Casino Royale

Casino Royale, Daniel Craig's first foray as 007, is the perfect example of why I hate using stars to rate movies. If I did, I'd give it three stars, but that wouldn't let me explain what made this a good Bond, but not quite a great one.

So, if you'll bear with me, I'll break it down just a bit.

What's good? Well, certainly most importantly, Craig himself. I've made clear my support for a more polished Bond, perhaps in the form of Clive Owen or Colin Salmon (a black Bond?) But after seeing it, I see that wasn't what they needed to make this work.

This is the very first 007, a brute killer with some of that Bond charm, but still very much a work in progress. And Craig delivers that to perfection, making the transition with ease as we watch. He's taken a lot of crap from people who don't know much about making movies, so I hope he's enjoying this triumph.

And Eva Green, as I expected, fits right into the Bond girl tradition as Vesper Lynd. She has just a hint of the cunning of later 007 damsels, but also an awkwardness that's right for the role. And, of course, it doesn't hurt that she's simply stunning to look at. My only beef with the casting was that they couldn't give the great Jeffrey Wright and Isaach de Bankole more than about three lines each as, respectively, CIA agent Felix Leiter and African warlord Steven Obanno.

The second thing director Martin Campbell got right was the structure. The framing devices, starting with 007's first two kills and ending with him having learned, as M (the always welcome Dame Judi Dench) puts it, to trust no one, just perfectly set up this movie and as many more as they want to make. And there's a fluid movement to what's essentially one very long scene at the casino, where our hero takes on Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen) in a poker game to try and take the money that funds his terrorist operation.

And it wouldn't be Bond without death- and logic-defying action, right? Campbell, who showed he knows how to have fun with the two recent Zorro movies, delivers two set pieces, at the beginning and the end, that are just a pleasure to watch. If there's a better place to set a scene than the Piazza San Marco in Venice, I haven't found it, and Campbell makes full use of it in a great sequence that has Bond sinking a building into the famous canal.

OK, so the wannabe critic in me really liked "Casino Royale," but the popcorn-flick lover that's sparring with him had a few beefs.

First, like John Candy's bumpkin critic on SCTV, I sometimes just like to see stuff get "blowed up." Especially in a Bond movie. More action would have made the 2-1/2 hours go faster with this one.

And second, an entirely shallow but, I think, legitimate complaint about the cheesecake-to-beefcake ratio in this one. It becomes very clear in "Casino Royale" that Daniel Craig worked out a lot for this role. But when, for the second time we see him (instead of Ursula Andress or even Halle Berry) emerging from the ocean in a skimpy bathing suit, it's just overkill.

In Bond movies, we expect 007 to be a suave ladies man, but all I'm asking for here is equal time. This isn't high art. If I have to see Mr. Craig frolic on the beach, couldn't more of it have been with the beautiful Eva Green in an equally skimpy bikini? I mean, I'm not asking for too much here am I?

But, that said, they pulled off a real coup by showing us the birth of Bond and still setting it in the current day. And Craig, if he wants it, has set himself up for a string of 10 Bond movies or so that hopefully will just build on the promise of "Casino Royale."