as James Bond, Casino Royale! Ultimately, was “sweaty hand-to-hand combat Bond” a good idea? How great is Mads Mikkelsen in this all-time villain performance? Is it weird that they’re just playing poker and not something a bit sexier like baccarat? How hilarious is that bottomless chair gag? And how much does Jeffrey Wright kick ass in these movies? PLUS: Blofeld tries to steal the Bond family peanut butter recipe!
Casino Royale stars Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen, Jeffrey Wright, Giancarlo Giannini, Caterina Murino, Simon Abkarian, Jesper Christensen, Ivan Milicevic, Tobias Menzies, and Dame Judi Dench as M; directed by Martin Campbell.
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Original cover art by Felipe Sobreiro.
Comments
My favorite bond movie and Bond is George Lazenby in On her majesty secret service
Dawn Elicia Billings
2025-08-17 21:45:29 +0000 UTCCan I just say that I love that there was a side conversation about Gordon Ramsey secret service. He’s so extra in it. Cracks me up.
Dawn Elicia Billings
2025-08-17 21:43:32 +0000 UTCAndrew, got to check out Cast A Deadly Spell. Early Martin Campbell film about magic in Hollywood.
Garod Wayman
2025-08-13 17:30:08 +0000 UTCI'll just say it I think James bond and Godzilla work best when it's silly.
Mark D Myers
2025-08-12 23:57:34 +0000 UTCThis was either a reply to The Client List episode or I REALLY missed a tangent on the Bond ep
Matt
2025-08-11 13:09:38 +0000 UTCThe Mikkelsen impressions are so impeccable that I'm wondering what other movies of his could be episodes. Dial of Destiny is the only one I can think of at the moment.
profondo robbo
2025-08-11 10:09:01 +0000 UTCSpeaking of Bob Kraft and the strip mall Florida rub n tug….strange place for a billionaire to be. It’s funny that Trump in 2014 was bragging about his run of smaller massage parlors in Jupiter Fl and the surrounding area. There was one other chain of massage parlors in the area run by Cindy Yang. Trump for whatever reason was buddy buddy with her and didn’t treat her as completion. She owned the parlor Kraft was arrested at. She also is a mega Trump donator. Knowing all that, how did Robert Kraft, great friend of Trump, know about this parlor? I mean obviously enough innuendo, it’s obvious Trump owned human trafficking massage parlors in Florida. He literally was diversifying his human trafficking. And he’s guilty, there’s no universe in which those series of events happen and Trump was running legitimate cheap massage parlors and Bob Kraft was a patron of random massage parlors.
RJ Cunningham
2025-08-10 18:00:09 +0000 UTCI love No Time to Die, but that's probably because I sensed the echoes of the books' misanthropy and melancholy, which is not a huge blockbuster sort of reaction.
Adam Lewis
2025-08-10 12:55:37 +0000 UTCSteve's impression of Mads Mikkelson was making me cry laughing. He sounds vaguely Japanese.
Sonya Ballantyne
2025-08-10 02:41:57 +0000 UTC"Ta da da ba da, fuck off whatever." Steve, I was in a fucking supermarket...
Conrad Silas
2025-08-09 19:20:49 +0000 UTCJoe Isuzu weeps that he did make the 80s commercials cut.
Aaron
2025-08-09 16:26:15 +0000 UTCTIL Martin Campbell also directed Golden Eye, my other favourite Bond movie
I'd Rather Have No Name
2025-08-09 16:15:04 +0000 UTCFun Fact. The guy that gets his neck broken in the airport is Martin Campbell the director
Lee Stacey
2025-08-09 12:05:27 +0000 UTCThe true Bond fans know On Her Majesty Secret Service is top tier Bond. Personally I rank in third behind Casino Royale and The Spy Who Loved Me.
Chaz Keracher
2025-08-09 00:45:30 +0000 UTCMartin Campbell made the best Craig and best Brosnan 007 movie. Which also happen to be 2 of the best 007 movies in general. My biggest gripe with the Craig run is the underuse of Jeffery Wright. The best Felix Leiter since Jack Lord IMO.
Frank Grimes
2025-08-08 19:40:26 +0000 UTCRounders you say? MINGO!!! UH-OH! ALLISON! CLEAN UP ON AISLE ME!
Purple Roundy
2025-08-08 16:49:54 +0000 UTCShoutout to Andrew’s stunt men in wigs. Even the worst Bonds have incredible stunts. I caught the tail end of Octopussy on TV the other night and the climax involves the Bond stunt performer holding on to the top of an airborne plane, briefly fighting someone and then making his way to the door. It’s mind-blowing.
Craig
2025-08-08 11:34:59 +0000 UTCOh man it makes me so happy to hear the guys reaffirm my own feelings that Quantum isn't too bad and that Spectre and No Time to Die is the true dreck of the Craig era.
David
2025-08-08 11:13:52 +0000 UTCThe recipe is measured. So it's a ratio of 2:1:0.5
Elliott Tipton
2025-08-08 05:41:04 +0000 UTCAfter that chair torture I'm surprised Bond isn't SLAPPERS ONLY after.
Bible Black
2025-08-08 04:48:34 +0000 UTCEva Green is my ultimate Bond girl. Holy shit she’s red hot and has actual character traits. Plus Eva Green.
Adam
2025-08-08 03:16:18 +0000 UTCIf Martin Campbell did all the Craig Bonds, we would have been spared from Green Lantern.
CharlesGrodin'sToupee
2025-08-08 02:28:07 +0000 UTCRemember Magic? It’s back, in card form!
Matt Watterson
2025-08-08 02:13:45 +0000 UTCShe’s not even my type generally but Sin City: A Dame to Kill For and 300: Rise of Empire are worth watching for her alone.
Matt Watterson
2025-08-08 02:13:05 +0000 UTCI was 9 when The Empire Strikes Back came out and in the letter pages of Starlog magazine there certainly was a ton of Nerd Rage over it. A lot of people just did NOT like Yoda. And tons of people lost their shit over the asteroid slug creature: "HOW?!?!? HOW?!?!? HOW CAN SUCH A CREATURE EXIST?!?! I WILL NEVER TRUST GEORGE LUCAS AGAIN!!!!!" One letter writer suggested it was a silicon based creature and I'm pretty sure they were hunted down and killed, based on the response to that idea. There were other flare ups based on Buck Rodgers and TNG that I won't go into here but yeah, this has ALWAYS existed.
Brian Moreau
2025-08-08 01:49:16 +0000 UTCIt was glossed over, but I love the tidbit that Steve has such a natural look of being a Magic Gathering player that he’s constantly being recruited by people.
Jason
2025-08-08 01:44:19 +0000 UTCRay Liotta is all beefcake’d out in that film.
Jason
2025-08-08 01:05:08 +0000 UTCMake them do the shaving. It's a power move.
Ray
2025-08-08 00:31:58 +0000 UTCTo be so lucky lol
Ray
2025-08-08 00:31:31 +0000 UTCMagic the gathering has been making cards based on other IPs (Lord of the Rings, Final Fantasy, etc.) so I wouldn't be surprised to see some James Bond cards coming out whenever Amazon buys Hasbro.
Thomas Friedlander
2025-08-08 00:04:53 +0000 UTCI remember reading the Casino Royale book after seeing the movie, and was shocked that the scene with the nut trauma was in the book as well. If my memory serves me correctly, he gets his balls beaten with a carpet beater instead of a knotted rope.
duck of death
2025-08-07 23:35:33 +0000 UTCIn observance of the ball torture in this movie, I'm listening to the episode while doing my pre-vasectomy ball shave.
Infinite Terror
2025-08-07 22:50:32 +0000 UTCWild speculation: Maybe Chris was looking for a better adjective than Dumbest. Maybe he meant it was the most brainless? Bond just bulldozes his way through the film. He's not clever, inventive, or witty; his charm is that of a handsome brute rather than a slick bon vivant, and he's constantly being saved from his own inexperience via the intervention of other people. Or maybe he's just being Cabin?
MarkNM
2025-08-07 21:59:37 +0000 UTCPicture this-a middle aged man, alcoholic, burned out in life and at work. He’s known to aggressively flirt with his coworkers. Destiny calls upon him to solve a mystery. He teams up with a younger woman. They find clues in an old hotel. The villain straps our hero to a chair in an attempt to scramble his brains. Am I describing Spectre or Halloween 3?
Matthew Hardaway
2025-08-07 20:47:29 +0000 UTCAt he head, Andrew tries his best give Chris an out on the broad claim that Casino Royal is the dumbest Bond movie, and Chris is all “nope! Dumbest of them all” despite the movie before having a car chase against a space laser and the movies having to reset in the 80s because Moore was going undercover as a literal clown and getting into fist fights on the moon
James Anderson
2025-08-07 19:25:24 +0000 UTCA note on the Vesper cocktail: Back then, all the liquor was more around 100 proof, not the standard 80 proof we use today. So we're talking 3 shots of 100 proof gin and 1 shot of 100 proof vodka, plus the half shot of Lillet. I have made the genuine Vesper. Do NOT make the genuine Vesper, unless it's one of those days.
Steve Geary
2025-08-07 19:25:12 +0000 UTCRE: train station food. I had a ham and cheese baguette at a train station in Paris in TWO THOUSAND AND THREE and I have been chasing that god damn dragon for 22 years
Matt
2025-08-07 19:19:35 +0000 UTCNo Escape has been my goto LRM pick. Lance Hendrickson, Ernie Hudson and superjails, this has WHM written all over it.
Les Whinen
2025-08-07 18:07:31 +0000 UTCFor me with the Craig Bond movies, I think they're all varying degrees of good to great with the exception of Quantum of Solace, which I feel compelled to skip every time I revisit these movies. But I won't this time, since the live show episode is dropping this month!
Busiris
2025-08-07 17:57:24 +0000 UTCThe moment when the parkour guy jumps through the small window and Bond follows him by running straight through the drywall was when I was fully on board with Craig.
Adam Shreve
2025-08-07 17:45:11 +0000 UTCMy opinion, No Time to Die is great besides the Rami Malek stuff. Craig and Seydoux are fantastic. Ana de Armas, Jeffrey Wright return, wonderful send-off to Craig's Bond with a switcheroo homage to On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Too long, sure. Spectre's third act makes the movie bad. Shoutout to the James Bonding podcast, Matt Gourley got me into the Roger Moore movies. Theyre all fun (besides Die Another Day).
Moe Tilden
2025-08-07 17:34:45 +0000 UTCI still occasionally get in trouble at home for my admiration of Eva Greene.
Adam Lewis
2025-08-07 17:31:43 +0000 UTCYou stole my Magic the Gathering cards
jribs
2025-08-07 17:19:31 +0000 UTCThat Cornell song rules and I will die on this hill Edit: Steve's version is better
Matt
2025-08-07 17:06:14 +0000 UTCBlonde bond! Remember when dipshits cried cuz he's got a different hair color? Absolutely love this movie, the explosive action, the dame Judy Dench, Eva Green (Homer Simpson "rawrrrrr") , Mads is the best villain so icy and Daniel Craig is amazing, you can't take your eyes off him. Did they CGI out his beach speedo bulge ?? Lol Great episode boys, Parkour! 🍻
Watch_N_Rewatch
2025-08-07 16:26:47 +0000 UTCGonna hold you to that Rounders promise! You bet your ass I had that poster in my room in university, YIKES
JK
2025-08-07 16:01:53 +0000 UTCForget the pint glass, one awful awful night between high school and 21 our uncool drunken hangout crew got Del Taco. Chili fries and soft tacos. No drinks. Most of us drank water, except for the guy who washed his food down with direct swigs from the Jager bottle. Top 10 All-Disgusting Sights in my life. Eyeeach. Great episode. CR came out the year after my dad died and was one of those "Fuck, the old man would have eaten this up" bittersweet movies.
MarkNM
2025-08-07 15:17:38 +0000 UTCIf he actually busts a nut to quote the boys after that torture it'll be like that scene in Antichrist.
Matthew Lloyd
2025-08-07 14:47:07 +0000 UTCMichael G Wilson was the other producer of the Bond series with Barbara Broccoli. Basically the owner of 007 after Cubby passed away.
Enrico Palazzo
2025-08-07 14:41:10 +0000 UTCFelt that this was a serious 007 movie unlike the laughing at the audience smug Rogered Moore 70’s take on the famous character. Craig’s butch hair cut and lack of pretentious drink choices make him seem more killer like and not licensed to fop. I went to the movie for the pretty ladies, cars , and fights . I ended up really grooving on Bond coming out of the water in those little blue shorts…….”Saayyy…..” as Stephen would say.😛
Catboyslim
2025-08-07 12:23:59 +0000 UTCOn drinks in a pint glass: There’s a bar close to my workplace in Steve’s native land The Bronx that I used to visit. The brothers that ran it owned the entire building. I asked for a double of Jameson one night and got one of those red plastic Pizza Hut cups, a handful of ice, and then he filled to the brim. That was their “doubles”.
Jason
2025-08-07 12:14:50 +0000 UTCThis movie is as good as the last one sux
Jan
2025-08-07 10:31:04 +0000 UTC
