I know I’d definitely seen Goldfinger, and while I didn’t at the time have the vocabulary to articulate what a character name like “Pussy Galore” meant (the nuances of backward-feminist camp are sometimes lost on children), I understood that this series was for adults, but that it wasn’t incredibly serious.

My boomer dad liked a lot of the Sean Connery movies, and we’d sometimes watch them together. I was a tween when Casino Royale came out, but I was fairly familiar with Bond as a cultural institution.

So, how does his first go-round as 007 hold up? In a word, just fine! In retrospect, Casino Royale is a fun action flick with stellar performances, best enjoyed with a dry martini and a smooth-brain-no-thoughts attitude. It’s been a decade and a half since Daniel Craig first hit the screen as James Bond, the role he’s just departed. Welcome to Rearview Mirror, a monthly movie column in which I re-view and then re-review a movie I have already seen under the new (and improved?) critical lens of 2021.