It’s a lovely song that I’ve had on repeat for a few days now and can’t get out of my head. And that goes double for the theme song, The Look of Love, sung by Dusty Springfield. Burt Bacharach’s score is tremendous and varied, and i might be better than any of the actual James Bond scores that I’ve heard. I’ve been very negative about this film so far, but honestly there are things to admire. It’s loud, it’s messy, it’s way too long, and it’s insultingly stupid. It all culminates in maybe the worst climax in film history, where a casino stuffed with every stereotype you can imagine does impossible-to-follow battle. There’s an entirely worthless half-hour spent in Scotland that accomplishes nothing, but does see a 57-year-old David Niven bathing with a 17-year-old, because that’s what needed to happen. There are, like, 6 different Bonds, but only one is a real Bond, even though a couple of them are real Bonds, I really don’t know.

It’s such a mess that it feels like it’s at least three different movies awkwardly stitched together. There are so many different diversions that serve nothing to the actual plot or to the film’s comedy.

I’m not going to get too deep into the plot because I honestly don’t even think I could. David Niven, Peter Sellers, Ursula Andress, Woody Allen, Deborah Kerr, John Huston, Jacqueline Bisset, even Orson Fucking Welles, all are legends in their own right and all are massively underutilized. Worst of all, Casino Royale wastes an unbelievable cast on this garbage. The plot is utterly incomprehensible (which I guess could be said about a few of the other Bond films I’ve seen, but that’s no excuse).

I laughed exactly one time during the absolutely excruciating 137 minutes that this film runs. On paper it should work, but Casino Royale fails to deliver on nearly every level. There’s plenty of fun that could be poked at the character and the films up to that point.

Casino Royale is purported to be a satire of James Bond, which makes total sense.

Casino royale 1967 movie poster