Improbably, it's now four years since Pierce Brosnan's final outing in the dinner jacket and bow tie of the world's most famous fictional secret agent, Die Another Day - and I finally saw that film's long-awaited successor at a cinema here in Derby yesterday.

Casino Royale is the first Bond film to feature Daniel Craig in the lead role, and a "reboot" - the producers have taken the unusual step of rewinding Bond's career to the beginning for a new start. We see him earning his place in the famous, fictional 00 section of the Secret Service in the opening 'teaser' sequence.

Craig's inheritance of the cinematic licence to kill had been unpopular with a large section of Bond fans, and I must admit that I had my doubts myself beforehand. Happily though, it turned out to be everything I've been wishing Bond films could be again for years - a well-directed, well-acted, suspenseful film with a coherent script that stands up in its own right as a gritty, taut thriller.

There's possibly too much emphasis on long action sequences for my liking, but Bond films have suffered from that for years anyway, and here they are at least built into a clever script based on a strong plot, in which the key elements of Fleming's debut 007 novel have been nicely adapted and extended.

Craig's Bond is not quite what we're used to, however; he's much more brutal and cold-blooded, even charmless. To be fair though, perhaps he's not supposed to be - Fleming's masterspy was experienced, world-weary and cynical, whereas in Casino Royale, Bond is at the beginning of his career. Yet he's a compelling screen presence in his own right - hard as nails, clever, grimly, violently ruthless, determined and menacing (especially in the final moments of the film). I was completely won over.

There are some nice, subtle touches, too - Bond trying on his new dinner jacket for the first time is a nice, symbolic moment, and perhaps to underline a break with tradition, Bond replies that he "couldn't give a damn" when asked if his Martini should be shaken or stirred. And the theme music and opening title sequence are the best for years - stirring, impressively realised, and refreshingly different - absolutely superb.

In all - a successful fresh start for the franchise, and a real departure. Many of the signature elements are noticeably absent: no wildly implausible gadgets, no Q branch, no Moneypenny, no megalomaniac holding the West to ransom from a secret underground base staffed by large numbers of people in boiler suits (although to be fair some of the best Bond films of the last 40 years lack the latter feature). Even the gunbarrel sequence has changed: this time it's been cleverly incorporated into the screenplay.

The Bond film, as we know it then, is dead. Yet this was the best Bond film for many years; at least since 1989's Licence To Kill. Long live the Bond film!