The man who would be Bond.

To tell the truth, even those of us with no stake in the creaky Bond franchise had a hard time imagining what a new actor, however magnetic, could bring to the table. Casting such a protean actor was an odd choice on the filmmakers' part. But maybe that's the whole point: to subvert the Bond brand. Asked by a bartender if he prefers his martini shaken or stirred, Craig's Bond snaps, "Do I look like I give a damn?"

You might've expected that the 21^st century would bring us a post-post-Postmodern Bond, so laden with winking references and self-conscious tics that he'd sink under his own weight. Instead, the director, Martin Campbell (who also directed Pierce Brosnan's first outing as Bond in Goldeneye), has chosen to give us a Bond who's both metaphorically and literally stripped bare. Let me take this opportunity to thank him for both.