Bond is back!

Well, I saw the new James Bond movie, Casino Royale, last Monday. Rather than the instant excitement crash-bangs from previous Bond films this version of Casino Royale builds up a stealthy accumulation of pleasure. It doesn't feel like a Bond film, more a cross between the Ipcress File and the Bourne flicks. Part of this is undoubtedly due to the paring down of both the number of gadgets and of their extravagance. It is far less comic in all areas.
Like Batman Begins, this films takes us back to Bond's roots to re-energise the franchise, but whereas Christopher Nolan sets the bulk of his film plausibly in the 1980s, just prior to Tim Burton's Batman, Casino Royale places Bond learning his trade in the modern day, as if the previous MGM twenty film series exists in an alternative reality (though all fictional realities are relative).
There were flaws to this movie, such as grievous product placement, the least of which was for Airbus in title but a vast plug for its new jumbo double-decker which the film assumed would already be cleared for flying by the film release, but which instead points up the embarrassment of Airbus all the more so that it isn't. Moreover, was that Richard Branson espied at Miami airport getting body-searched for weapons? His company gets in the frame as well, but I wonder how much he paid for it and if it came in a similar manner to the auction of walkman-on parts in the next Superman movie.
Cardinal errors though was the creation of a fictional country for the embassy in Madagascar. It was sadly reminiscent of Licence to Kill with it's Isthmus City (Panama City) and the eventually awful Bugs, with its proliferation of so-called post-Soviet states. What you do in this situation is label a country with no moral right of reply. Zimbabwe anyone or perhaps Equatorial Guinea? Deliberately implanting an obvious non-entitysuspends the belief that Bond is operating in the real world. This is why North Korea was cleverly used in Die Another Day and indirectly so in relation to its government. Sure, not many will notice the fake country, but then not so many have heard of Madagascar, so why not fake that up as something else as well. Also, the use of a specific date in the film roots Bond permanently to one era, whereas the franchise hitherto had manipulated the idea of Bond through time shifts according to the geo-politics of the day.
Overall, the film impressed. Daniel Craig was convincing. I liked the use of a black Felix Leiter, as in the 'unofficial' Never Say Never Again. Even if they chop and change the actors playing Leiter as has been done, the character should survive mutilation in a shark attack, since Live And Let Die (and Licence to Kill, for that matter) has already been done. I can't see the boldness of the film producers extending to covering previous Bonds. Seeing Venice at the end (as did the train journey to Montenegro) brought back fond memories of From Russia With Love. Bond and Venice go well together. It's to do with seduction, as much as, say, Ruskin as Casanova.
The producers were hoping to revert to the old format of a film every year that occurred with Sean Connery's first four Bonds and briefly reverted to with Roger Moore's introduction as Bond. Now the second Daniel Craig Bond will be 2008. I wonder if the guiding hand of Paul Haggis will be present on the writers' credits, his rabid anti-Roman Catholicism slipping out momentarily here. There are no full-length Fleming novels to return to, so new themes will perforce have to be created by whoever is commissioned to write it, but hopefully they have a better taste for titles than the anondyne mid-Brosnan films.
Bond is back and he's very much welcome.