the year 2008 saw the release of daniel craig's second outing as james bond quantum of solace
while just as successful as its predecessor at the box office the movie's profit margin
was slimmer than usual due in no small part to a massively inflated budget due to the
writer's guild strike which wreaked havoc on the production rather than race into shooting
another film the choice was made to take their time crafting a worthy follow-up one that would
please both fans and critics neither of whom were particularly pleased by quantum of sulas or so it
seemed to that end eon productions actually went to an a-list director this time sam mendes famous
for having directed american beauty and other acclaimed films while nothing in his photography
suggests that he could do a huge action movie many were excited by the fact that he would sign on
to a movie like this it helped that he also had history with daniel craig who'd famously played
paul newman's cowardly son in his gangster epic road to edition working with john logan who wrote
gladiator in addition to the usual james bond screenwriting team neil pervis and robert wade the
decision was made to both open up the james bond universe by introducing q a very badass version of
miss moneypuny and other elements but also scale things down to make it a deeply personal story
in some ways with the focus being razor sharp on the mother-son relationship between bond and judy
dench's m in the film her past would come back to haunt her upon the return of her former golden boy
agent silva who's been horribly disfigured and is now a cyber terrorist to play the part mendes
and crew went to the best javier bardem play one of the greatest villains of his era in the coen
brothers classic no country for old men his silva would be layered with him obsessed with revenge
against the mother figure that had forsaken him to china mirroring the fact that the film starts
with bond himself having been quasi betrayed and left her dead i may hit bond take the bloody shot
and in fact bond is so upset that he's totally burnt out and living as a beach bum only to
return when mi6 is attacked once back meets ben wyshaw has queue as well as ray finds as gareth
mallory who wants em to step down the screenplay for skyfall ranks is one of the better ones in the
series history with some razer sharp dialogue and an intriguing premise even if silva's master plan
is ultimately forgettable in the end he wants revenge on m and bond has to protect her it's
a rather intimate story but a pretty good one so where the film shines is really how all the
humans come together the cinematography the cast the score the theme song everything about skyfall
is just kind of perfect and blends together so well and in fact it would lead to the film
becoming the most financially successful film in the franchise's history so let's start with the
cast i think that daniel craig gives one of his best performances ever as james bond in skyfall
well i'd still say that probably his debut at casino royale is the most impactful
and he was robbed of an oscar nomination for that role i think that skyfall is just as good in a lot
of ways and i think that he benefits from the fact that a director like sam mendes is there to kind
of mold his performance daniel craig does most of his own stunt work so his role as bond tends to
be extremely physical and often he hurts himself so badly that he's totally burnt out by the time
it's over craig is famous after pretty much every bond film by saying he'd never do another one he
doesn't ever want to do another james pond movie and it's just too much but you know that's part
of the game and i think that part of that is just the fact that dan and craig throws everything he's
got into the role and i think that's what makes him one of the best james bonds ever and skyfall
is arguably his most polished james bond vehicle and i give his performances bond in this one a 9
on 10. i think he's great where the hell have you been enjoying death double o seven reporting for
duty in terms of villains you've got javier bardem has raul silva who's been disfigured
and was left for dead to be tortured by the chinese by m and mi6 he wants revenge and who can
blame him and however bardem is probably the best actor they could have possibly chosen for the part
you believe him as a former mi6 agent but you also believe him as a guy that's gone completely insane
he's got that great blonde hair in the film and this kind of flirty matter with james bond in fact
i love their opening scene together you feel like silva doesn't really have an end for james bond
it's just you know a victim of circumstance and in fact i think he sees a little of himself
in bond in this film bardem is really terrific and one of my favorite james bond villains ever
in fact in terms of chronology i'd say he's probably the best villain the franchise had since
john bean as double06 in goldeneye because there's a long stretch of james bond films where the
villains aren't all that much to write home about i give his villainous performance and 9 on 10.
the bond girls in this movie are a little bit different there's berenice marlow as severin
who's rile silva's associate and mistress but she's really kind of a secondary bond girl in this
film of course her and james bond do have kind of a sexy shower sex scene but she's done away
with pretty quickly and i think that james bond's reaction to her death is extremely cold-blooded
and in fact rubbed me the wrong way a little bit when i saw the film what do you say to that
it's always a good scorch the main bond girl arguably is naomi harris as eve a field agent
but of course she turns out to actually be a really badass version of ms moneypunny as she's
this field agent who decides to take a step back and become m's assistant at the end of the film
well my name's eve eve moneypenny i look forward to our time together miss money penny in some
ways what's really crazy about this is that the main bond girl is actually judy dench's
m as she's the one that he ends up with at the end and is trying to protect sure there's no
romance between the two of them but the mother-son surrogate relationship is stronger than ever in
this film so if you count judy dench as a bond girl well she's one of the best ever right so
you have to give them a 10 on 10. i mean judy dench is great it's not very comfortable is it
are you going to complain the whole way oh go on then reject me see if i can the rest of the
supporting cast in this movie is wonderful q finally makes a comeback in this movie even
though there's not much in the way of gadgets ben wishaw who of course would become famous
in his own right for voicing paddington is a great cue and i really love him in these movies
he's young and edgy and he regards bond as kind of this dinosaur even though they're not that
far apart in age i really like him in the part and feels like the first person since desmond luellen
to try and actually make the role his own as much as i like john cleese as an actor with r he was
always just kind of imitating desmond lewell and they're doing schtick wishaw is actually
playing a real role a gun and radio not exactly christmas is it are you expecting an exploding pen
ray finds also makes his debut in the series as gareth mallory
who would later on become the new m and i think one of the things that i got the biggest kick
out of in this movie was when james bond walks into m's office at the end
it looks like something out of a john glenn james bond movie from the 1980s right down to the padded
door i got a big kick out of this and i think that feinz is great because he does make the character
sympathetic even if it's not quite the surrogate parental relationship that daniel craig would
have judy dench i think it's more of an m-like relationship and makes it more of a classic
james bond franchise formula pick in some ways i really like him in the part good luck double 07
don't [ __ ] it up one of the characters in the film that i get the biggest kick out of however
is albert finney who plays king haid the game's keeper of the skyfall estate which belongs to
james bond's family now a grumpy scottish games keeper you have to think this role was written
for sean connery right i mean how great would it have been for sean connery to come in as
this grumpy old mentor for james bond and what a great swan song it would have been but alas it was
not meant to be and if you had to cast somebody else well personally i would have gone for roger
moore even though he probably can't do a scottish accent but albert finney you know albert finney
if you look at him when he was young could have easily played james bond and i imagine he had to
be on eon's list at some point of course it would turn out to be one of albert finney's last ever
roles and i really always loved him as an actor so it's a nice swan song for him too as kincaid and i
love the fact that he calls em emma in the film em this is kincaid game keeper here since i was a boy
pleased to meet you emma one of the things now that a lot of people complained about in the
film was that david arnold was replaced by sam mendes's favorite composer thomas newman and in
fact i was a little bit upset by this originally too but i don't actually mind them kind of fooling
around with the musical formula somewhat in fact i'm quite excited about the fact that
han zimmer is going to be scoring no time to die newman actually does a pretty good james
bond score and i like the romantic themes in the film probably more than the action memes he does a
good job but man the theme song by adele skyfall i mean this thing was a juggernaut when it came out
not only did it win an academy award but you could not turn the radio on without hearing it
it really i think helped the film's box office go straight into stratosphere and you know
good on adele and i think it helped make her a mega star as well even though it was already
pretty famous before the movie got released into theaters it's kind of a great song isn't it in
addition to the theme song i think the other thing that was probably the most acclaimed about this
movie was the amazing cinematography by roger deakins no james bond movie before or since has
ever looked as good roger deakins is probably the greatest cinematographer in the world and
wow did he a great job it blows my mind that he was only nominated for cinematography and
didn't win but it also goes to show that the academy has always had a bit of a prejudice
against action films haven't they some of roger deacon's shots in this movie are absolutely
gorgeous especially the fight between bond and patrice in shanghai i mean what an amazing moment
and it's worth noting that this is the first james bond movie that was ever partially
shot for imax screens now it didn't get the full imax format which is too bad and i'm still really
waiting for a james bond movie to actually do that but if you went to see it on imax screen
the aspect ratio which was 235 to 1 in most prints of the film actually expanded to about
178 to 1. it's pretty cool mendez's direction of course also can't be faulted here although
i always kind of thought that he adopted somewhat of a christopher nolan vibe in the film especially
the big attack on mi6 feels like something out of the dark knight right i liked some of his
ideas in the movie though especially using the animals 1964 cover of john lee hooker's boom boom
in the big assault at the end now some people have criticized the film for being kind of a
home alone type home invasion thriller but i mean i love that you know james bond home
invasion thriller i'm on board and i think it was so popular that it helped influence rambo
last blood to kind of make that also kind of a home invasion thriller in the climax
didn't work quite as well there as it does here now the movie was a box office juggernaut it has
to be said in fact it earned 1.1 billion dollars worldwide and at the time it came out it was the
highest grossing film worldwide for sony pictures who was distributing the franchise at the time and
the second highest grossing film of 2012. it was really rare at that point for james bond movies to
make that much money they always kind of plateaued at about 176 to 180 million dollars domestically
in north america the movie earned over 304 million dollars and the highest grossing james bond movie
of all time now of course some of you are asking that if adjusted for inflation would skyfall
still be as popular in fact this would actually outgross the other most popular james bond movie
of all time thunderball because if you adjust that movie for inflation it made 1.047 billion dollars
whereas skyfall made 1.1 billion dollars so it's a thin margin but skyfall wins and in fact critics
and fans raved about the movie non-stop the movie got an a cinema score which was pretty amazing for
a james bond film and 92 percent approval on rotten tomatoes which was really high people
really loved this movie and a lot of people at the time were calling it the best james bond movie
ever now i don't agree that it's the best james bond movie ever but i think it's a really really
good one i still probably prefer casino royale by a slim margin but skyfall is just about as good a
james bond movie as we're likely to get any time soon so i give it a 9 on 10. in fact skyfall is so
good it couldn't be helped that the follow-up would be seen as a bit of a disappointment by
people because the highs that we reached in this movie were so epic that well even if you did a
movie after this that was very successful it would be seen as not successful just because skyfall was
such a juggernaut the only way that spectre which would follow the movie would be seen as successful
is if it blew past the expectations that we had thanks to skyfall which of course it couldn't do
it's weird because the daniel craig bond movies in a lot of ways are the opposite of the star
trek movies remember when everybody used to say that the even-numbered star trek movies
were really great well in this universe it's odd because it's always the odd-numbered daniel
craig movies that are really good and of course spectre wouldn't be quite as good as skyfall
but is it as bad as you remember we'll talk about it the next installment of james bond revisited
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