There's a new Bond on the block...

Rating: 10/10 (5 September 2008)

The Bond franchise has provided some of the most entertaining movies ever made, but recent outings for 007 have been less than stellar. Barbara Broccoli and co have re-invented the series again, thanks to direction from Martin Campbell (who re-made Bond for the 90s with Goldeneye) and borrowing from the Bourne films to create a real 21st Century Bond, even though this is meant to be an origins story. Just as Chris Nolan and Christian Bale rejuvenated Batman in Batman Begins, so Campbell and Daniel Craig have done the same for Bond.
Which brings me neatly to my next point. Many people, Bond fans or otherwise, were very vocal in their concerns about whether Daniel Craig would make a good Bond. All those doubts must have laid to rest within the first minutes of the pre-credits sequence, and certainly by the time of the free-running chase. Craig's Bond is more physically intimidating than Bond has ever been, and the film's fight scenes are more brutal, more physical, in consequence. Thanks, perhaps, to Jason Bourne, the filmmakers are not afraid to show a bruised and battered Bond, something which has rarely been seen, thanks to his apparent ability to dodge all bad guys. This is a return to the colder, more raw, perhaps less sophisticated personality of Bond as he was in Dr No - Bond as Fleming intended him.
The film's bad guys are very well drawn, three-dimensional villains, and the threat here is that of well-funded terrorism rather than a megalomaniac trying to destroy/take over the world. Mads Mikkelsen's Le Chiffre is superbly chilling though ultimately cowardly. He is the prime villain of the movie, but there is someone behind him who we do not properly encounter until the end of the film, setting the stage for the new film, Quantum of Solace.
The women in the film are more three-dimensional than many Bond girls, particularly Eva Green's captivating Vesper Lynd, with her intelligence, spirit and shadowed motives. Her verbal sparring with Bond when they first meet is superb and funny.
The action set pieces are not as prominent as they have been in recent years, although they are still spectacular. Additionally, Bond's reliance on gadgets has been considerably reduced - his Aston Martin contains a life support kit and storage for his Walther, but little more. The car chase from the casino out into the countryside, complete with record-breaking, seven spin, death-defying roll off the road, is thrilling and not overly long.
The film ends with the true emergence of Bond, strengthened and cynical thanks to his experience in this story (not least a torture scene that had every male in the cinema cringing), and ready to take on the upper hierarchy of villains previously represented by Le Chiffre.
This is an excellent film, well written, well shot and very well acted. Craig's Bond harks back to the older, pre-gadgets movies like Dr No and From Russia With Love, but also has something new for the 21st Century. This is the best Bond movie in a long time, and sets the bar for Craig's next outing, which I await with pleasure and anticipation.