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A Bond worth waiting for?

I like James Bond. I'm a fan. Not a great fan, mind you. I don't have every nuance memorized. For a while, though, I couldn't wait to see every film at the theatre on opening day.

That lasted until Pierce Brosnan took over. Ugh. I waited for cable -- not even video and/or DVD -- and I've never bothered to see the last two films. The previews put me to sleep. He sucked in major, big-time ways. He was tolerable in Goldeneye, but that movie also showcased who should have been Bond, i.e., Sean Bean. After that brief glimpse of promise, Brosnan should have been recycled.

So, I was intrigued when I saw that they had cast Daniel Craig as Blonde, James Blonde, The New Bond for Casino Royale. And I actually got excited when I saw this trailer. And now there's this review...

Bond is back, baby. Boy howdy is he back. And he’s going to be the most divisive Bond ever. When they set out to reinvent the series and went back to the well of the original text, man oh man did they go back. This isn’t the James Bond you’ve come to love over the years – rather, it’s the James Bond from the printed page. The “…anonymous blunt instrument wielded by a Government Department” that Ian Fleming both described and wrote about. And Daniel Craig and Martin Cambell do one hell of a job breathing new life into a long dying franchise.

And I love the question the review asks:

Are you ready to buy into a serious Bond, a bond that feels closer to the bastard child of Jason Bourne and Sean Connery’s Bond than it feels like any other portrayal?

Oh, hell yes! (And the reviewer agrees, too.)

Bond is supposed to be a bad-ass. He's a killer, that's the whole point of being a double-oh. Sean Connery, in Dr. No, sets a guy up and then blasts him in the back, for crying out loud, with no more regret than you'd give swatting a bug. Timothy Dalton, for all his faults, came close in both The Living Daylights and, especially, License to Kill. He's a killer!

Bond can also drink. Casino Royale not only introduced the world to James Bond, but also to his drink, the Vesper Martini...

"A dry martini," he said. "One. In a deep champagne goblet."

"Oui, Monsieur."

"Just a moment. Three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it's ice-cold, then add a,large thin slice of lemon peel. Got it?"

"Gosh, that's certainly a drink,", said Leiter.

Bond laughed. "When I'm -- er -- concentrating." he explained, "I never have more than one drink before dinner. But I like that one to be large and very strong and very cold and very well-made{....}"

Finding Kina Lillet is pretty much impossible, but I tried this with the only Lillet I could find and... Wow, a man's drink! In comparison, I am a wimp who will gladly stick with tequila. Anyway, back to the movies....

There is no Q, the gadgeteer, in this film. There are no fancy toys. Bond drives an Aston Martin, but it's just a car (albeit, with obligatory hidden compartment, from what I understand). Other than that he has his wits, his personal skills, and his mission. It's damn-near a straight on spy story. And imagine that, it doesn't lean on bizarre plots to conquer the world, strange gizmos, and limp one-line jokes.

Now I really want to see it.

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