Bondophiles were furious when it was announced that actor Daniel Craig would be assuming Sean Connery's mantle. As with past announcements of all of Connery's strapping descendants, the question arose, "Is he 007?"

Rest assured, Daniel Craig is not. The actor is a tireless action man, but he's more brawn than brains, lacking the debonair flair of Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton or even poor George Lazenby. Craig's a bruiser, and produces more sweat than Pierce Brosnan has ever shed in his entire life. Even when he's corseted in a tux, you can't help thinking of Craig, "He cleans up all right, doesn't he?"

But if Craig isn't an ideal Bond, he's perfectly serviceable in this unsequential prequel. Casino Royale is, of course, the story where Bond first becomes Bond — James Bond. For that reason, you must dismiss all memories of prior films and their Ms, thus saving the effort of pondering how Dame Judi Dench could be the new M in GoldenEye yet be the one responsible for grooming Bond here.

This is actually the third Casino Royale, as there was a television effort in the 1950s with Barry Nelson, and then the disastrous "spoof" from 1967, where Bond was played by David Niven, Peter Sellars, Woody Allen and a host of others, in one of the most unamusing film comedies of all time. This time, however, audiences are given something close to the real thing.

Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), one of the more famous Fleming-by-way-of-Dick Tracy villains (a slice across his right eye produces the odd stream of blood from his tear duct), is actually in hock to another Mr. Big. The high-stakes gambling in Montenegro is the only way Le Chiffre can hope to pay off his debts. Bond, the master gambler, appears to thwart Le Chiffre's win, and to finally trace this Mr. Big that MI6 is trying to identify.

In between, there's a feast of chases, shootouts, poisonings, double-dealings and enough explosions to satisfy any pyromaniac's cravings. Although the film is two and a half hours long, it doesn't (unlike Scorsese's The Departed) feel like it. Director Martin Campbell is an old Bond hand, so this Casino Royale cracks on with no letup in the action.

The blond and blue-eyed Craig leaps from tall buildings and dashes about like some minor deity in the Aryan pantheon. Not even a cocktail-induced heart attack can stop the man. It's difficult to recall, however, any of the former Bonds' bodies being so commodified as Craig's. He becomes the male equivalent of Pussy Galore, down to what I suppose is a scintillating scene of genital torture, where even Le Chiffre admiringly bemoans the fact that he has to damage such a fine slice of masculinity. If anything, the concentration upon Craig's gym-fabricated physique starts to become somewhat comical, reminding one of Groucho Marx's refusal to see Cecil B. DeMille's Samson and Delilah since he "never goes to movies where the man's breasts are bigger than the woman's."

It's a fair turnabout, however, as the standard "Bond girl" has usually been some pneumatic vixen. This time, Eva Green's Vesper Lynn is presented as being brainier than Bond, and as a femme fatale who has been forced by circumstances to switch sides rather than being a devious icebox blonde plotting her way to the top. Rather than mere sexist décor, Green's Vesper is refreshingly three-dimensional.