Sometimes, a fresh start is a good thing...

After the string of flops beginning with Moonraker and ending with License To Kill, I think a bunch of people were ready for the James Bond franchise to just die. Then came the "reboot" with Goldeneye in 1996 introducing Pierce Brosnan as the latest 007, and arguably the best since Sean Connery. Goldeneye had all the major Bond ingredients--a spectacular opening scene of Bond bungee-jumping off the top of a dam, the opening credit sequence with lots of leggy ladies and a U2-penned theme song, hot Bond babes (both good and evil), exotic locales, fast cars (even including the famed Aston Martin DB5), Division Q-crafted gadgetry, and a vodka martini or two (shaken, not stirred). Unfortunately, the last three movies sort of fell into the same trap that all the Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton-led films did--too much formula, too much preposterous technology, and too many Bond girls that were bimbos rather than having some minimal amount of brains. Not to mention all the blatant product placements: Omega watches, BMW automobiles, a tank crashing through a Heineken truck. That's in addition to the ones that were really hard to stomach such as Norelco electric shavers and Smirnoff vodka. Like Bond would really use such common-man things.

So now we can say to all the Daniel Craig haters that flocked to the internet when his casting for Casino Royale was announced, "Go eat crow!" The reimagination of James Bond with Daniel Craig may go down as one of the best. Literally reset to a time when Bond just achieved double-0 status, we get a Bond that's still developing into a well-honed killing machine. This Bond is still a bit testy, vulnerable, and a bit uncomfortable in the high class surroundings he must venture through. I had a lot of fun seeing 007 in development. They even throw in how he comes to own that vintage Aston Martin DB5, which was a total geek-out moment for me. His first meeting with CIA operative Felix Lighter, the invention of his perfect martini--what else could you ask for?

Granted, the blatant product placements were there still, which wasn't surprising considering the Sony Corporation owns MGM. At times I thought I was watching a Sony commercial when Vaio laptops, Blu-Ray discs, and Sony Ericsson phones kept showing up. They even managed to throw in a convenient set-up to showcase their Cybershot digital cameras. I was half expecting Aibo, the Sony robot dog, to make an appearance as a critical plot point. I guess they had to make room for other placements. Omega, Brioni, Virgin Atlantic. Did you catch the Richard Branson "blink and you'll miss it" cameo at the airport security checkpoint? I think I even spotted Alessandra Ambrosio--maybe there was a Victoria's Secret ad in there somewhere I missed.

The Chris Cornell theme song and opening credit sequence was a bit of a disappointment, too. I'm still waiting for something on par with the waa-waa horns of Goldfinger, Paul McCartney's Live and Let Die, or a Duran Duran's A View To A Kill. And where were all the provocative female silhouettes? That's just a Bond movie staple that you can't omit.

But back to the good stuff. I think we had all gotten tired of the stereotypical woman that just fainted over Bond, and was glad to see that formulaic piece disappear. "Oh, James!" Gag. Eva Green as Vesper Lynd was a knockout. To think that prior to Casino Royale, all I really knew about her was that she was that French girl that got really naked in The Dreamers. I think she stands up to comparison with the best of the Bond girls such as Honor Blackman/Pussy Galore in Goldfinger or Diana Rigg/Tracy di Vicenzo in On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

There wasn't any Q branch mentioned in this one, but I'm glad they sort of managed to sneak a gadget in to save 007's life. It wouldn't be a Bond movie without at least one. Many comparisons to this new iteration of Bond and the Bourne Identity pictures have been made, and in some ways the similarities are there. But I think this new version of the premiere agent of MI-6 still manages to distinguish itself as a unique version of the spy genre using more subtle nuances that can only be found in a Bond film. Daniel Craig in a bespoke three piece suit holding a sniper rifle over his shoulder? What's more quintessentially 007 than that?

**** (out of *****)