10 Thoughts on Casino Royale (Spoilers!)

Preface: Made it to the Promenade cinema w/ minutes to spare. Also, one Smokey's footlong hotdog and a regular-sized Fuzion fruit smoothie does not a complete meal make.

Anyhoo...

• This may be the first time the actual actor playing Bond (in this case Layer Cake's Daniel Craig) was incorporated in the opening credits. Sixties Hollywood movie trailers meets Money for Nothin' music video meets iPod commericals (you'll have to see it to get it). Song sucked, tho'.
• In the first major action scene, the agile running dude DJ and I dubbed Black Spider-Man (or Black Jackie Chan) was French free runner Sebastien Foucan. No wires and cables strapped to that guy's crotch. It was pure Parkour.
• If our blonde Bond wasn't an MI6 agent, he would've made a helluva parking valet. Speaking of w/c, only in the movies can you park a horse on the beach w/o any posts.
  
• The movie disrupts 007 continuity a bit w/ Dame Judi Dench's appearance as M. In GoldenEye she was newly appointed as M while Pierce Brosnan's Bond was already a vet in the 00 service, but here it seems she's the one that actually promoted Bond to 00 status. Mebbe they should've called it Bond Begins.
• Cute cameos by Alessandra Ambrosio, Richard Branson and Joy Luck Club's Tsai Chin, who was a Bond girl in You Only Live Twice. Still, having first known her as "Waverly's mom," there is no way I will think she's hot.
• As soon as Vesper Lind showed up I thought alright, she's either going to betray him or die. Thankfully she doesn't disappoint on both counts. And finally, a villain who wasn't out for world domination (or some variation of it), just the money.
  
• I would've enjoyed the movie more if I'd only brushed up on my knowledge of poker, 'coz there was a lot of it in this film. I was expecting Mel Gibson's Maverick to show up. Drunk, of course, and blaming the Jews for everything.
  
• I guessed wrong w/ the big-ass plane not blowing up, but not w/ Vesper's betrayal, w/c was practically being telegraphed. Bond in love and quitting? Oh, ya KNOW sumptin' ain't right.
  
• Perhaps another reason why Bond was almost gadget-less (save for the portable mini-defibrillator-- w/c does exist) was because the original Q, Desmond Llewelyn, had already passed away, and getting John Cleese back would've looked silly.
  
• This Bond movie puts all the ones that came before it to shame, especially that "comedy" mess that was the original 1967 Casino Royale. If you've never of it, count yourself lucky.