Casino Royale is not only a very good movie, but a very good James Bond movie.

007 is new on the job and gets his ass kicked a bunch – and then he drives a standard Ford sedan (gasp). No gadgets to speak of and the villain is kind of a bad guy but also totally in over his head and you can see it – which is cool. The entire premise of the villain is that he is out there gambling money that doesn’t belong to him to make money on the side – and if that goes wrong, he’s totally screwed. So its an interesting idea. He’s not taking over the world from his volcano base and he’s not a Soviet spy… just an evil dude trying to make some cash money.

Some real neat action scenes and gonzo martial arts stunt scenes that I haven’t seen since some wacky Korean action flick and, oddly, a French sci-fi movie called Sector 17 (from last year). The guy Bond is chasing does some freakin’ amazing stunts (on camera) and Bond follows along, finding more intelligent (or, at least, more direct) ways to catch up to him.

Daniel Craig is cool but I can’t help but think he looks like Steve McQueen’s ugly brother. But apparently he’s handsome. And he largely works as a Bond-in-Training… not quite Bond yet.

And has been said by a couple reviewers now, he’s not the Best Bond (since that will always be Connery) but he’s the best actor to ever play Bond. This is probably true. He reminds me more of Timothy Dalton in that Dalton gave Bond a sharper, meaner edge than the other guys – though he didn’t really fit the part. Craig has that meaner edge but does seem to fit.

Score: 88