Actually felt like a fresh take on Bond at the time. Craig played a more emotionally vulnerable hero than the wink-and-nod Bonds of yesteryear. Less cartoonish than classic era Bond, but this might not be a good thing.

A gritty reboot of Bond may have seemed like a bad idea at the time, but this movie holds up incredibly well as time has ed, especially in the wake of No Time To Die. All the things that make Craig's Bond far from his predecessor's (Not counting the superficial complaints about "James Blonde) work really well for a younger, inexperienced agent who has yet to build up his name, yet the small pieces of iconography keep it rooted in what came before. When paired with the brilliance of Mads Mikkelsen and the tragedy of Eva Green;s Vesper Lynd, Casino Royal was a welcome start to a Bond for a new age.

Propulsive, gritty reimagining of the James Bond franchise with Daniel Craig going for brooding black-ops intensity rather than puns and winks to the camera. The action is genuinely superb, and the core narrative has some interesting twists that make it thrilling to be riding Bond's shoulder.