It's Bond, Quality Bond

I feel rather ill qualified to write this as I have only ever seen Daniel Craig as James Bond. Well I have seen one other James Bond film and it was a Pierce Brosnan Bond film and I am not a fan of that guy and it was awful. So, as is obvious, I am not a die hard fan but I am going to write this anyway.

The latest Bond film, Skyfall, blows the rest out of the water.

Bond is injured whilst trying to retrieve a lost hard drive containing the names and locations of MI6 field agents (seriously, why would you put all that on a hard drive if there was the slightest possibility that it could be stolen?).  Meanwhile, MI6 headquarters get some pretty personal attacks

Craig is a great Bond. He pulls off very suave and very confident very well. He seems much more at home in the role after the first two films. Judy Dench is a Dame for a reason, because she is awesome. She plays M with a perfect amount of cold heart and repressed emotion. Ralph Fiennes does well with his relatively small part and he is a welcome face. And the Bond girls, or should we say women now?

But the show is stolen by Javier Bardem. He revels in this part. He is the perfect amount of crazy to make a really great, really memorable villain. The whole time he has this creepy calm demeanor and every facial expression and every action had me twisting in my seat because you could just tell that this character was off the rails but he is smart and that is scary. You never really know what this guy is going to do. He just messes with you 100% of the time. 

Sam Mendes, the man behind it all, deserves a lot of praise. This is not an action for the sake of action, there is an entertaining and engaging plot behind it. This is not only a great film plot and acting wise but it's great looking. The cinematography is pretty brilliant. There are many scenes that are just really pretty to look at. Well actually, most of the scenes are really pretty to look at and this is a welcome change. The shots of Istanbul that have been in other movies like Argo and Taken 2 don't even compare to the ones in Bond. And it's really nice to be able to have a pretty looking fight scene or motorbike chase. But the scenes in China and Scotland, I could look at them all day.

There are a few things that weren't quite great. Length wise, I think it was a little long so there are some points where things slow down a lot and even though this is so much more than an action movie, I still wanted it to move a little quicker at times. But all in all it was entertaining and pretty to look at.

For all the Bond fans out there I think this will be a great addition to the franchise and fans will appreciate the nods to previous Bonds and previous movies. Those who are new to the whole thing, like me, will be able to appreciate this as a quality movie with a bit for everyone that looks pretty incredible.