Director: Sam Mendes
Year Released: 2012
Rating: 2.0
Humorless continuation of my favorite film franchise has 007 (Daniel Craig) returning to duty after a former MI6 agent (Javier Bardem) blows up part of the SIS Building and sets out to kill M (Dame Judi Dench) for past grievances. As fantastic as Craig is in the role of Bond, the series has been waning since his stunning debut in Casino Royale, and - with this and Quantum of Solace - the films have become less jovial and fun: they've turned into pure action thrillers instead of making good use of espionage and cloak and dagger tactics (I've always considered Bond a Thinking Man's action hero; here he's basically a Marine with more than nine lives). The debate between which is best - the secretive procedures of the past (embodied by Dench) versus the newer, more "open" way of doing things - is the core of what might be considered the movie's subtext, except the "new" way of handling affairs (cinematically) takes away a lot of the charm of the series. Bardem's crypto-queer campiness makes his key scene with Bond all the more awkward (and, dare I say, homophobic) - so much for being progressive.
