Bond fans hit the jackpot with new 007
Amy Biancolli
Houston Chronicle
What, no jet packs? No world-conquering supervillains orbiting the planet? No preference for shaken martinis? ("Do I look like I give a damn?"). Surely this can't be Bond, James Bond, who doesn't even introduce himself as such until the closing minutes of Casino Royale, a ferocious raw-meat thriller that lays bare the Bond back story — before he turned so suave...

Bond series pulls an ace in Daniel Craig
Ty Burr
Boston Globe
The new James Bond is quick and muscular, and there is nothing remotely camp about him. He doesn’t wink; in fact, I’m not sure he even blinks. Where other men might athletically sail through a narrow window opening during a chase scene, he prefers to plow through the wall. He’s a strapping brute — young, untested, rough around the edges — and he is magnificent. Let the purists squawk: In Daniel Craig, the Bond franchise has finally found a 007 whose cruel charisma rivals that of Sean Connery...

New Bond is dandy in solid 'Casino'
By Tom Charity
CNN.com
By rights he should be well into middle age, but James Bond turns 21 (movies, that is) here with a new look and a fresh start. Double-0-seven can't compete with Tarzan or Godzilla for screen outings, but neither of these worthies can match him for consistency...

Um, Is That You, Bond?
Richard Corliss
TIME Magazine
The new model of the British secret agent is neither suave nor funny. But he has his charms
The perfect figure rises from the sea--lubricated and lubricious, like Ursula Andress in the first James Bond movie, Dr. No--and the audience lets out a little gasp of sexual admiration, the voyeur's version of applause. But this body belongs to Daniel Craig, the new 007, and with his Sisyphus shoulders and pecs so well defined they could be in Webster's, it's no surprise that the camera lingers lovingly to investigate the topography of his splendidly buff torso. If Craig spends more time with his shirt off than all previous Bonds combined, it's to make the point that this secret agent is his own sex object. In any romance he has with a shady lady, he seems to be cheating on himself...

Renewing a License to Kill and a Huge Movie Franchise
Manohla Dargis
New York Times
The latest James Bond vehicle — call him Bond, Bond 6.0 — finds the British spy leaner, meaner and a whole lot darker. Now played by an attractive bit of blond rough named Daniel Craig, Pierce Brosnan having been permanently kicked to the kerb, Her Majesty’s favorite bad boy arrives on screens with the usual complement of cool toys, smooth rides, bosomy women and high expectations. He shoots, he scores, in bed and out, taking down the bad and the beautiful as he strides purposefully into the 21st century...

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