First, I’m a James Bond fan. I’ve seen all of them. I don’t care for Roger Moore’s bond, though I liked some of the movies he did. Sean Connery I can take or leave as Bond, George and Timmy are medium. I am a huge fan of Pierce Brosnan as Bond. Goldeneye was my favorite Bond (and is still the best 1st person shooter ever). Too bad most of the films they made for Brosnan sucked asshole.
Daniel Craig is an inspired choice for Bond. He’s some sort of combination between Connery’s obvious physicality and Brosnan’s suavity. Casino Royale (directed by Goldeneye‘s Martin Campbell) brutalized its way to my favorite Bond movie. It was almost like, let’s make everyone remember why all this shit is cool in the 1st place. And it was fantastic yet grounded in reality. (everything in a movie, no matter how ridiculous, must be grounded in reality; you choose what rules to change and stop there otherwise it just comes across as lazy. Well, to smart people it comes across as lazy)
Quantam of Solace started like a freight train, but it was derailed by a few choices about the ending. They made the mistake of having the final confrontation between Bond and Greene(the bad guy) a physical one. The dude was a mental bad guy. He was utterly unconvincing as a physical danger. And he wasn’t supposed to be one; they just got to the end and couldn’t figure out anything better. And the ending took too long; it took away from the ‘cold’ post ending because everyone was exhausted.
Skyfall suffers from some of the same issues. It started like a bat out of hell. And it has solid character introductions: adding the male M (with his red leather door most will recognize), Moneypenny, and Q back to the cast. It’s overall function is to show how the Casino Royale Bond transitioned to the Goldfinger Bond since we started back before he was 00rated. And Javier Bardem is an inspired choice to play a turned agent. And his gay routine was hilarious. But it was a rehash of the 006 plot from a better movie. And there’s some intrigue, but no mystery and the final action piece is just boring. If you’re going to have a shootout in a field; you need to bring your A-game. Ox has seen a lot of fucking shootouts in fucking fields silhouetted by fucking fire. And he has seen it done better. Many times over the last 20 years. And where the fuck was Mr. White and the continuity we spent the last 2 movies building? Maybe he’ll be back. But I was disappointed.
What did I like? Moneypenny is hot as hell and they have a more liberated take on her. Which is nice. Q is perfect. The new M is dourly appropriate. Also the first 2/3 of the movie is fairly exciting. But the end is just kind of stupid. You gotta bring more to the table. This is Bond.
What they need for the next one is to stop rebooting and reintroducing. Everyone knows who’s who and that Jimmy is a fucking orphan spy smooth badass. Let’s focus on creating a cool problem with an exciting and intellectually stimulating resolution and stop all this fucking character development. Its the 23rd fucking film. The characters are developed.
Anyhow, its not terrible. But top 10-15 (of Bond films) is probably the best I can rate it.