Well acted, directed, written, excellent action set pieces, decent cinematography and editing to compliment, good music and one of the better non-ballad Bond themes. Casino Royale takes this one with ease definitely takes a close second place to Skyfall as my two favourite Bond movies to date, both the only Bond movies to make it into my top 100 on Flickchart. Just re-watched Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace again in the run-up to Spectre (an inevitable re-watch of my series favourite Skyfall to follow). It's a good blend, I think, and definitely one of my favorite Bond movies. I'd love to read some of them, but anyway, Casino Royale, while definitely hearkening back to a leaner, meaner Bond, still held on to some things that make the franchise so fun.

(For example, that great chase them that is so missing from Quantum.) 007 has obviously become more indelible as a movie franchise than a book franchise. But that's also where a lot of those touchstones I mentioned came to be. It was Goldfinger that really took Bond into the gadgety, campy direction he's always gone since.

I read on IMDb that Sean Connery considers FRWL the best Bond movie he made, and that Ian Fleming approved of it. Quantum is more wall-to-wall action, to be sure, but both present a leaner, meaner Bond, and less silly.

You know, I just watched From Russia with Love for the first time in, oh, about a decade and a half the other day, and in some ways, I think Quantum (and Casino Royale, too) bears a lot of resemblance to it.

Casino royale plot