For those who are unaware, the Bond films are based on the character and novels created by author Ian Flemming. The series is the longest running and second highest grossing series (behind Harry Potter) of all time. Daniel Craig will again be playing the British secret agent, making this his third go around. Craig is the sixth actor to play the character so far. Craig leads what is easily the most star studded cast in the history of the series. Judi Dench will be reprising her role as M, which she has played over the course of seven films now since Pierce Brosnan took over as James Bond in 1995’s “GoldenEye”. Javier Bardem will be playing the villain Silva, and anyone who has seen “No Country For Old Men” knows that Bardem can be downright terrifying in a villain role. Also joining the cast are Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Bérénice Marlohe, Albert Finney, and Ben Wishaw, who will be playing a much younger version of technology specialist, Q, than we are used to.
The film is being directed by Sam Mendes, who is directing his first Bond film. Other directorial efforts already to his name include titles such as "American Beauty" and "Road to Perdition". “Skyfall” was written by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, and John Logan.
“Skyfall” was not only one of my most anticipated films of the coming month, but one of my most anticipated films for the entire year in general. If you had asked me a couple of years ago about how I felt about the James Bond series, I would have had a very different idea of it. I loved “Casino Royale” (along with most people) when I saw it, but hated “Quantum of Solace” (along with most people). Up until that time, I had only seen those two films and two of the Pierce Brosnan films. So at that point, my opinion of James Bond was that he was a one hit wonder with “Casino Royale”.
About a year ago though, I decided to start watching all of the Bond films, and was actually really surprised with them. They were so much more campy and over the top than I expected - and mostly in a good way. Now that I’ve seen all of the films, I can say I love the series as a whole and my excitement for the series is as high as it has ever been.
In terms of the plot for this movie, the studio has played it pretty close to the chest up until now. If you want a highly detailed version of the plot, you can read what seems like the full rundown of the movie on IMDB. I chose to skip doing that myself because I don’t need those spoilers in my life, and I won’t give 'em to you on here, either. This is the less-revealing plot summary for the film:
“In "Skyfall," Bond’s loyalty to M is tested as her past comes back to haunt her. As MI6 comes under attack, 007 must track down and destroy the threat, no matter how personal the cost.”For the most part M - although easily the most well known character in the Bond world outside of 007 himself, of course - has never been all that important to the overall plot of previous James Bond films. It will be nice to finally see the character taking on a larger role in the film. Not to mention that Judi Dench is the bomb.
Here is the trailer for the film.
Now even though everyone knows who Javier Bardem is now, one of the best things about some of the better James Bond villains is how they sort lurk in the shadows until later on in the movie. I wish they would’ve kept Bardem’s character out of the trailers and waited until the actual film to show him.
Reviews for the film have started coming in, and they are rock solid so far. A lot of people are already saying that this is one of, if not the best James Bond film ever. For the people who aren’t liking it, the complaints they make have them sounding like they have never seen previous James Bond films. Something I would like to point out, for all the people who say Sean Connery was the greatest Bond ever: while I still love his portrayal of the character and most of his movies, he didn’t necessarily play the character how Flemming wrote him. I feel like people don’t realize that Sean Connery was portraying a character, instead they think that every actor who played Bond since should’ve been trying to portray Connery. If this feels like I’m bashing Connery, I most certainly am not, I just want people to realize that we don’t need his style for a successful James Bond movie.
The film gets its American release on November 9, 2012. It just released in the U.K. last week to record box office results. We'll see if those numbers can continue in two weeks when we first get to check out the film.
To wrap this up, I figured I’d throw in Adele’s awesome new theme song for the movie.