It almost feels as though Casino Royale should be called "How James Bond Got His Groove Back". It's fair to say that previous Bond movies were always a campy affair, even if they didn't mean to be... this being taken to the illogical extreme in Die Another Day, where we had an invisible car - which really seemed to be taking it all a bit too far.

It's a shame really, Pierce Brosnan was a good Bond... he had the misfortune of being a good Bond in bad films. With the exception of Golden Eye, they all had a distinctly hacked together feel... which is presumably the result of the rewrites that were going on DURING FILMING.

While expressions like "reboot" are to be treated with trepidation but it seems as if Casino Royale was actually what the franchise needed. It would have been difficult for the series to continue to top itself in over-the-top action set pieces anyway and the gadgets were just getting stupid. What was next? The intangible car? Anyway, we seem to have left all that far behind and Daniel Craig is far more in line with Flemming's Bond, much colder and far less inclined to quip camply after having destroyed an army with his nuclear powered pistol.

It's really not like any of the Bond films. Things are all kept far more realistic... naturally, there are still some of the classic Hollywood clichés that bend the laws of physics - the recoiless, totally suppressed infinite clip SMGs are still around... and people can jump improbably distances without any ill effect and houses collapsing into the sea probably isn't a normal occurrence but for casual viewing there aren't any "THAT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN!" moments.

All in all, it's a relief to see that we've managed to avoid the mistakes of the past. The romance aspect was a bit iffy but I suspect that was necessary for a variety of reasons and it never really gets in the way... and it's far more credible than the last half dozen Bond girls...