Casino Royale (or, Blonde, James Blonde)

You've heard it all before, no doubt: Casino Royale is not your regular Bond film.

Unfortunately, that is patently untrue. Casino Royale is like every other Bond film you have seen: car chases, sexy women, big stunts and bizarrely advanced technology, which beeps and blips when it really shouldn't.

What is so different about it then? It's done well - it's well acted and it's well plotted.

They really have taken the formula and perfected it. It should come as no surprise that shedding the layers of cinematic cliché that have caked onto the franchise over the years and harking back to Flemming's original source material would provide a well needed shot in the arm (or pulse on the defibrillator, as the case may be).

Daniel Craig's Bond is craggy (sorry), obstinate, egocentric and posturing, not the suave, double entendre totting pretty boy we have come to know and love tolerate. There is a hardness in Craig that suits the role like a glove and there is a certain elegance to the gestation of the Bond of the future.

On the topic - elegance, thy name is Eva Green. She was fantastic as Vesper Lynd and she carried the whole film along with her psuedo English accent. Her chemistry with Craig was electric even if her lines (and his) were a little wooden. Their relationship will hopefully prove to be the core of what will be an extended rebirth of the franchise.

It is encouraging to see that the production team that has foisted the last few Bond atrocities on us has actually managed to deliver a somewhat more sophisticated and developed film. It gives some hope that even though Hollywood has lost its way, there are still some breadcrumbs for them to follow back to the path.

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Tags: movie review, Bond, film