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We’ve become so used to the rut of Bond that when he is reinvented, it comes as a bit of culture shock. Fortunately, in the case of Casino Royale, this shock is a splendid treat.
Royale, like many of its predecessors, has to do with terrorists threatening world safety and hunting for great mounds of cash.

The film starts with Bond, fresh from a kill, being promoted to double-0 status, and thus sent out to a flashy assignment in Montenegro at a casino that would make Donald Trump jealous. The film unfolds, layer by layer, as Bond begins to discover all of the neat tangles that director Martin Campbell has in store for his spy.

Unlike in some past Bond films, where the villain’s intentions are totally known and predictable, Campbell puts the super agent in limbo; keeping the audience as focused on the unfolding story as the flying cars and exploding landscape.

Credit is due to Daniel Craig, who had the daunting task of filling the shoes of Connery, Moore, Dalton, and Brosnan as the highly controversial Bond. Perhaps the controversy should have been over why they didn’t hire Craig sooner, because from the second his chiseled mug shows up on screen, the audience can’t help following him to all corners of the cinematic world.

Craig adds to the James Bond series something that it hasn’t seen since Sean Connery-a genuinely talented thespian. Craig, whose film credits tend toward independent features like The Mother, has a hardened edge to his Bond. This is not a man who takes killing simply with a martini (shaken, not stirred).

Instead, he has a humanity rarely seen in the series. Rage, masked by an increasingly volatile demeanor, is Bond’s raison d’Étre. Craig’s added humanity to our favorite spy contributes to the complexities of the plot, and makes some of the cheesier dialogue far easier to swallow. It helps that Craig, with his worn face and piercing blue eyes, adds a masculine sexual energy to Bond that was sorely lacking in Moore, Dalton, and Brosnan.

The film is littered with a worthy batch of bit characters. The Bond babe, Eva Green, despite being a supermodel with legs to next Tuesday, never seems unbelievable. Unlike past Bond dames, who managed to gain a degree in nuclear physics by 20, she appears to be on the same footing as Bond.

Perhaps it’s because Bond, in his newness to the spying game, hasn’t quite gained the jaded attitude to spying and women, but Green’s assistant is a welcome and comely addition to the Bond universe.

The villain, Le Chiffre, whose trademark is an eye that cries tears of blood, is a creepy, twisted creation with a sense of humor; he has the good sense to use a platinum-plated inhaler.

Best of all in the film is Dame Judi Dench, whom, as Bond’s boss M, is lovingly self-assured. Bond views her with a meddling appreciation, and every time that the seventy-two-year-old Dench pushes her way onto screen, you realize that even if Bond moves through a sea of villains, he still has to answer to his toughest critic.

The film drags a bit in the last half, trying to shore up all of the plot twists, but the increased length is a small price to pay for such a fine piece of back story. By the film’s finish, the audience is not only ready for installment 22, but they’ve been brought back a reminder why they fell in love with this scallywag of a British agent in the first place. By humanizing Bond, Craig fleshes out a timeless character and gives us the series’ best installment since Goldfinger.