Skyfall

Having watched every James Bond film on the big silver screen since The Spy Who Loved Me in 1977.

It was almost surreal to see Skyfall being made by an Oscar winning director, go on to win Oscars and become one of the top grossing films of all time. The billion dollar Bond.

To think back in 1989, Licence to Kill could not compete with the likes of Batman, Indiana Jones or Lethal Weapon 2 in the US box office.

Bond is presumed dead after a mission goes wrong in Istanbul as he tries to retrieve a hard drive containing a list of top agents. M is under pressure especially as it seems she is being targeted by an anonymous cyber terrorist who turns out to be a rogue agent Silva (Javier Bardem) who was once M's most effective spy.

Skyfall celebrated 50 years of the Bond films in the cinemas. It also takes liberties with the messy timeline of the film series. Daniel Craig's novice spy from Casino Royale is now a disillusioned veteran, at one point told to call it a day.

The film re-introduces some familiar characters after being away for a few films, a younger more hi-tech Q and a new Miss Moneypenny. There is also a new M hovering in the background. The film also references earlier Bond movies as part of its golden anniversary celebrations.

Although the film contains international locations, breathtaking action, some sumptuous cinematography from Roger Deakins, it flags a bit in the middle when it needed an additional action sequence.

What director Sam Mendes does bring is some character moments and making effective use of Judi Dench as she recites some Tennyson.

Unusually for a Bond film, this must be the only occasion where the villain actually achieved all of his objectives!

I first saw this with my family in a theatre in 2012.

Revisited it recently on a dvd which I own.

This is my all time fav Bond film.

This is the twenty-third in the Bond series n the third to star Daniel Craig as James Bond.

This time Bond returns to service after MI6's servers are hacked and M receives a taunting computer message moments before the MI6 building explodes.

Inspite of failing a series of physical, medical, and psychological examinations, Bond returns to the field to pursue an assassin known as Patrice n to recover a stolen hard drive containing details of undercover agents which is in the hands of Patrice's employer, Raoul Silva, a cyberterrorist seeking revenge against those he holds responsible for betraying him.

I love the pre credit scene in this one, the motorcycle chase on the rooftops is awesome, the train chase sequence is adrenaline filled n the scene at The Varda Viaduct is amazeballs.

The climactic action is more old skool n filled with solid atmosphere.

The title track along with the picturization n Bond's fall from The Varda Viaduct is very gothic like.

The abandoned palatial house, the vast moors, the chapel, the secret passageway, the isolation n the sky almost touching the ground, is filled with top notch atmosphere.

This time Bond faces Raoul Silva n lots of his henchmen n a komodo dragon.

Bond also faces Patrice, a mercenary working for Silva.

This time Bond gets to cool off with Naomie Harris, Tonia Sotiropoulou n Berenice Marlohe.

In this movie, for the first n last time we get to see Moneypenny doing field work along with Bond and later how she opted for the iconic desktop work.

This is one of the best Bond movies I have ever seen. The story is superbly put together and has some interesting twists, the action is well done and contains none of the shaky cam which plagued the last film. The actors all do a great job. Some might still be put off by Daniel Craig's rough version of Bond, but I like it and he even has a few good old fashioned one-liners here. I wasn't sure about Javier Bardem as the villain at first. I thought he was a tad too flamboyant but eventually he grew on me, plus he had a very interesting backstory and as you might have guessed already, Judi Dench is fantastic as usual as M and she even has more to do in the story this time arround. This is not a completely formulaic Bond movie. Craig's bond is still more emotional than Connery or Moore ever were and for the first time we get some relatively detailed descriptions of his childhood. And something happens to Bond in the start of the movie that affects him for the rest of the film. But despite all that there are tons of James Bond trademarks like the martini, the introduction and even Q. Some might not like this new very young version of Q but I found him to be funny and very likable. They will never top Desmond Llewelyn's original performance, and instead of making a cheap Llewelyn clone, they make a completely different character which I think is the only right thing to do. This is not only a great Bond movie but just a downright great film.

I'm having a hard time expressing myself when it comes to this movie. It was a great movie all in all, but I feel like there's something missing.

Javier Bardem played the villain fantastically, the way he spoke and acted gave you chills and made you believe that there was something beneath his facade. (I don't think it's worth mentioning that Daniel Craigs acting was good, that has already been acknowledged).

After almost two hours in, I felt that I had so many questions unanswered and I started to worry how the movie was going to answer all of them in just half an hour. But I wasn't disappointed. Yet I was still hoping for something more, in a way.

There was just bits missing that would have made the film so much more better (even though it was great). For example getting to know more about Raoul Silvas life would have given him a stronger role in the movie. But I believe that the thing that i was the most disappointed about was Q. Bringing the character back after a few years sure brings peoples hopes up. And I was really expecting the cool gadgets that we've seen in the earlier movies. It was always fantastic to see the awesome stuff that a 007 got access to that made the spy life seem so cool. But in this movie I feel like they under-did his role a bit. A gun responding to fingerprints is cool, but the last time we saw Q, Bond got an invisible car with rocket launchers and a ring that could break glass. Sure they try to make the movies more realistic today, but I still feel that giving him a bigger role would have brought the movie up a bit.

Although I don't want to complain to much. The movie was great, go see it, you will like it and its a bit darker side than the previous films.

The 23rd Bond film from Eon Productions starts well with an expected action-packed pre title sequence. And the title song by Adele is one of the best in the franchise, up there with Diamonds are Forever and Live and Let Die. There are many fantastic scenes and Daniel Craig is once more a commanding presence. Sadly, plot conveniences in the script, over-stylised cinematography and attempted alignment with predetermined character arcs become overpowering. On more than one occasion, Bond has the opportunity to act but instead he waits until it's too late. These are plot conveniences so that additional scenes can take place. They destroy audience trust in the protagonist. And it's not just Bond but the new Q who makes decisions that undermine character believability. In fact the whole set-up for the finale is a series of plot conveniences. M, played by Judi Dench, is once more made to fiddle with contraptions like a field agent. The actress herself admitting this is not believable. Javier Bardem (villain) and Berenice Marlohe (Bond girl) were brilliant in their roles but under-utilised as a result of the script. This film, it seems, is not so much about telling a story well but setting up for a new direction for the films. What was rebooted so well with Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace takes a heavy Skyfall. A decent action film but it can't be taken seriously.