Craig is great as Bond

Rating: 9/10 (16 January 2010)

After a few disappointing films it looked like the the Bond franchise may have died after the unremarkable "Die Another Day", thankfully somebody had the bright idea of taking Bond back to his roots and rebooting the series with a story based on the first of Ian Flemming's novels. Gone are the stream of one liners, excessive gadgets and thankfully there is no obvious CGI either. We still have lots of action and it looks real and there is a sense that Bond isn't invincible, it looks like he is really suffering. Some may feel that seeing a naked Bond being tortured in a particularly gruelling scene doesn't belong in a Bond film however this scene is taken from the book.
After an opening where we see Bond earn his Double O status and the opening song we see the main bad guy, Le Chiffre, take delivery of a large sum of money from an African warlord, he invests in a way that in order to make money a promising aircraft manufacturers shares must tumble rather. Bond meanwhile is on the trail of a bomber in Madagascar while he is low level a message stored on his phone leads Bond to the Bahamas where he discovers a plot to destroy a prototype aircraft in Miami. Not surprisingly Bond foils this in spectacular fashion which leaves Le Chiffre desperately short of cash. He attempts to get it back in a high stakes poker game at the titular Casino Royale. Bond of course is sent in to clear him out in an attempt to force Le Chiffre to come over to MI6 and disclose his connections. For this mission Bond is joined by Vesper Lynd from the Treasury who is initially unimpressed with Bond. Once the game starts it becomes apparent that Le Chiffre is both a good player and somebody willing to take desperate measures to make sure he wins.
Daniel Craig makes a fantastic impression in his first outing as Bond in one of the best Bond films in decades, he is ably supported by Eva Green who plays Vesper and Mads Mikkelsen who plays Le Chiffre. I wouldn't normally comment on opening credits but Bond is different; gone are the scantily clad ladies in silhouette being replaced by stylised men in dinner jackets and images of cards and roulette wheels, accompanied by a good song I liked the new style. While I was disappointed by the next film in the series this shows that Craig has what it takes to play Bond and I'm sure his later outings in the role will be worth watching.