Tapping My Fingers In Gleeful Excitement

I LOVE DANIEL CRAIG! That really had to be said. For months now I have been defending the new Bond, telling haters to give him a chance, and keeping up the faith that he could re-establish the Bond saga. Now is the time that I say, "I TOLD YOU SO!! HAHA! I WIN!" When I saw Casino Royale last night, it officially parked itself as one of my all time favorite Bond films. I can not say for sure that it is my favorite because the competition is just so different. There have been five previous Bond's and twenty other films - how can one choose a favourite amongst all the diversity? BUT let me just say that Craig and Casino Royale take the franchise to a whole new level. Instead of glossing over the realities that would face Bond in his life, they chose to confront them. It seeks to answer how and why Bond is who he is. And in doing so it has engaged the audience on a deeper emotional and intellectual strata. Now, just because I am throwing around words like "emotional" and "intellectual," don't get all scared and think that Craig and Broccoli have turned Bond into Life is Beautiful. (Although that too is an amazing film.) The most inspiring part of the new Bond is that it in no way sacrifices the entertainment and excitement of the journey for these new elements, in fact my argument is that it only heightens them.

It is not the first time the franchise has sought to go this route but perhaps the first time that it has succeeded. Brosnan started out in Goldeneye with a promise of leading Bond in this direction but ultimately sold out for a quasi-Moore approach. In the end, it just turned out to be a disaster with mega-money draw. (Sad, but true.) I mean, I am one of those crazy revisionist Bond fans that is hardcore in favor of Timothy Dalton and George Lazenby. Okay, so I give credit where it is due to Sean Connery and Roger Moore for holding the series for so long. And I can not doubt that Connery is the be-all-end-all of 007 for much of the world. But, honestly, having to watch him virtually rape every Bond girl because "that's just how women like it" is so incredibly disturbing. Yes, obviously Bond isn't exactly the poster boy for Women's Lib but I enjoy him as a character and I take his inherent misogyny with a grain of salt. But both the acting and scripts for Dalton and Lazenby seemed so much more interesting and three dimensional in their approach to Bond than Moore or Connery ever ventured into. Well, the end of the story is: GO SEE CASINO ROYALE! I demand it of you or else we can no longer be friends.