It's only taken 44 years but...

Rating: 9/10 (16 November 2006)

A few years ago, at a Q & A session with writers Robert Wade and Neil Purvis, I asked them if they thought given the current blockbuster climate, and the expectations of the Bond franchise, it would ever be possible to produce a Fleming-esquire gritty spy thriller. The answer was a resounding ... highly unlikely.
Well, with CASINO ROYALE they have proved themselves wrong. This is about as close to Fleming's Bond as we are ever likely to get. So close, in fact, that I feel the public at large may not warm to it.
That's not to say that CR is a disappointment, far from it. It's just that the public have a perception of what a Bond movie should be, and CR takes those expectations and blows them away within the first seconds.
Wade and Purvis (along with Paul Haggis' re-write) and subtly and effectively extrapolated Fleming's sparse novella into the biggest Bond epic since OHMSS, with which it shares some thematic similarities. Le Chiffre is no longer simply a SMERSH accountant; he is now an accountant for the world's terrorists. After losing a bundle of cash belonging to some rather scary African gentlemen, he is forced to set up a high stakes poker game to win the money back. Bond is sent to make sure that doesn't happen.
That's the bare bones. What the writer's, and returning director Martin Campbell do is expand this to include, in the first hour, two of the best action sequences of the entire series (Bond chasing a rather athletic bomber, then later foiling a terrorist attack at Miami airport). Following this we get into the story that Fleming wrote; we meet treasury officer Vesper Lynd, Bond's contact Mathis, and a shady looking character who turns out to be Felix Leiter.
The poker game is superbly put together; everything we see is vital, building to a superb climax (though as a poker player I would have to question some of the hands the players choose to play with! A6, off-suit!).
I do have reservations, though none of them concern things that the naysayers were so keen to play up. Craig is, simply, wonderful. He's perfect as the rookie Bond around which the whole film is based. Had it been the perfect hero as portrayed by Moore or Brosnan it simply would not work. Moneypenny and Q are not missed, at all, though M does acquire a rather geeky looking assistant, who appears to be some kind of work experience lad, but he gets little screen time, and fewer lines. The switch to poker from baccarat is subtly explained as well. Baccarat is essentially a game a chance, whereas poker is about probability and skill (it's neatly explained that Le Chiffre is a maths genius and can work out the chances of winning in an instant); so rather than a sop to lazy audiences, it actually makes for a more exciting middle section.
So, those reservations: product placement is the main one. Sony have swamped the film with product, the like of which has not been seen since the Perrier lorry in GE. And Ford too manage to secure a scene which plays more like an ad for their new car, than the actual ad on the TV at the moment. Reservation 2: Bond wisecracking during the torture scene... the audience I saw it with were chuckling away, so obviously it worked for the majority. For me, it was just unnecessary.
Overall though, these are minor quibbles, in a film chock full of good things.
For anyone with a knowledge of Fleming's character as he wrote it, this is the film you've been waiting for. If you're a DAD or TB fan, leave your expectations at home, forget everything you've seen before. This is a whitewash of the series which will hopefully usher in a whole new generation of Bond films, and ensure that the franchise reclaims its place as THE most successful, influential and downright popular of all time.
And yes... "The bitch is dead".