Best Bond ever: 'Royale' without cheese

Yes, Daniel Craig is the best James Bond ever, and yes, "Casino Royale" is probably the best Bond film ever. I figured I'd get that out of the way instead of tip-toeing around it like many critics have. There is a certain mystique surrounding 007 films that, for many, renders them difficult to criticize, but eventually one has to face the fact that most of them are pretty awful. What makes Craig and "Casino Royale" tops in their field after only one outing is how they do away with all the pitfalls that marred the outings of Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan, all the while amping up the best aspects of Sean Connery and Roger Moore's outings, minus the outlandishly fake action set pieces. \nIn short, Craig is the thinking man's James Bond. It makes sense, then, that Eva Green (as Vesper Lynd) is the thinking man's Bond girl, or is that Bond woman? Gone are the days of Bond's clueless, goggle-eyed lead female companion. Green commands attention like no Bond girl since Britt Ekland, not to mention she can actually match wits with the super-spy. Even as "Casino Royale's " tangled plot of terrorist funding slowly unfolds over a lengthy high-stakes game of hold 'em, Craig and Green are compulsively watchable as the most genuine Bond/Bond girl pairing in franchise history. \nAs I alluded to, the plot is rather muddy upon first viewing, but all we need to know is that Bond is out to get Le Chiffre, played by a mostly stoic Mads Mikkelsen. Le Chiffre is a major funding hub of the international terrorist network. Bleeding from his tear ducts, Mikkelsen's Le Chiffre doesn't blossom into a true Bond villain until a late scene in which he violently tests Bond's manhood, yet he assures his status as a proper antagonist by never carelessly revealing his nefarious plans to Bond in detail as so many previous Bond villains have. \nExtras on this two-disc set are few, and what's there seems to only scratch the surface. A couple of mini-docs on Craig's "transformation" into Bond make it obvious that the best Bond actors are really playing themselves. A doc on Bond girls called "Bond Girls are Forever" is mildly interesting, as it features new interviews with many of the actresses in earlier 007 films, but it never makes a convincing argument for why Bond girls are vital. \n"Casino Royale" contains none of the cheesy adornments of previous 007 outings, and along with Craig's assured, intelligent, gadget-free take on Bond, it's a thrilling reincarnation of the series. There's no Q here, no Moneypenny and, thankfully, no vapid examples of submissive womanhood (though Caterina Murino tries her best and turns up dead). What we have is a hokey, dying franchise reborn as a taut, streamlined espionage series truer to Ian Fleming's novel than Hollywood's expectations. It's fun to watch.