My main aim here was to give a fair assessment of CR...hopefully I've achieved it.
The first Bond film I actually saw in the cinema, as opposed to the small screen, was Goldeneye, also directed by Martin Campbell. I really enjoyed that at the time and still do - a great intro to the Brosnan era, with cracking action sequences and insouciant humour. It was positive for me to know that, for Daniel Craig's freshman Bond, he was going to be picking up the reins again.
I was also excited about the possibilities for Casino Royale with Craig in the role, knowing and appreciating his abilities and prior work. I was a little apprehensive, too: could he pick up the Bond torch and run with it, or was it going to be burnt fingers all round?
After seeing the film last night, and letting it percolate a little, I feel even more positive about DC as Bond. Not that Casino Royale is perfect, but this is a very good start with many excellent things about it.
Daniel Craig is first-class as 007 - clearly he was determined to do a good job and he does. Physically imposing, certainly, displaying Bond's arrogant streak in spades, definitely, but also quietly ruthless, and sardonic - there are some properly funny lines which he delivers with the right amount of wit.
Over the course of the film he strongly conveys the sense of a conflict roiling inside Bond - following his instincts vs. following orders; disposing of the bad guys vs. the physical and mental damage that results from it.
He also shines in the quieter moments of the film with Eva Green's Vesper - the tender scene as he tries to comfort her after the stairwell fight, the subsequent loss of his 'armour' to love, the possibility of something beyond the spying life. The torture sequence is dark in a way unlike any other Bond film - 007 seems to teeter on the edge of madness for just long enough to make you wonder whether he'll crack, then shows his mettle (not to mention bravado!) with three great replies in succession to Le Chiffre's blows.
Overall, a magnetic performance, blending the best of Connery and Dalton.
The action is almost always impeccable - the back-to-basics approach best applies here - there's no messing around right from the start. The first two kills are respectively messy and clean - brief, hard scrapping followed by a cool despatch of the rogue section head. The free-running sequence is exhilarating stuff that had the audience at the screening I went to on the edge of its seat - and smiling wryly at Bond's dressing-down from M after its explosive conclusion - the verbal sparring between them works very well. Events at MIA reminded me, in a roundabout sort of way, of the truck chase in Licence To Kill, one of my all-time favourite Bond action moments. Most visceral of all for me was the stairwell fight though - even the video clip on the CR website doesn't quite prepare the viewer for how tough and violent it actually is. The final sequence in Venice is a slight disappointment - it runs rather too long and doesn't add a great deal to the emotional fall-out for Bond, which is plenty wounding enough on its own.
Mads Mikkelsen is a cold fish, in the best sense of the term - a nicely chilling villain who's all about the money, to the extent that he's more concerned about it than his girlfriend being at risk of losing an arm to the terrorists he banks for. He squares off icily with Bond over the poker game (which, as a pleasant surprise, I found to be very gripping indeed, kudos to Martin Campbell and his team for setting up some genuine tension between the table and the plot points that almost bust Bond for good), and takes unnerving delight in the torture scene (blackly humorous remarks included).
Jeffrey Wright is slick and smart as Felix Leiter - the big disappointment here is how little we see of him. Eva Green gets the flirty banter off to a tee in her opening scenes with DC, both cool and knowing, sizing Bond up neatly and setting the tone for a spikily romantic pairing. The difference between this and his cool seduction of Solange earlier on is palpable. Bond and Vesper's relationship is generally well-established, but a few minutes shaved off the final action sequence could have been put to better use to further strengthen it.
My major grumble? There were a number of points where it felt like something was missing from the flow of the tale - bits of exposition which might have better explained the storyline, e.g. more of the background to Bond's first kill (the cricket match), Bond being rushed into hospital after the torture. That weakened the story and frustrated me immensely - I wonder whether it was all down to runtime - hopefully an extended cut on DVD will follow. The product placement was also obtrusive at times, but them's the breaks, I guess.
As a side point, I think Q and Moneypenny will be back for the next film, although it's understandable why they didn't appear, given the 'origin' set-up in CR.
Final assessment on my first viewing? 8.5/10, a good start for Daniel Craig and well worth 144 minutes of your time. Here's to Bond #22!