New Bond at home in blonde

When I first saw the trailer for the latest James Bond movie "Casino Royale," I was more than a little bit skeptical. The generic action scenes and Chris Cornell theme didn't exactly fill me with confidence.\nAnd Bond was blonde. I mean, they could blow $150 million on another Bond movie but somehow couldn't squeeze $10 into the budget for a bottle of black hair dye?\nBut just five minutes into "Casino Royale," all my doubts evaporated. Daniel Craig is now the definitive James Bond, a calculated spy and general smooth operator both at the card table and in the bedroom.\nThe plot revolves around a multi-million dollar poker showdown between Bond and terrorist banker Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), a mathematical genius who cries blood. In typical fashion, there are enough twists, turns and betrayals to keep things interesting to the end.\nUnlike past portrayal's of the iconic character, Craig's Bond isn't very cocky; in fact, he comes off as a little cold, which fits in with the much darker tone of the film. \nLongtime fans will be shocked by the sheer brutality used to torture Bond later in the film, a far cry from the ornate and slightly goofy shark and laser-engineered death traps featured in past films in the series.\nLe Chiffre even remarks about how ridiculous such devices are, just one of the many smart allusions in the script to past flicks.\nIf I have one complaint, it's that this new, darker Bond almost takes itself too seriously. I don't think anyone wants to see return to some of the campier Bond movies of the '70s and '80s, but would it have killed the filmmakers to add a scene for John Cleese's gadget-making Q character seen in the past couple movies?\nIt's a small complaint for such a tightly written story, however, and hopefully something which will be rectified in the inevitable sequels featuring Craig (who has signed on to star for at least two more sequels).\n"Casino Royale" is easily the best James Bond movie since 1995's "Goldeneye" and one of the best-- period-- in the four-decade old series. But on top of that, it's just an all-around great film that just about any action fan should be able to watch and enjoy.