The James Bond franchise celebrates its 50th anniversary in spectacular style with Skyfall, the 23rd film in the series and Daniel Craig’s third outing as 007. Skyfall takes every hallmark of the series and pushes them farther than ever. It’s all there—exotic locations, incredible action sequences, a fascinating arch villain, gorgeous women, the best new Bond song (by Adele) since Shirley Bassey’s “Diamonds Are Forever,” some interesting personnel surprises (my advice: don’t read the spoiler reviews!), and of course, the car.
The locations (Turkey, Shanghai, Macau) are especially stunning, thanks to director Sam Mendes’ (and the Coen Brothers’) go-to man, Roger Deakins, whose painterly, watchful cinematography continually captures moments of beauty and stillness in the midst of danger and frenetic action. As for the villain, you can easily learn the actor who plays him, but as I think in this case it’s much better to be surprised, I will only say that he is as terrifying and charismatic and sad as Hannibal Lecter.
Naomie Harris gives almost as good as she gets as Bond’s field associate. And Bérénice Lim Marlohe’s Sévérine is as gorgeous and tragic as a Bond woman has been, with a sadly all-too-relevant real-world backstory.
It was a strong weekend for Wreck-It Ralph as the Disney animated feature brought in half a million during its opening frame. However, before we get to that some house cleaning from last week.
We missed out on an opportunity to celebrate Argo‘s rise to the number one spot last weekend. Ben Affleck’s film had a solid debut, but it was on the low-end of expectations. In the weeks following, Argo has been holding incredibly well for a movie that is playing on so many screens. Culminating in finally taking the top spot last weekend in an otherwise weak weekend.
How did it do this weekend? Well since it wasn’t number one again you will have to wait to find out. The winner this weekend was Wreck-It Ralph, another Disney animated feature that proves there is still some magic left in the mouse house proper. Coming out with nearly $50 Million, Ralph managed one of Disney’s biggest animated openings. Of course even those lofty numbers pale in comparison to the PIXAR average, but from the studios that brought us Home on the Range, this is great business.
It’s been some time since we got to see “Q” in a James Bond movie. He’s basically been absent since Desmond Llewelyn passed away in 1999, even though John Cleese took up the official “Q” moniker in Die Another Day. Still, Llewelyn will always be “Q” to us.
That hasn’t stopped the makers of Skyfall from giving it a try, however. They’ve introduced a new ‘Q” for the upcoming movie, played by Ben Whishaw, and we’ve got a clip of him, with Daniel Craig’s James Bond, for you today.
Even though he’s a new “Q”, we sorta like the kid. He could end up being okay after all.
After waiting for a bit of extra time for the next James Bond movie to arrive, it’s almost here. Skyfall is the name and from the looks of this latest trailer, it’s going to be pretty great.
But really, we’re big Bond fans around here so we would see it no matter what. The fact that it appears to be awesome is just a bonus.
Check out the new trailer below. Look for Skyfall to arrive on November 9.
Last week, to celebrate the actual 50th Birthday of the cinematic James Bond, Adele’s new theme song for Skyfall was officially released. The song was incredibly well received, mostly because the song is damn near perfect, but unless you watched some hastily edited fan edits you had to imagine what this theme would sound like over top of some real Bond action.
Thankfully there is someone really smart behind the marketing of Skyfall, as a new trailer just hit featuring the soon to be iconic new tune prominently. Somehow the already phenomenal song feels even better when you see Bond do his various Bond-y things, particularly that last beat of the trailer.
The anticipation for the third Daniel Craig Bond film is reaching it’s boiling point. At this point everyone seems to have let the bitter memory of Quantum of Solace wash away from their memories and are allowing all of the goodwill this movie is putting out drive their excitement.
This has been a banner anniversary year for Bond, and after some shaky years with a writer’s strike hindered Quantum and the bankruptcy scare of MGM, it is a welcome revival of the spy who loves us all. Except probably cold war era Russians, but everyone else for sure.
Check out the new trailer after the jump and stay tuned to The Flickcast for any last-minute news as Skyfall approaches.
