In summary: the best James Bond film in a good decade. Daniel Craig has proven the haters wrong and made himself into a fantastic Bond. Easily up their with Brosnan and given some more films I’m sure he’ll give Connery a run for his money.

Royale is a restart for this 20 film running franchise. Using the first book of the same name as the premise, the writers updated some things (brought it into modern times, changed the game of baccurate to poker and such) but have kept to the book pretty closely. It’s a much more character driven film and we get to see Bond become a 007 and go through his first mission. He’s raw, violent, makes mistakes, lives, learns, loves and gets his ass kicked. This Bond is a much more real character and they’ve taken out all the weight that was ruining these movies. The gadgets (there really aren’t any in this one come to think of it) are brought back down to reality, the stunt and special effects work is 99% practical and it works to fantastic effect. Chases and fights look and feel real, there is serious impact with every brutal hit. All the action scenes are great.

The only complaint is that the pacing is off and the movie runs a good 10 minutes too long. Some nips and tucks could have been done, replaced with some exposition here and there (near the end there are bad guys that pop out of no where and you don’t know who the hell they are and why they’re there). But that’s really my only complaint. The writing is fantastic, nothing hokey or lame, the cast did a phenomenal job and even the main villain is great. He’s not a cliched megalomaniac, he’s more real, more dangerous in his power when he needs to be. One of the best films of the year.