I cannot prove it, but I suspect that God may have designed Craig during a slightly ham-fisted attempt at woodworking. Mathis was right: what we get is a Chinese box, although one’s initial impression is that the outermost box is a packing crate. He is now played by Daniel Craig, as the world knows, and, if I had my way, the world would have shut up about it for the past thirteen months and waited to see the result. Whether Bond has a heart worth starting is another matter. It is true that Bond keeps a defibrillator in the glove compartment of his Aston Martin, but, given the cholesterol levels of the kind of people who drive Aston Martins, a heart-starter presumably comes standard, like a wheel jack. The same goes for hardware, with rockets and gadgets alike being trimmed to the minimum. As played by Giancarlo Giannini, who was recently seen having his intestines removed in “Hannibal,” he is pouchy, affable, and dangerously wise, and his presence hints that this new adventure will not be an occasion for silliness: no calendar girls, no blundering boffins, no giants with dentures of steel. 21 in the roster of official Bond films, and we are back with Mathis. More than half a century later, we are back with “Casino Royale,” No. When one gets there the result is unrewarding, but the process is instructive and entertaining.” The speaker is Mathis, a kindly French liaison officer in “Casino Royale,” Ian Fleming’s first James Bond novel, published in 1953.

It takes a very long time to get to the center of them.

Who said this: “It is interesting for me to see this new Bond.

Mathis casino royal