Can I have some vodka, with some Martini and can you maybe not stir it please? Bond has caved in. Say goodbye to champagne and spying by seduction. If Sean Connery were style, then Daniel Craig is sheer misery. No longer are we entertained by the gorgeous sexual vending machines known affectionately as “the bond girls”. Carried by a wave of political correctness, welcome on the power woman. Vespa, James Bond’s first and only love is everything a bond girl shouldn’t be; intelligent, astute and worst of all immune to James’s instant charm. Is this the end for James Bond? I hope so!

In response to growing pressure, the producer, Barbara Broccoli, has abandoned decades of classic film style and struck out for shores unknown. But she seems to have become lost, taking Bond to a place where he’ll become just another action hero, a small fish in a sea of Jason Bourne's and Jet Lee’s. Devoid of any real 007 antics, Casino Royale is a Bond film in name only.

Every film series needs to evolve and goodness knows Bond was beginning to stagnate. But, Casino Royal has broken the basic conventions of the Bond genre. The stylish, cocky attitude embodied by the previous Bonds has been replaced by the generic “troubled hero”. Instead of a tuxedo-wielding super spy, James is a haunted man, full of conflicting feelings and emotions. His license to kill seems to be weighing heavily on his conscience. Oh yes, James now has a conscience.

Making Bond more 3 dimensional is a favorable idea, but it's when you start to change his fundamental character that you get problems. Gadgets, styles, cars and villains all come and go but Bond is meant to be unchanging. It's his quirky one liners and constant innuendos that give us that nostalgic feeling of continuation between each film. In Casino Royal its all gone , the attitude, the womanizing, the outrageous jokes. In short everything that makes Bond , Bond.

Apart from a brief tribute to appease long term fans, there aren't even any real Bond-Women. Vespa (Eva Green), is nothing like any of Bond's previous partners. In the beginning she easily resists Bond's charms, actually it's Bond himself that falls for her first! His admirable ability to attract members of the opposite sex on a whim seems to have deserted him. It's a shame because most of the reason James is envied by a male audience is his power over women. Even women themselves, hoping to see a flirtatious bachelor will instead be greeted by a gruff, angry Daniel Craig.

Character aside there are some remnants of Bond's golden days.  A drool-worthy tribute to the original Aston-Martins and the slick DB9 featured later in the film both act as pleasant reminders of the film's roots as well as showing that there are some, improvements made by the new film. The over zealous technology present in previous Bond-cars such as “the invisible car” showed in “Die Another Day” is gone. Replaced with simple sport's car style, the Bond cars are now believable as well as enviable.

Regardless of attitude, most viewers of Bond , fans and critics alike will tell you that the action in the Bond series, even at its best, is sadly lacking. The ridiculous one punch -knockouts , Bond fighting off trained martial artists with tame looking punches ......Its all changed. The film's saving grace , and frankly the reason for its apparent success is that the action is excellent. The fighting involves well choreographed up-close and dirty fighting combined with clever use of ambient sound and low camera angles. While deficient in every other respect, Bond is an awesome fighter,  the violence edgy and realistic. Daniel Craig has certainly taken to combat more easily than to romance.

So is this end for James Bond? His character has been demolished, the girls are gone and the film's been sucked dry of style. A decade of precedent has been erased in one motion picture. But , The action is very entertaining , certainly a vast improvement on the previous Bond films . It is the end for James bond as we know him, but it may be the beginning of something different.  Bond is irreparably different but with time and more films, Daniel Craig may come to find his niche.In the future the films may come to be known for there cutting action and dark heroes, no longer James Bond but no worse.  Casino Royale is not a good James Bond film but it may be the herald of something better.

Tainted pleasure his friendship brought

Of circumstance and chance was wrought  

What others miss,  he easy grasped 

The secret truths in others hearts

A friendship won, meant nought too him

One thousand friends were far too slim.

For greater mind had he than most

And cleverly he drew a host

Of friendly faithful faces

Hopeful recipients of his graces

And he piled them high to make a hill, tall

Where he sat atop , exploiting all.

He told them each with shining lies

That they shall have what they aspire

To sit with him , astride the friendship tower

And feel his friendship without reproach.

But I who sat beside him see

The blinded bodies beneath

And from that spectacle I flee

Stern faces , purpose set, tomorrow is for happiness

head down , hard at work, a world at work

daily problems endured for the sake

of a better tomorrow.

Big leather chairs and fast cars, soon they'll be bigger , better, faster

for the future,  sooner or later

tomorrow will pay its debts , surely?

Stepping tirelessly over every obstacle, plunging forward

Chasing that elusive date , its only a matter of time

until you catch up.

The prize is great , or so you are told

On you strive, every eager , ever bold

But tomorrow has passed.

And your eyes are clouded and your limbs are spent 

And joints ache and your back is bent

And you remember the dream and cough out one derisive laughing breath.

Upon this day of blood stained tide

A vision of man , courage incarnate.

Stands upon the beach in history's eyes,

Brave men upon the sand to die.

The world is watching yet no one sees-

The stifled trembling of their knees

The quail of eyes and the shaking shields

All ignored under the mantle of myth

True courage stems only from these men

They were not afraid, surely they were not afraid?

The lines were drawn and now death comes

Ten thousand spears, gleaming in the sun

But still they stayed, such brave men

They were not afraid, surely they were not afraid?

And when battle was joined and day after day

And friend after friend was felled in the fray

And When the end came and they stumbled and fell

Back over the the bodies of their fellow men

Surely they were not afraid, not then.