Yes, the real Bond is back; but "Casino Royale" still to be made

Rating: 9/10 (26 November 2006)

Yes, Sean Connery remains the definitive James Bond, but Daniel Craig effortlessly (actually, it looks like it took a great DEAL of effort) supplants George Lazenby as the very *very* good second best, and hopefully a great Bond for the next decade or more.
Lazenby had the advantage of being in the movie based on the best of the original Ian Fleming books, ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE, and consequently the best movie in the series. Craig has the advantage of being a terrific actor with precisely the rough edges to the visage Fleming first envisioned. He isn't the first blond Bond, Roger Moore had that distinction, and thank God he isn't the pseudo-suave pretty boy which almost sank the series (though he may have the best chiseled body of anyone yet to play the role, and shows more of it). He's simply Bond, James Bond - at the start.
This is, in many ways a new beginning in the same way other decades running series have reinvented themselves. The film makers have gone back to Fleming's first book to reintroduce the character as if he were appearing for the first time today rather than at the height of the Cold War. Keeping most of the essentials of the novel's story (it is sadly amusing to see self professed but possibly illiterate "Bond fanatics" *complain* about the inclusion of the essential elements of the NOVEL "Casino Royale" - the card game, the torture sequence and the resolution of Vesper's story - that give the movie its legitimacy) the film makers have built a "traditional" Bond film thriller around them. The BOOK doesn't really start until half way through the film(!), leaving Casino Royale with the odd distinction as the only Fleming Bond novel filmed THREE times now (the first was with Barry Nelson as Bond in an episode of a TV series called "Climax" - it is available on DVD as a bonus with another film) and yet still not faithfully preserved on film!
As a film thriller in the 44 year old Bond tradition, this new CASINO ROYALE is undeniably thrilling. The opening chase scene is hands down the most exciting in the entire series. Gone are "Q's" increasingly outrageous "toys" which were threatening to overwhelm the characters Fleming had created, but the smart joking dialogue still stands out even if, appropriately, it is reigned in for a character just finding his footing and just having received his "double 0" rating, but that hasn't limited the ingenuity of the screenwriters. The new addition to the saga: how Bond acquired the first of his favored Astin Martins, is superb and utterly fitting for the character.
One may (must) quibble that the commercial decision to replace the elegant "Baccarat" game with its faster turn-around (even if the audience needed to be taught the rules) with a TV familiar "Texas Hold'em," (the card game is essential and central to the story) or that the film goes overboard with the setup for the car crash (the less "spectacular" version in the book would have been far better and more credible) and the unnecessary quotation from TITANIC as a battle is waged in Venice (the travelogue aspect of the film - always a Bond highpoint - is still strong) with a whole building sinking beneath the protagonists (!), but none of that can stop the film from being a wild ride, packed with enough adventurous incident for two Bond films.
It's a fine return and great new start for a superb series. Long may Craig reign.