Is Casino Royale worth watching?
‘Casino Royale’ deals us a winning action flick Who would have believed back in 1962, when British secret agent 007 first pounced onto the big screen in “Dr. No,” that 44 years and 20 outings later, the movie of the 2006 holiday season with the highest “want-to-see” factor would be a new version of “Casino Royale”? This miracle of enduring popularity is exactly what the trade papers and Internet polls have been telling us: the Beatles and “Star Wars” have come and gone, the Soviet Union has fallen and the 20th century is history, but the American moviegoer still wants to see James Bond. Will the movie satisfy this inexplicable hunger? My guess is that it will. In fact, this 21st Bond — a new and deadly serious version of the first Ian Fleming novel that previously was filmed as a 1954 TV show and a 1967 spy parody — is flat-out one of the best Bonds ever. Fans may quibble over aspects of Daniel Craig’s performance (and, of course, he doesn’t measure up to Sean Connery), but his sawed
