Maybe the Best 007 Film Since "From Russia with Love"

Rating: 8/10 (6 January 2015)

Seven actors have portrayed James Bond, Agent 007 of MI-6, the ultra- secret bureau branch of British Intelligent. None, in my humble opinion, will ever outdo Sean Connery as the cool and calculating international spy who sports automatic hand-guns and beautiful mistresses. However, I believe a close second may be the latest installments featuring Daniel Craig. While the forgettable mid-Bond films, starring Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, and Pierce Brosnan, who seemed like he was just replaying Remington-Steele with higher budgets, more often than not were more like Bond-by-the-numbers intent on making money from the name, the women, and the gadgets, Daniel Craig has stood out. Craig may well be the best successor to Connery in the role.
The other Bond installments with the above-list of mediocre actors in cookie-cutter installments, featuring the obligatory femme-fatale, a casino scene, and a chase through the Alps, pale in comparison to the latest Bond installments with Craig. Maybe why I like the Craig versions as some of the best since Connery has to do with making Bond more vulnerable. In many of the Moore and Brosnan installments, I certainly knew Bond would break free from his plot-driven shackles but the way the character was played, I thought the character himself knew he would win in the end, and so I was never rooting for him. He was always so cool that I knew he knew he would prevail. Not with Craig. Craig's take on Bond is more subtle with sudden unexpected emotions, as if his character doesn't know whether it will turn out in his favor, which is as it should be. Craig sweats, grunts, even sheds tears. I never saw Moore grunt hardly at all. (I liked "Jaws" from "Moonraker" much more than Moore.)
In "Skyfall", Bond and MI-6 are dealing with a foe who has infiltrated the computer systems of British Intelligence. Part of this foe's breach includes the revealing the aliases of under-cover British agents all over the world. Bond and MI-6 must stop this baddie before he or she compromises more field agents which may lead to their deaths. Is this is an old foe, like Specter, a new foe, or someone else? Maybe someone who knows the intricacies of British Intelligence? A wonderful film from start to finish with a good combination of humour, action and even emotion. And there's even a throw-back to elements of the old Bond films of the 1960's.