"I need to take your ego out of the equation".

Rating: 8/10 (14 March 2007)

This is the third interpretation of Fleming's Casino Royale novel (with both the woeful 1967 Feldman spoof and a lesser-known 1950's TV special with Barry Nelson as 007 coming before it) and the twenty-first "official" Bond outing. As such, you could have been forgiven for judging Barbara Broccoli's promise to deliver a fresh, new Bond into a fresh, new franchise with more than a little scepticism. But, amazingly, it wasn't all press junket hype; Casino Royale really does deliver a much-needed shock right to the heart of the ailing series.
Most of the pre-release press attention centred on the unsuitability of Daniel Craig for the 007 role. Apparently he was afraid of heights, couldn't drive a manual gearbox, had never played poker and, most alarmingly of all, was blonde. These stories may or may not have been true, I don't know, but I do know, blonde or not, Craig is perfect for Bond. This Bond, anyway. This isn't the same quick-witted schmoozer of Brosnan and Moore fame, smirking playfully behind the ubiquitous martini. Here is a Bond who somehow hasn't quite discovered how to disguise the brutality of his work behind those all-important tailored tuxedos. He is rarely genuinely charming, and is often not very nice at all. Right from the opening scene, a violent and visceral assassination in a grimy toilet, the audience can be left in no doubt that this is a different Bond. A more violent man for a more violent world, and one which Brosnan and the like could never have convincingly delivered.
The story opens with completely new material, including a spectacular "parkour" inspired set-piece through a building site and a chase to stop a terrorist destroying a new airliner. From here on in, the script follows the novel fairly closely, following a high stakes poker game. The film cleverly capitalises on the recent interest in poker to fully exploit the technicalities of the game that would previously have been double-dutch to most of us. It is here that we really begin to focus in on Bond and see behind the smarmy one-liners and Omega watches. We get to know his tells. As he says later, "I have no armour left".
Casino Royale is a Bond film that is, for once, more about Bond, the man himself, than the usual array of guns, gadgets and girls.
Oh, and thank god they didn't accept Quentin Tarantino's ludicrous offer to make an R-rated Bond revenge film. Kill Bill in an Aston Martin? No thanks.