This year the James Bond film series turns 50. From the highs of “Goldfinger” to the very lows of “Die Another Day,” it’s been a long run.
To celebrate this occasion, actor Daniel Craig takes his third outing as the perennial Brit super spy in the Sam Mendez directed “Skyfall,” and it is incredible.
The plot centers surprisingly around Bond’s boss “M,” played by dame Judi Dench, given more than she’s had in an already meaty 17-year stint.
She becomes target of a cyber terrorist who has ties to her past.
The villain Silva is played with barely contained insanity by Javier Bardem, once again proving he is scarier than the awful hairstyles he chooses.
What is most alarming about “Skyfall’s” story are the Fruedian levels it delves into with the main three characters.
The relationship between Bond, M and Silva has Oedipal undertones that would be commonplace in some award-winning drama, but feels new and dangerous in a big action event film like “Skyfall.”
In many ways this feels like the Bond franchise answering to the new blockbuster standards that Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” delivered four years ago.
Both films take a character that had fallen into the pits of self parody and reconstructed them with class and genuine pathos.
Craig has already proven with “Casino Royale” and “Quantum of Solace” that while he might not be the iconic Bond, he is by far the most complex.
But both of those movies hadn’t really fully become a Bond movie, but more a deconstruction of an ailing franchise.
‘Skyfall’ brings it all center. It has never felt newer. From the awesome cold opening, the return of past characters, a classic Aston
Martin 63 db5, all the way to Adele’s retro love letter of an opening theme; this feel like a return to form.
An acknowledgment of the past while bringing it to the 21st century. 4.5 martini’s out of five.