Writing in National Review Online, Alex Massie wonders if James Bond can be saved:

Although the memorable villains — Rosa Kleb, Goldfinger, Dr. No, and Blofeld — are vital to Fleming's success, there is material to work with in terms of Bond too. Fleming relished his descriptions of Bond as "cruel," and the character's sadistic streak has only fleetingly been glimpsed on screen. In most of the movies you could be forgiven for forgetting that he's a killer.

Bond is a certain type of conservative hero. Not because he enjoys fine things (the problem with caviar and toast is making sure there is a sufficient supply, not of caviar, but of toast), nor on account of his private-school education and double first in Oriental Languages at Cambridge, but because he would have been repelled by today's emotion-fuelled confessional culture. Histrionics are for villains and foreigners of dubious provenance. Though he chafes at bureaucracy and suffers few fools gladly, and is frequently on the brink of resigning from the service, duty always brings him back to the fray. He is, after all, a lapsed Presbyterian (courtesy of his Scottish ancestors).

He is a loner, easily bored when not working (like Fleming too). His one true love, Tracy, is murdered at the end of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, never to be replaced, and alongside the ice in his heart rests a thick streak of melancholy. In Diamonds Are Forever he muses that "Before a man's 40, girls cost nothing. After that you have to pay money, or tell a story. Of the two, it's the story that hurts most." Decline weighs heavily upon him.

There is, then, plenty of room for character to replace cardboard. That's just as well because very little actually happens in Casino Royale. Bond plays a lot of Baccarat, is double-crossed by his assistant Vesper Lynd, gets tortured and does not even execute the villain, Le Chiffre. There's not too much glamor in Casino Royale, merely the messy, often squalid business of Her Majesty's secret service.

We will know if the Bond reinvention is for real if the producers include Bond's cold judgment on Miss Lynd: "The bitch is dead now."

Sadly, the movie franchise is rapidly approaching a similar state. While Daniel Craig is replacing Pierce Brosnan, as an actor, his presence alone will not jumpstart the Bond series. As Massie notes, only better writing that returns the series to its Ian Fleming roots, and away from both the flabbiness of the Roger Moore era and the politically correct nonsense draped around Brosnan's Bond will.

Much as I love the character, I'm not hopeful for a return to Bond's glory days.