Casino Royale 4/5 reviewed by Corey

21. This is the 21st James Bond movie. I've always been a fan of Bond. It's got a certain nostalgic appeal to me, reminding me of Saturday nights I spent with the parents when I was a kid. I've seen nearly all of them, many of them more than once. Although I never really had a preference for any particular actor playing the 00 role, rest assured... this is exactly the way Bond should be done.

Let's get to the first question: Is Daniel Craig a good James Bond? Is he better than Pierce Brosnan and Roger Moore and Sean Connery? The answer is that Daniel Craig is the perfect Bond for this film. The movie is significantly less campy (and I really mean significantly) than the preceeding Bond outings. It's not necessarily darker, but it is much more realistic, much more gritty, and somehow it's still much more fun. The bad one-liners are gone, replaced with genuinely witty dialogue. Perhaps it's Craig's delivery, perhaps it's the writing. I'm not sure. It simply works much better than it has ever worked before.

After the opening introduction (which, if I recall correctly, is minus the famous bond theme and plus an extra hit of acid), things start off with a bang. Like always. The chase scene that ensues here probably ranks among the top action scenes of any previous Bond movie. Strangely enough, however, it is the poker sequences that were the most interesting to me. The tension that begins to build around the table as the stakes grow higher is nearly tangible, a first for a franchise that usually builds suspense by having the audiences check their watches to see when the first Bond girl will take her clothes off.

The Bond girls (or really girl) actually allow for much more character development than in the older movies, too. The story takes a backseat to the development of the relationship between James and his first companion, Vesper Lynd (Eva Green, who played a minor role in 2005's epic suck-fest Kingdom of Heaven), and for once I actually cared about what happened between them.

I don't have many gripes, and nothing that you probably won't find in a review by the local paper or on the Net. The film begins to drag near the end, and it feels like the director thought that he could replace the word "development" with "screentime" and nobody would notice. Some of the final scenes feel a little silly or pointless, the Bond theme is basically gone (WHAT'S THE FRIGGIN' DEAL?!), and there are some minor plot/character holes, but there's nothing here that seriously detracts from the film or its experience. The story remains simple, which, in this case, is a good thing.

Overall, the movie nails nearly every attempt it makes to forward the series. The new Bond is perfect for the more realistic tone that the film took, the action is spectacular and, more than ever, it just FEELS right. I'm excited to see where they take this.

See this movie if...
- You thought Die Another Day was a little on the stupid side.
- You liked Mission: Impossible 3, but thought M:I2 was too much. The difference between the more recent M:I movies is very reminiscient of the difference between DAD and CR.
- You're on a date. It's one of the first good date movies we've reviewed in a while.

Don't see this movie if...
- You're looking for some good ol' T&A. It's not here. I don't know why it says nudity on the MPAA content descriptor.
- You're expecting Bond to cut a man's head off to get information out of the baddie. He's not necessarily any darker, just more realistic.
- You miss it on the big screen. Watch it on your neighbor's 60" plasma, in the theatre, or just skip it. The dollar theatre is a decent alternative.