Nice to have met you Mr Bond

Rating: 8/10 (20 November 2006)

A very long review warning right off the top...
This is more like it. I loved Brosnan as the venerable 00-agent, but Die Another Day was painful to watch past the first half an hour. I had become disappointed in the film series that was the original inspiration for my real life name (I'm named after Sean Connery for his turn as 007).
I'm thrilled to say that Casino Royale has effectively "rebooted" the series in my eyes, and the problems that have plagued the movies for decades have finally fallen by the wayside.
First, let me address the naysayers of Mr Craig's turn in the tux. I admit when I first heard the casting choice, I was immensely disappointed. Craig is chiseled, blond, with a piercing blue-eyed stare, and his critics are absolutely right: He has none of the suave sophistication that we've come to expect from our favorite British "secret" agent, and you know what? He's perfect for this role.
This is a Bond that is coming up from the ranks. Little more than an intelligent, highly trained thug in the beginning of the film, he has to come into his own, and for once we get to see it happen. He drinks beer. He sneers at the thought of a tailored dinner jacket (I don't think later Bonds would be caught dead out of tailored clothes), and he's brutal.
In fact, "brutal" probably describes the action in Casino Royale best. From the first horrifically shocking fight in black and white, to the beautifully choreographed chase on foot, to any mêlée Bond gets into, the action is simply brutal. Years and events (including events in Casino Royale) have not taken their toll on Bond yet, and has not smoothed the rough edges down into the iconic figure. He walks away from a life-or-death fight covered in blood, both his own and his opponents, knuckles scraped and bruised, covered in scars both emotionally and physically. He shoves away the emotional toll of killing after his first kill ("It got do you, didn't it Mr Bond?"), and it helps shape him into this nearly raging inferno of what will eventually be alternate layers of psychosis and patriotism. Bond is a functioning (and charismatic) psychopath by the very nature of his job, and here we get to see the ground work of that personality. Bond is also refreshingly human in this outing, as we see him make mistakes, let his ego interfere with his mission, and see him trust, sometimes blindly, to his detriment. In the final scenes, we watch the glaciers start to form around him, built on bedrock of lessons learned in Casino Royale. By the time he utters "Bond, James Bond", he's hurling down the path we all know.
The first half of the film is incredibly taunt and well directed. It moves, almost at a fevered pace at times, never letting the plot slack up. It moves in ways that I'm refreshed to say don't seem to connect immediately with the main plot line, but resolve halfway through when the "real" story begins. From there, the tension is maintained, perhaps not as taunt as the first half of the movie, as we slip back into Mr Flemming's storyline.
In fact, it feels like, once again, Bond is not an action hero, but a spy. He doesn't infiltrate organizations, but he gathers information and uses it to take the next step in his mission. He's in constant contact with M and MI6 in general, and they are more than simply a file folder with the next super villain to kill. Gadgets are blissfully missing from this outing as well, making Bond rely not on Q branch and their science-bending devices, but instead on his brawn and his brains, which unfortunately for Bond, haven't been refined just yet.
Now for the down side, which knocks 2 stars off of this rating. The first is the second half of the film. It definitely sags and has a few "false-endings". Most of these are leftover from the actual story itself, I can tell, but were poorly handled in the movie. In fact, when the real villain is revealed (sort of) towards the end, the entire movie feels derailed instead of kicked up to a higher level.
My second complaint is that the movie suffers from schizophrenia. It is a story in essentially two different decades, separated by half a century. The beginning of the film is pure 21st century, with cell phones, text messaging, and GPS traces. The second half of the story takes place in a casino (and elsewhere), and is so decidedly low-tech that the whole of the movie is disturbed by it. Maybe it's just me though, but when I think of James Bond, I don't think of him frantically txt'ing into his cell like some high school twit. I understand it's a sign of the times, and undoubtedly a very useful tool, but at the same time, it is jarring in the framework of the Bond "universe". Maybe as he becomes more sophisticated he'll use such tools less and less. I can only hope.
Finally, I found that the final plot twist with Vesper was too convenient. It feels like a Deus Ex Machina, very mechanical and tacked on.
However, I do love that they have opened up the "Bondiverse" with the closing of Casino Royale. Instead of the cold war SMERSH and SPECTRE, we have this new, un-named terrorist organization that Bond can be pitted against like in the old classic days of Sean Connery donning the tux. I for one wait to see where the series goes with great anticipation.
8/10 for a wonderful retread of Bond, despite pacing and script issues.