A hot photo of Helen Mirren

Actually, it looks even better in the current issue of Esquire. Of course, the magazine's cover-story interview with Daniel Craig keyed to Cowboys & Aliens ain't chopped liver. But I have to say: That isn't the reason I'm so very glad to be a subscriber today

Would Obama or McCain be the better 007?

According to Daniel Craig: “Obama would be the better Bond because -- if he’s true to his word -- he’d be willing to quite literally look the enemy in the eye and go toe-to-toe with them. McCain, because of his long service and experience, would probably be a better M... There is, come to think of it, a kind of Judi Dench quality to McCain.”

Correction: Birds beat Bond (but just barely)

The final b.o. figures won't be reported until Monday, but preliminary estimates suggest that Happy Feet, not Casino Royale, will claim bragging rights for the No. 1 spot this weekend.

But never mind: The Batman Begins of the 007 franchise smashingly succeeds at establishing a new star (buff and brutal Daniel Craig) as the legendary Brit secret agent, even while offering a darker, edgier and -- dare I say it? -- slightly more realistic take on superspy derring-do. (Ian Fleming very likely would have approved.)

With a minimum of high-tech gadgetry and a maximum of hand-to-hand, fist-to-face, club-to-balls rough stuff, Casino Royale is hugely satisfying and impressively exciting, beginning with an ice-cold black-and-white sequence that has James Bond earning his license to kill, careening through some sensational action set pieces (including a spectacular confrontation on an airport runway, and an ingeniously sustained foot chase throughout Madagascar), lingering on some smoothly (and cleverly) suspenseful card games at the title locale -- poker, not baccarat, is 007's game of choice here -- and climaxing with a thrilling image of Bondian iconography.


My only real complaint is directed at the saggy pacing in the last half-hour or so: There's too much time spent on an obviously doomed romance between Bond and fetching femme fatale Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) after the chief bad guy is dispatched. (So much time, in fact, that even the dimmest bulb in the audience will have long enough to realize that, hey, Something Else is bound to happen before the closing credits.) Otherwise, a great reboot for the series, a welcome treat for long-time fans, and a terrific introduction for newcomers to the 007 mythos.

The once and future Bonds

Interesting featurette in the Sunday L.A. Times about the "rebooting" of the James Bond franchise (following the financially successful but critically drubbed Die Another Day) with Casino Royale. Helmer Martin Campbell -- who previously jump-started the series by introducing Pierce Brosnan as 007 in GoldenEye -- admits he wasn't entirely convinced at first that Daniel Craig could take over the superspy role. But that was before he realized the producers wanted to return to the gritty roots of the original Ian Fleming novel. Money quote: "[O]nce I saw where we were going, Daniel was the perfect fit for the story we were telling. The character in the books is much darker than he has been in the movies and that's what we've returned to. It's a more personal, more emotional story than we've seen Bond in before. Daniel has a sexuality that's very much in keeping with how Fleming saw the character."

I realize this is a minority opinion, but I've always felt that, up until now, Timothy Dalton came closer than any other actor to playing 007 as the ruthless SOB that Fleming originally envisioned. Unfortunately, his two Bond movies -- Licence to Kill and The Living Daylights -- were box-office underachievers. For the sake of the series and its longtime fans (and yes, I include myself in their number), I hope Casino Royale makes a bigger splash and comes up a winner.

On the other hand: I can remember a time when Pierce Brosnan was hyped as the new and improved 007...