Back to the basics...

Rating: 10/10 (15 February 2013)

Strip James Bond down to the basics, a man and his mind, and this is what you get. This is raw Bond, down in the dirt, with almost no devices (tiny radio-ish thingy), yet he is still expected to save the British Empire, which, of course, he does. Study the plot and you can see how it all leads to only one conclusion; the Bond that we have all learned to love over the last 50 years had to start somewhere, and this is where he starts.
I won't go over any of the plot points (some are weak, most are not), or the character development (which is not in the least bit weak, except for the villain) but I will say that this is the most satisfying Bond I've seen since Sean Connery in "From Russia With Love", where Bond simply had himself (and a crappy briefcase) with which to defeat a very determined enemy. It is almost the same thing here. What you get is "Bond", period.
There are those who do not like the new Bond, but after the previous five, I'd put Daniel Craig's Bond up against any of them, and I'm sure he would give them all (Even St. Sean, whom deserves all praise) a run for their money. The producers have very wisely rebooted the franchise and stripped it down to the bone, and if they keep this up, we will see a new, relevant Bond, for many more years to come.