Casino Royale

After Sean Connery, George Lazenby , Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan; Daniel Craig comes across as yet another avatar of Bond. With every era the series seems to be belong to a different genre. While Sean Connery had what it takes to portray 007, I did not think much of the others until Pierce came along. He had none of the crass, roughened approach that is so characteristic of the earlier Bonds. He was the suave gentleman or Remington Steele who made every woman's heart skip a beat. Daniel Craig is definitely a toughened soul, but adds very little to the "lady's man" label that 007 usually portrays.

I read a little while ago that the director Martin Campbell had a plan of showing Madame M as a lesbian (keeping with the times?!), but Mr. Craig was dead against it, could be because of the bond that James shared with Madame M. Also given that this is the first book by Ian Flemming, it may not have gone down too well with the audience.

Casino Royale is based in MonteNegro and has millions of dollars exchanging hands. Bond's first mission is to ensure that the banker does not win the million dollar prize money and use it to fund terrorism. The movie has Bond falling in love and seen treating women as "meaningful pursuits" rather than "disposable pleasures".

The movie is the usual Bond fare, with predictable Madame M, no Q (did Ian Fleming not have this character in his first book, I wonder!).

It took me a while to get used to new Mr.Bond, James Bond :)