What is it about Bond?

"James Bond." I've never missed one yet, and so on Sunday night I went to see the latest offering in this long line of twenty-one mediocre films based on a series of misogynistic Fifties spy novels. What is the attraction? It's not that Casino Royale was the best offering at the local multiplex, with Bobby, For Your Consideration, and The Queen also playing. (I already saw The Departed, which is the best.) Other than any movie produced by Woody Allen, even the most recent, not-up-to-his-usual standards fare, I can never pass up the latest Bond. Is it the quest for action-adventure after a dutiful weekend of household chores and family visiting? Is it curiosity about the new face of an old spy? Maybe it's the theme song, the gadgets, the clothes, the locations, and certainly the villains? It is most certainly not about the non-existent plots, the right-leaning political orientation, or the bodalicious babes.
It could be that in these times of constant change, an 007 movie is, well, constant. When you know what to expect, you cannot be disappointed. Nor are you expected to unravel the director's deeper meaning, discuss the plot points, or critique the production. It is what it is. Casino Royale, in its third re-make, delivers. The theme song accompanying the graphic opening credits is no Goldfinger, but the opening chase scene is one of the most tortuous and best, on foot through an African oil field into a shabby village, and ending with a shootout in an even shabbier third world embassy. Daniel Craig, the new Bond, is a dead-ringer, not for Sean Connery, but for Steve McQueen, a real step-up in any baby-boomer's book. I won't even try to unravel the plot. Instead of the quest for an earth-ending weapon (of mass destruction?) Casino Royale's villains fund terrorist groups by short-selling the stock market. This somehow works, proving that it is the chase, not the quarry that makes an impossible mission thrill. Casino Royale's only departure from the Fleming paradigm, however, doesn't. I'm not giving anything away, (and you know you're going to see it,) when I tell you that Bond unexpectedly falls for the babe, who has a secret which even the most gullible among us figures out too early on. But it is never about the plot, so we can forgive the unexpected and unwelcome lovey-dovey scenes in exchange for a wonderful, looking-her-age Judi Dench as M, the short-selling villain with a telltale bleeding eye, and Venice, Montenegro, the obligatory beautiful beach, and of course the tuxedos. And there is an unexpected plot twist that does work. When asked if he prefers "shaken or stirred," this Bond doesn't give a damn.