Skyfall
Stars: Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem, Naomie Harris, Judi Dench
Studio: Columbia Pictures
Dr. No introduced James Bond as MI6 agent 007 in 1962. In the intervening years, Bond has maintained his British stiff upper lip, and the original film score sounds just as contemporary as it did 50 years ago — and that’s no small feat, on either count. What has changed is the role of the Bond girl, as evidenced in Skyfall. It only took a half century, but we finally have a beauty with brawn and brains, nicely assembled in a honey-brown package (Naomie Harris). In this latest installment of the franchise, Bond (Daniel Craig) is at odds with his handler, M (Judi Dench), and he’s got reptilian bad guy (Anton Chigurh, er, Javier Bardem) to deal with. But he gets more than capable assistance from the aforementioned beauty in some dicy situations and, of course, there are the requisite love scenes with multiple pretty young things. As a character says to Bond at one point, “Why not stay dead? There’s no shame in saying you’ve lost a step.” Au contraire, Bond still has a license to thrill. –p.d. lee
