G5 says...

The new 007, Daniel Craig looks like Gollum with a Hercules body-built. He is not dashing, good looking, sexy or even cute. He does not have style, is not gentle, romantic, handsome and articulate. So, why Craig as Bond, James Bond?

Let me start by saying that we all make-up Bond to be either the Sean Connery or Pierce Brosnan type. To be fair, the films portray him to be so. Bond must always be near perfection. The bad boy that every man wants to be and the every woman wants to have. This is all fine because Bond is an image of how a fearless and high IQ secret agent ought to be. But has he always been like this?

Casino Royale is Ian Fleming's first 007 novel and only now has it been adapted into a film. And so as a novice, Bond is careless, egoistical, rough and unpolished. He is more of a British Secret Service hitman than a secret agent. He lecks the posture and charm of an experienced spy. The story starts of with Bond killing his first two victims, traitors of the service. After completing this mission, he is promoted to the desirable 007 status. Next, he has been assigned his first task, as 007, after much consideration by M when he had shown no dexterity and humility in carrying out his duties.

Bond walks around with a big chip on his shoulders. But, of course, because he is fresh and overtly confident. In Casino Royale, Bond becomes emotional because he has no clue as to what a 007 is, in person. It is a professional job but it involves killing and being new at it, the question of morality plays ruthlessly in his mind.

In other words, Craig did great in portraying an unrefined Bond. He acts tough but is lost most of the time. He defies orders, breaks into M's apartment, busts into an embassy and stops at nothing to prove himself right. He feels pain and in many ways are more realistic compared with the other Bond's characterisations. At the end of the story, it provides for an explanation as to why Bond becomes the man he is in the other series of the novel, which ironically have been made into films first; the womaniser, arrogant, untrusting, suspicious and emotionally detached son of a gun.

Craig is attractive in ways that brought out the other side of Bond that the audience didn't know about. A dashing-handsome Bond would have failed at doing this. The film needed a raw, uncut and elementary image of 007.

G5 believes that the Craig-Bond combination added a human touch to the super-cool Bond character. Last but not least, Craig's muscles are a big bite to chew-on!