Casino Royale (2006) More at IMDb Pro »

CR is a major step-up from the flamboyant Die Another Day. Obnoxious 50-something runt Pierce Brosnan has been replaced by a young Daniel Craig, there is no Q, no campy gadgets, no silly naked women silhouettes in the opening credits, no world-dominating super-colossus villains, no Miss Funnyfanny (or whatever) and no silly one-liners after killing bad guys. Basically everything that can date Bond film very quickly is gone. I never expected international espionage to look the way it has in past few Bond outings and I'm glad someone had the balls to go back to the hard-edged nature of the series, last seen in Licence to Kill.

The longest Bond movie so far, at 145 minutes, but it breezes by even though it reigns in on the normally excessive action scenes and depicts spying a more 'mundane' and 'realistic' manner (or at least as true as the series has been so far). But the one-thing that bugs me about action movies, particularly the Bond franchise, is that they are, most of the time, childish male fantasies with an indestructible hero who has fun shooting up the place and beds beautiful women. I would like something new for a change but CR does have Bond get hurt and go through more pain than he has previously.

Daniel Craig has been given a lot of hassle over his casting as Bond (like Clive Owen, Jude 'Mr Pretension' Law or 10-year-old girl masquerading as a grown man Orlando Bloom WOULDN'T have been a big mistake?) but not only does he have his youth as an advantage (he's the first 30-something to be cast in the role since Lazenby), he's also pretty damn trim, has the intensity Brosnan lacked and is surprisingly loose in a role that usually requires actors to be stiff and unemotional. It's also good to a fresh face in the role and who cares if he is blonde? Or the shortest actor to play him so far?

I would have preferred that composer David Arnold went too. They didn't seem to be holding back on the amount of regular production team members who got axed. Even Vic Armstrong didn't return. I've never liked Arnold's work on the movies and I hate to think of it as something that's now exclusively HIS baby. But the theme song was cool, despite the criticism and it was cool to have the Bond theme at the end instead of some tacky song.

I just wish the product placements would go too. Nice try attempting to 'subtly' plug Blu-Ray Sony. But it ain't gonna work on me.

Now that the franchise has a different outlook, I hope some of Ian Fleming's more downbeat, not-exactly-blockbuster-material Bond stories can make it to the screen.