Could have been better

Rating: 4/10 (15 November 2007)

This gets 4 purely for the action sequences and the locations. In his 1st outing as the new James Bond we have Daniel Craig, so hired because he'd done similar stuff in the film Layer Cake.
This is set before he acquires 00 status and seemingly working as a gun for hire but under government control.
Craig doesn't look the part, he's far too muscular and top heavy to be the James Bond style character I've grown up with. There's a lot more violence and aggression in the fights in this film (and a wicked HUGE goof where he's hit by the machete, taped up and the scar magically vanishes later).
This is certainly no-where as good as the Peter Sellars spoof version. This version of James Bond is certainly no gentleman like all his previous incarnations, he's very rash and hot headed. Far too quick to react to things he could have got out of using his brain instead of his brawn.
The story is overly complicated. Once he's got his 00 status he's following something called Ellipse but that story just tails off into no-where once he catches up with Le Chiffre and is promptly forgotten about.
Suddenly Le Chiffre is a huge bad guy for no explained reason and James must gamble government money against him to bankrupt him into seeking government protection as it's his clients money Le Chiffre is using to play with.
So the scene is set for the meeting at Casino Royale with a pretty female agent from the US Treasury Department (for eye candy of course as this seems to be the 1st Bond film without an actual Bond girl) to mind the purse strings.
We meet James's contact who later turns out to be a traitor working for Le Chiffre, but he still wins the game with money given to him by the CIA in return for the capture of Le Chiffre.
There are a ton of plot twists where we discover various traitors (like James's contact is a traitor), double and triple crosses and the film is at least 35 minutes too long because of these being fully explored.
There was no need for the female Treasury agent to be a traitor and her double cross plot was impossible to follow and far too complex for it's own good. Capture of her and James's pursuit, capture, torture & escape only to fall in love with her all seemed tacked on as after thoughts to the script which for me petered out after Le Chiffre lost the money.
The film should have ended there to be honest, it would have been a much better movie if it had.
James is double crossed by the female Treasury agent who sends the money to another account to save her hostage boyfriend, another seemingly tacked on after thought to the script.
The whole sinking house in Venice was good but pointless as we had no idea who the guy with the money was and the ending was really weak.