It has been well over forty years since I read the novel Casino Royale by Ian Fleming, and it would be hard for me to say how closely this new film follows Fleming’s plot. One thing for sure: it would be hard for it to deviate further than the original Casino Royale film did …

In the movie version of Tom Clancy’s The Sum of All Fears, we saw Jack Ryan being reset from expert to neophyte, and here, with a new James Bond (Daniel Craig), we see the same thing happening to 007, who is granted his license to kill in the very first scene, which takes place in the relatively recent Czech Republic (where a good part of the film was made). We then follow Bond to Madagascar, where after an interesting foot chase he is engaged in a major contretemps at the embassy of the African Republic of Nambutu. Gradually, via the Bahamas and Miami, we are introduced to the moneyman Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), who has the very bad habit of accepting investments from terrorists and then attempting to leverage them to increase his own personal fortune — lucrative, if the leverage works, but very dangerous if it doesn’t, and it is Bond who ensures that this time it doesn’t. In an attempt to recoup his fortune, Le Chiffre then leads us to Montenegro, where he is again confronted by Bond and a young lady from the British Treasury named Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), who engage him in a high-stakes card game. Ultimately, the film ends satisfactorily for all concerned — except, of course, those who are dead — with Bond learning what it really means to be a double-ought agent of MI6.

In a touch of continuity from the last few Pierce Brosnan films, Dame Judy Dench returns as “M”. Though there is some technology in the film (mostly medical in nature), “Q” or “Quartermaster” has disappeared, along with all the gimcracks we’ve come to associate with Bond; faced with a critical situation, Bond largely has to rely upon his firearms, his hands and his brains. There is one demolition derby, at the Miami-Dade International Airport, of the sort that we’ve come to expect in every Bond film since Diamonds Are Forever, but it lasts only a couple of minutes. If I’m not mistaken, the card game of choice in the original book was baccarat; here it’s Texas holdem; times do change!

What of Craig as Bond? He is neither a suave gentleman (Sean Connery, Pierce Brosnan) nor a clown (Roger Moore); if I had to compare him to an earlier Bond, I would group him with the two darker Bonds, George Lazenby and Timothy Dalton. Ambitious, soulless and hard as a rock is this James Bond.

All in all, an enjoyable movie and both a worthy entry into the James Bond canon and a worthy attempt to revive that canon.