The Best Bond Film to Date

Rating: 10/10 (28 January 2016)

This was the first Bond film I saw in the theaters. I had low expectations after the first two films with Daniel Craig. However, when I watched this, I couldn't have been more blown away. This ended up being not only an instant Bond classic, but for my money, the most thrilling and engrossing James Bond movie to date.
Daniel Craig is much better and more comfortable in the role of Bond this time around. He really feels like the spy that Ian Fleming envisioned.
The story and drama of the film is very gripping and realistic. It engages you the entire time, unlike "Casino Royale," which was too boring to keep your attention, and "Quantum of Solace," which didn't have much of a story at all. One thing I really loved was getting to see the place where Bond spent his childhood.
The action scenes are both larger-than-life and pulse-pounding. The pre-credit sequence where Bond rides a motorcycle, silver cars, a bulldozer, the caboose of the train, and then seemingly dies was one for the ages. I admit, I really thought that they had killed off Bond. There are also many other excellent chase scenes and fight scenes.
Javier Bardem is outstanding as Silva, a villain that is entertaining and uncomfortably creepy at the same time. This seems to be a type of character that Bardem plays often, and he knocked this one out of the ballpark.
There are also many wonderful additions to the cast. We get Ralph Fiennes as the new M and Naomie Harris as Moneypenny. I especially loved Ben Whishaw as Q. He is a younger Q and I loved this new take on the character.
Of course, we also have Judi Dench in her last outing as M. The scene at the end where she passes away really tugged my emotional strings.
Adele once again shows us that she is one of the most talented artists of her generation with the atmospheric, haunting title song. The locations, particularly Shanghai, also have an epic quality to them.
I can't praise this film enough. This, in my humble opinion, is the best Bond film ever made, which really says something. It is a more realistic type of Bond, but unlike the first two films in this reboot series, it didn't sacrifice the fun. A nice touch is that although undeniably slick and modern, it still has the feel of a lot of the classic Bond films. A must-see.
RATING: A+