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First things first: Daniel Craig is excellent. He’s just the sort of gritty post-feminist Bond that Timothy Dalton always promised to be. Don’t get me wrong, he ain’t no metrosexual wimp, no far from it; Craig’s manifestation of this clichéd character still has the killer lines and roving eye, but this time he has a humanity that Pierce Brosnan could never quite pull off.

This film we must remember is a remake of the very first Fleming book, Casino Royale, so we see the newly promoted Double-O agent on his first proper mission. Judy Dench’s “M” is understandably matriarchal to her new underling, and she wears her reservations of the rookie-agent’s abilities on her sleeve. However, the silent admiration and tacit sexual attraction toward Bond remain.

There is an interesting scene after Bond has rubbed out two African militiamen in a stairwell. The fight was brutal with one of the men swinging at Bond with a machete. In the end Bond strangles the machete man a few inches from a petrified Mi6 accountant (the love interest, Eva Green). Later Bond is seen cleaning the blood from his hands and staring at himself in the mirror, brooding, almost questioning the cold-blooded killer he has become. When he returns to the room later, he finds the sickened accountant – fully clothed - crying in the shower. Bond merely sits beside her and holds her – not a hint of the predatory Bond of past. It is this humanity that sets Craig and his predecessors – other than maybe Dalton – apart.

There is no doubt that Casino Royale takes a great deal of inspiration from the excellent adaptations of Robert Ludlum’s Bourne Trilogy. Paul Greengrass’ simply brilliant Bourne Supremacy, the second Bourne film, is a majestic action-thriller, and hat-tips are present throughout Casino Royale.

Much has been written about Craig’s Ursula Andrews moment, and it’s true, you can almost hear the knickers dissolving in the auditorium as he emerges from the waves. Craig is a real beefcake, and the scene is certainly a victory for Germaine Greer and her bra-burning radical sisters. Things are taken to extreme later in the film, as Bond is tortured in a way… oh, how shall I put this? Let’s say, in a way in which puts further Bondesque conquests in doubt. Do not fear though. Bond does eventually get the simmering Eva Green in the sack, but again, it’s not quite as ‘on-the-nose’ as one of Brosnan’s sweaty encounters.

The narrative of the film is exciting and international. Bond, as ever, crosses continents in search of the bad guys, ending in Montenegro at the eponymous casino. The film is fairly well paced, but alas, like so many other recent films, it’s guilty of being overlong by about half-an-hour. One of the best narrative devices is the lack of the signature Bond music until the very last menacing scene. It’s almost as if our hero has finally earned his 007-stripes, and to add to the poignancy, he introduces us to those famous few words: “Bond. James Bond.” Brilliant.