James Blond

For years, while cashing up, I used to talk with my boss about how James Bond should be. We moaned that Brosnan’s films were getting cheesier & cheesier and while the media compared him to Connary we preferred to compare him to Moore. We used to bemoan Eon Productions fear of stripping Bond back to the cunning, lone wolf portrayed in the books. The closest they’d got so far was Dalton’s version. Die Another Day was a total, total sham. A film that could have been any action adventure character and totally betrayed the cunning and intelligence that Bond should have.

Last night I finally saw the Bond film I’ve been wanting to see for years. Not since From Russia With Love has a Bond film felt totally realistic and gritty. Bond was dangerous once again. What did it for me was the Parkour chase through the construction site. The villain athletically leaps through a small hole – Bond just charges through the wall. A perfect portrait of how Bond should be, an unstoppable blunt instrument. This new Bond no longer relies on gadgets and defeats villains through sheer force – not luck as Brosnan’s Bond seemed to.

Bond tends to go through cycles. Every now and then Bond is stripped back to basics with each successive film adding a layer of silliness until you get the likes of Diamonds Are Forever, Moonraker & Die Another Day. Hopefully Eon will resist that and keep Bond basic.

Daniel Craig is brilliant as Bond. He’s genuinely dangerous but can also act, a talent some 007s have lacked.

So I’d rate Casino Royale as one of the best ever 007 films. They still could have bought some black hair dye though…

• Everything you ever needed to know about Bond here