Bond is back and has finally moved away from the ridiculous CGI fantasies of recent outings that made Moonraker look like a documentary. Yes, I'm talking about those appalling Pierce Brosnan films that had, mmmmm, let me think, one good stunt between them (bungee jumping on the dam, but even that wasn't shown to its best in the film.)
The new Bond film is Casino Royale, and has Bond as a newly promoted 00 agent who's still a bit green but who actually has a tiny bit of emotion left. This is a character you can just about believe and my only complaint of the film is that it tries to do a bit much. It starts (with a great film noir sequence) when Bond earns his bones, then picks up the rather convoluted plot involving first an evil bomber and then the financier behind him. When you think it's all over and Bond has finally gotten the girl, it continues on like a soap opera in order to explain Bond's total lack of humanity. But this subplot isn't even a subplot, it's an after-plot and is held in place rather clumsily by the issue of missing money.
By the end of the film, you're left feeling like you've watched several episodes of a TV series instead of a stand-alone movie, which is a real shame as Daniel Craig is great as the government hit-man, the Bond girls are stunning as always, and some of the stunts are simply terrifying to contemplate. (No one has yet topped the plane-top fight of Octopussy for mine, though.) The film even includes the great torture scene from the book (but don't ask me what else is from the book, as it's been a long time since I read it, and I've got better things to do than read it again).
All up, this is not a great film, but it is a great Bond film.
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