What did you all think of Casino Royale? Is it an origin story which relaunches Bond in a new style more akin to what Ian Fleming intended? Or is it simply the tale of how this man started out before he became the confident, punning, smarmy, “shaken, not stirred,” M-bothering, Q-foiling, gadget-laden bed-hopper in a tux whose stories all seem to be variations on the exact same plot?

While talking about Bond on another message board, I did a brief overview of the Bond movies which I’ve seen (or avoided). While it’s hardly a doctoral thesis (or even a Kistler’s Corner) in terms of thoroughness or analysis, I just thought I’d preserve it here and let you all ridicule me mercilessly.

Because I actually prefer Sean Connery in “The Untouchables” over watching him as James Bond. I think it may be something akin to “Doctor Who” where whoever was playing him when you started watching is the “real” one. (Pity anyone who started watching during the Roger Moore era!)

Understand one thing: I’m probably not the right audience for James Bond just because of the sex thing. Oh, I understand wanting to bed a beautiful woman… it’s just the cheap, disposable sex that never appealed to me. I’m just too much of a relationship guy to find it attractive. I know it’s supposed to be fantasy for the viewer, but it makes Bond look quite the heel.

Actually, what really bugs me is that it’s not believable. I find laser watches and inflatable shield boats more realistic than the way women throw themselves into Bond’s bed after a mere moment’s interaction with him. I mean, yeah, HE’S a spy who can’t have relationships, but for every woman he meets to be just as much the hedonist he is is too far-fetched. (Granted, I was a child during the 1970s. My friends who were old enough to be teens and young men in the 70s tell me that it really was pretty much like that for a short time.)

All of this is prelude to explaining why my likes/dislikes of the Bond films seem to be widely varied from what others like. I’ve yet to make it through a single Roger Moore 007 movie; I find them appallingly silly. And the few glimpses I had of Dalton’s Bond movies didn’t motivate me to finish watching them, either.

I recently watched “Never Say Never Again”. Not bad, really, aside from Bond facing off against the bad guy playing an incomprehensible video game. Dated, dated, dated. (A lot of Bond films are.)

A few of Connery’s films are interesting, but I just can’t get so excited about them the way most Bond fans scream that he’s the only Bond.

I liked On Her Majesty’s Secret Service quite a bit. It’s an ideal Bond film. Pity Lazenby didn’t keep on as Bond.

For me, Pierce Brosnan is Bond and M has never been anyone besides Judy Dench. His 007 films are spotty, with bits to like and dislike here and there, but I think “Tomorrow Never Dies” is my favorite Bond film. The villain is equal parts Ted Turner, Rupert Murdoch and William Randolph Hearst, and while I usually bristle at the cliche of the evil magnate who runs the world, the brilliant performance of Jonathan Pryce makes it compelling and relatively believable. What’s more, both Bond Babes are good characters and Teri Hatcher and Michelle Yeoh are well-cast for the characters they play (no nuclear scientists or simpering floozies informing Bond he’s incapable of killing a woman he’s been intimate with). There’s a great moment with Vincent Schiavelli. The opening scene not only rocks but reunites Dench and Palmer. And as much as I disliked the brazen Beemer product placement in “Goldeneye”, what I hated even more was that the car didn’t do anything in the damn film! At least in “Tomorrow” it gets used and abused.

Goldeneye is good. World is Not Enough is mediocre. Die Another Day is great and terrible.

As for Casino Royale…the only flaw was that it was too long. Not that I can’t sit still even longer for a good movie, but Casino Royale starts dragging a bit.