431. Skyfall (2012)

Starring: Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Javier Bardem

Director: Sam Mendes

Running Time: 143 mins

Skyfall is a British film and is the twenty third film in the James Bond series. Here, 007 must fight off a deadly evil agent from the past, while dealing with one of the biggest internal security threats in the history of MI6.

I really enjoyed this film! After being a little annoyed with the overly serious stories of Casino Royale and Quantum Of Solace, this more down-to-earth plot is a lot more entertaining to watch, as well as being full of interesting characters, fun dialogue and lots of good action.

I just felt that the straight faced Bond in the last two films was really taking away the main entertainment value of the series. Not to say that this returns to the more comedic 007, but there is certainly a greater degree of sparring between Bond and other characters, as well as a funny villain, who is both charismatic and chilling at the same time; a clever combination that is a welcome difference from previous stories.

Also, the action is just as good as it has ever been. With a two and a half hour film, there’s plenty of room for fighting and explosions all around, and the fact that there is a constant supply of action, rather than a more tense and slow story like Casino Royale makes this very fun to watch.

Luckily, though, this film doesn’t go too far either. There is a lot of action, but it leaves room for what is a good enough story. Also, there’s no stupid amount of globe-trotting, and the majority of the story takes place in Britain, showing that this is a lot truer to its heritage than some of the more recent Bonds.

The only problem I would have with this film is that the story is perhaps not the best I’ve seen. There wasn’t much excitement in terms of the larger scale of things, and it wasn’t the most interesting thing to follow, especially due to the fact that the seemingly incredibly important plot of the first half of the film is dropped halfway through.

Anyway, this film is still on the whole very entertaining to watch, with good action, some comedy, fun characters and a decent enough story, although a little weak, so that’s why it gets a 7.9 from me.