Bond is back! Casino Royale takes us back to an early Bond, it begins by telling us the story of how Bond got his 00 status, and then the story of his, and actor Daniel Craig's, first mission. .

But Casino Royale is a different type of Bond film with a different type of Bond, and Craig plays him very well. This is Bond for the Twenty First Century, but also Bond back to his beginnings. Having achieved '00' status, he embarks on his mission, to track down the banker who handles the funds of terrorists.

There is all the usual action and stunt scenes you expect from a Bond film but it is all somehow more real than the other films. We also see something of his internal conflict, he is described as arrogant and cold by 'M', someone who finds killing easy and is unphased by the mounting body count as he pursues his man. Yet in the last half and hour of the film we see the moral conflict in Bond's life. Gone is the fast quipping Bond of Brosnan, this new Bond is far less certain of himself.

He is a man whose life is dedicated to Queen and Country, to taking care of the 'bad guys' yet as he falls in love with Vesper we see the conflict within Bond; in doing what his country deems is right he is losing his soul, in fact he wants to get out while he has some semblance of his soul left.

Yet inevitably he is dragged back into the life he would have left, his desire to escape before the damage is permanent is not realised. The film ends not with the usual Bond scene but with the girl lost, sacrificing herself to save him, and with Bond on the trail of those who killed her.

In Casino Royale Bond reflects the uncertainty that is a feature of the twenty-first century along with other traits of our society. But what is perhaps most different about Bond is that he is not the Teflon Bond, this is a Bond where his actions have an effect upon him. Where the second kill is so much easier than the first, where every morally questionable decision is easier second time around, where he becomes hardened to his actions affects on others, but where once the armour is off he recognises that his actions cannot but affect him, where he fears losing his soul.

The new Bond is someone we can identify with, someone who cannot breeze through life unaffected and uncaring. Who fears becoming so hard of heart that he loses his soul, yet who fears getting hurt even more. Bond is a mirror that shows our own worries and uncertainties, who acknowledges what maybe we refuse to; that our actions effect us, that our actions effect others, that we are afraid of being hurt by things we cannot control. Yet ultimately the film ends with Bonds armour back in place, the world is just too tough, to painful to cope with without it. If only there was another way to live, if only...

Christianity & Culture