Bond or Bourne

Rating: 4/10 (22 April 2020)

Casino Royale goes back to the beginning, with Daniel Craig playing a rougher and more brusque Bond at the start of his career As for the story, Eon Productions won the rights in 1999 after Sony Pictures Entertainment exchanged them for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's rights to Spider-Man.
How odd that 40 years into Bond, it is he - and not a woman - rising nearly nude from the sea? I still think of Craig as the new Bond, despite him owning the role for nearly 14 years.
In this film, we meet the new Bond, watch as he gains 00 status and then falls for - and loses - Vesper Lynn (Eva Green) as he is on the trail of Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), a banker to the world's terrorists.
Bond even goes as far to quit MI6 over love in this movie and pays the price. At the end, he finally says his catchphrase, "The name's Bond. James Bond," before coldly dispatching of a villain.
Between the parkour scene and the emphasis on violence over gadgetry, this was a new Bond that was more Jason Bourne than Roger Moore. For a fanbase that was violently opposed to Craig as their hero, things have settled down over time.
This is the first time that the theme of a Bond movie - Chris Cornell's "You Know My Name" - didn't appear on the soundtrack. It's also the only Bond film other than Live and Let Die where Q doesn't appear.