rated PG-13

When you get to the theater and your preferred showing of “Casino Royale” is sold out, take a moment. Ask yourself, “What would Bond do?” 

Then just walk in; or, if you like, go to the restroom, then slip into the theater from there. The main thing is to look like you belong. There, easy as pie, you’re in.

Is it wrong to sneak into a movie without paying? Are you stealing seats from people who actually paid?

Bond isn’t bound by our rules. He has a license to kill, and he’s got an arrogance that propels him far beyond the rest of us. Selfishness, even. He may be a hero of sorts, but he is not a nice man.

Daniel Craig is the darkest Bond, less a superspy and more a dangerous tool of the empire. And he’s fantastic; not only does he radiate menace, but we can, somehow, always see him thinking. He rarely speaks, yet we’re there in his mind, weighing his chances, calculating, thinking the thoughts of a trained killer.

The intensity of his performance is an especially good thing in movie whose centerpiece is a long poker game. While “Casino Royale” was Ian Fleming’s first Bond novel, the movie version feels like something new for the 40-year-old franchise. There are no magnetic watches, no hovercraft, no banks of missiles or imminent global destruction.

There is action, danger and beautiful women, and a man who weeps blood; but mostly, there is Bond. The idea that MI6 has to send an agent to win a $150 million poker game against bad guys might be silly, but it puts us at the table with Bond and forces us to gaze into his creepy glacier-blue eyes and try to take his measure. Does he care about right and wrong at all, or does he just want to win? Does he kill out of necessity or pleasure? Arrogance can be charming, but does it blind him to smarter choices? Does he have affairs with married women because, as he says, it’s simpler, or is it because he just likes to steal from other men? What sort of hero is this, exactly, and why the devil do we like him, anyway?

This is not director Martin Campbell’s first Bond movie, as he also directed the first and most promising Pierce Brosnan Bond movie, “GoldenEye,” in 1995. In “GoldenEye,” the human effort required to be Bond was one of the compelling things about Brosnan’s performance. “Casino Royale” is an even bigger and bolder re-imagining, almost like the stripped-down, character-driven reboot of “Batman Begins.” When Bond is asked if he wants his drink shaken or stirred, he says, “Do I look like I care?”

The pace flags in places, and “Casino Royale” has almost as many endings as “The Return of the King,” but it is still the most satisfying Bond movie in memory, and leaves us wanting more from the killer combination of Daniel Craig and Martin Campbell.
In the meantime, you can see “Casino Royale” again, and maybe smuggle in some vodka this time.