bonds up

My blogger pal, John Calypso over at Viva Veracruz, recently complained in Three of the Worst Movies Ever:  "Whoever is behind dumbing down the populace is doing a fine job."  And that was without seeing Taken 2.  Perhaps the most technically-inane movie of the decade.

He then noted he was looking forward to seeing Skyfall -- the new James Bond movie -- even though it would contain some of the same elements he found so offensive in the three lemons he had recently watched.

He needn't have worried.  This is the best Bond film I have seen in a long time.  Sure, the women are there.  But they are three-dimensional characters.  And there was violence.  But not of the amoral variety that seems to populate most American action films.

The movie is an interesting bridge piece.  Not as dark as the other Daniel Craig installments.  And it is certainly far more personal with its Cain-Abel dispute between Bond and arch-villain, former MI6 agent, Silva, vieing for the affection of Eve.  In this case, in the guise of Judi Dench's M.

And because the conflict is so personal between the three of them, we feel as if we have something invested in the outcome. 

The film is beautiful.  In Istanbul.  Shanghai.  Macau.  London.  Scotland.  Sites that seem both glamorous and familiar. 

Even the fight scenes seem simultaneously realistic and exotic.  Such as a two-man duel filmed against the lights projected on a Shanghai skyscraper.

I was a big fan of the early Bond films in the 60s.  Somewhere around Thunderball, I began to lose interest.  Then, I could not take any Moore.

It has taken me a bit to warm to Daniel Craig. But I am back in that Aston Martin DB5 with him.

Welcome back, James.  We missed you.