...The Best Bond Film Yet. By getting an actor in, instead of a good-looking set of limited cheekbones, Bond becomes something other than a fucking, killing, and quipping machine...

...At last, we get Bond as he always should have been. No stupid lasers, invisible cars, flying landboats, or improbable gadgets that defy the laws of physics. No idiotic, one dimensional clichéd bad guys with impossible plans to rule the world. No smartass wisecracks from an invincible ubermensch. Just plain old espionage.

After many false starts, and many ridiculous, preposterous sequels, "Casino Royale" is very possibly the best Bond film of all time. Everything that was wrong, stupid, patronising and obvious corporate bullshit about the last few has been thankfully, and gloriously discarded : John Cleese? Impervious Killers Who Feel No Pain? Audiences openly laughing at the dreadful CGI and the preposterous diamond-faced baddies? All, finally, thrown away into the rubbish where they belong.

Instead, what we have in "Casino Royale" is an intelligent, brilliant thriller. Here Bond is just a man. He feels, he bleeds, he makes mistakes, he gets tired, and he fucks up. His actually feels, and acts like a real human being, instead of some kind of bizarre Action Man cipher.

Craig's Bond is the best Bond there has been. By getting an actor in, instead of a good-looking set of limited cheekbones, Bond becomes something other than a fucking, killing, and quipping machine. It's a shame that "24", and "The Bourne Identity" have had to come first to show Bond how pathetic tripe like "Die Another Day" had become, but this essential reimagining destroys the established knowledge and instead casts Bond in a taut, plausible thriller.

It also takes us back to the beginning of Bond. In "Dr.No", Sean Connery just arrived fully formed and moulded, like a plastic soldier. Here, we see the new Bond being born. We understand why he is so repressed, why he hides his feelings, why he doesn't trust. He's just like the rest of us, betrayed in a relationship and thus, wary of all mankind.

You can see it in Craig, the moments where he grapples with emotions inside his head. You can see the moments where he reverts to autopilot, a man trained to kill. And the moments after, as he rationalises his actions. He starts off unlikable but human, and over the course of the film, he changes : he becomes cold, detached, efficient. And you can see that this is the real world Bond now lives in, not some implausible hyperstylised videogame reality.

And the violence? The violence feels real. No jokey sound effects. No slow motion punches. Punches connect. They feel real. Bodies need to be hidden. Bond even gets arrested. The action setpieces are rooted in the world we inhabit - not a place of gigantic supertankers, space shuttles and nuclear submarines, but of construction sites, airports, town plazas and offices.

But "Casino Royale" is far from perfect. It's at least 10 minutes too long, the pacing is as erratic as a fucked clock, the tone is uneven. It feels a couple of scenes too long, and there are moments where it feels as if the producers are subscribing to the fetish for ever longer running times, and an extra, final act that goes further than the narrative needs. It still feels, in places, as if it needs a nip and tuck in some scenes, especially near the end of the picture.

"Casino Royale" is the best Bond film yet - an enjoyable, intelligent and realistic modern thriller that would stand up as a superior movie even if it didn't have the Bond name plastered on it. After thirty five years of near-constant, insulting bullshit, finally there has been the Bond film that Bond fans have been waiting for.

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