Superb film of the raw Bond in his beginning

Rating: 10/10 (25 May 2018)

Daniel Craig's premiere as James Bond also marked a revision of the character on film. "Casino Royale" is the first serious production of Ian Fleming's first novel that created agent 007 of the British Secret Service, MI6. Where the tenures of Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan had moved more toward more humor in dialog and scenes, this film returns to the original serious and dark nature of the subject and character.
This is James Bond in the beginning. It's Bond in the raw, showing his flaws and weaknesses as well as his quick thinking and physical abilities. And, it shows his struggle with the conflicting clashes of morality, emotion, and cold-hearted facts of duty.
This film follows the modern trend of nearly non-stop action with several sequences of harrowing physical action and encounters. And, it has the most daring and harrowing personal pursuit of any film to date. That happens in the opening segment when Bond pursues Mollaka in a chase that tears through crowds and buildings, and leaps from cranes in construction sites. Mollaka is played by Sebastien Foucan, co-founder of parkour, a free-running sport that jumps, dodges and hurtles through urban and commercial settings.
Bond falls in love in this segment and loses his wife. In later stories - filmed in the past, reference is sometimes made to his having been married before.
Roger Craig provides a more ruggedly handsome Bond, a return to the character as played originally by Sean Connery. It was only natural that in later episodes, Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan would show a much more polished and even sophisticated Bond. In this revival of the character from the start of the series, it wouldn't seem as natural for Craig to have such worldly taste and knowledge yet as to comment on the vintages of wines. That's something that Moore and Brosnan could do so naturally and believably.
The production of this film is superb in all aspects. It clearly is the best of all the Bond films - including those that followed to date.
Here's my favorite line in the film. Bond says to Vesper, "Why is it people who can't take advice always insist on giving it?"