If Casino Royale proves anything, it's that I'm apparently very, very hard to please.

After a decade of groaning through the last three Pierce Brosnan Bond films (strangely, I'm one of the few who enjoyed GoldenEye), I grew weary of where the Bond franchise was headed. I was a fan of Timothy Dalton's Bond flicks, so there's no telling what delights me most in the franchise. My big bro, Scott, is the big Bond fan, and he�s read those book thingies by Ian Fleming of the Fleming Fine Furniture stores.

(Okay, I made that last part up.)

	Yes, I am standing here without a shirt, but I thought we agreed not to make personal calls, M.

So going in to Daniel Craig's first go-round at 007 I hoped that this Bond prequel would focus more on the man and how he became the MI6 bada** we adored, and less on big bangs and insanely impossible action. Craig is actually investigating and spying, he stumbles frequently, he has to learn on the job, he doesn't always get out of situations with his velvet voice and charm, he can't figure out what kind of martini to order, his ego gets in the way and his cold heart gets too warm.

I�ve enjoyed these get-back-to-basic approach in Batman Begins, so I can�t complain when there�s not enough boom, can I?

Yet, because of the last half-hour or so, I left a teeny tiny bit unsatisfied. The movie felt anticlimactic when the final action sequence was taking place. During his entire lovey-dovey romance, you knew something had to happen, and then it doesn't for a long time, and by that time you're thinking, "Is this movie over yet?" During the entire last act I�m aware of my bulging bladder and the fact that my 6'4" frame is crammed in a full theater without room to stretch, no matter how good the movie is in front of me.

It�s like rooting for your favorite baseball team ... you hear that management wants to put the team in a new direction, focusing on small ball and defense, and you get excited, and then the team is in third place and 40-42 in July and only one player has at least ten home runs and 50 RBIs, and you start secretly hoping that at the trade deadline the teams trades for Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez and Gary Sheffield, even though you know it will kill team chemistry and give you a headache.

Okay, a few more complaints, then I�m done with the negative, which were outweighed by the positive: Where's the car chase? There's only one time he gets to hit the gas, and that lasts all of ten seconds before it's over. No Q? Precisely because Bond is new to the double-O world, he needs to know all the cool stuff he�s got. Eva Green is sassy enough to be a Bond girl, but the first woman (Caterina Murino) we see Craig woo in the movie is much sexier.

At least I should be thankful that we got a Bond girl chosen for acting talent as well as beauty, considering the train wrecks that were Halle Berry and Denise Richards. (Seriously, Richards played a nuclear scientist. Isn�t this like me portraying myself as the World�s Strongest Man?)

Back to the good stuff. The opening action sequence was impressive not for impossible stunts but by watching these guys actually jumping and running and finding holes and tricks like nothing you've seen before, so much that a few times I was mouthing, "whoa."

I�m sure it�s part of the "back to reality" approach as a prequel, but in this Bond film you felt nearly every death and were as aware as Bond that people are killed in nasty ways and dying ain't pretty. He doesn�t just punch a guy and that guy falls out unconscious. It takes Bond a long time to fight hand-to-hand against a few of the thugs, and he has to catch his breath and figure out what to do from there, both as a job and emotionally.

It's easy to nitpick, so forgive me if I sound too negative overall in this review. I guess when it comes to a franchise that's been around as long as James Bond 007, there are a lot of comparisons to make and a lot of personal preferences for favorite scenes, characters and how the hero should act.

In fact, my favorite crowd reaction was when we figured out who CIA agent Felix Leiter was, and my audience had a lot of "Ohhhh," which is how I felt, you want to lean over and tell your seatmate, "Cool! It�s Felix!" Of course, my wife isn't a Bond aficionado and couldn�t care less, but I had that reaction nonetheless.

Maybe that�s one way of looking at it, too. I�m a Bond fan, Val hasn�t seen most of them, and we both had about the same reaction: Good times, a little ineffectual in the end, but certainly worth the money.

In other news from the theater �

You know the reaction you give when one of your friends says they�re making a life-changing choice, and you know it�s doomed to fail and you can�t hide your sarcasm when telling them so? Not a good sign for the new Rocky Balboa movie: When the trailer began, the entire audience started laughing, and laughed even more after the trailer ended. Apparently the suspension of disbelief that Rocky could compete at a major level of heavyweight boxing has ended.

The verdict: