There are the occasional mainstream franchises that I absolutely adore. In most of those cases, I don't adore them by the time studios are finished with them, but there's some amount of love associated with the basic mythology and characters that carries into each new opus. Then, there are far more franchises I am either indifferent to or actively despise. The 007 series has been hanging around cinemas for 50 years now and I must confess I'm rather indifferent to the lot of them. I've seen a handful and yet none of them really left much of an impression. Most of them fell into the average category, with the only exception being Quantum of Solace, an embarrassment to all involved. That being said, Daniel Craig's more serious and realistic James Bond has always had a lot of promise to it and I went into Skyfall with the hope that the payoff I'd been hoping for since Casino Royale finally existed.
Skyfall is one of those movies that would no doubt play best to one who knew absolutely nothing about it, but for the sake of writing a review, I can't leave out all plot details. So here's my abbreviated paragraph giving you a small taste. MI6 is in trouble. A flash drive containing the names of every agent embedded in terrorist organizations around the world is stolen and released. Bombings target M (Judi Dench), the leader of MI6. James Bond (Daniel Craig), now the oldest agent in the organization is faced with the question: in the age of advanced technology, are field agents even necessary anymore when all this destruction can be caused with the use of a computer? Faced with a foe (Javier Bardem) unlike any of the traditional Bond villains with a personal vendetta and no grand conspiracy, and no fear of failure. This is truly a worthy adversary because, to use the old adage, this time, it's personal.
