***CONTAINS SPOILERS***
Thought the first half was really good, second half really sucked.
They've been making these things for 50 years now so I get that at this point it's a tough task to do something fresh while staying within the parameters of the tried-and-true Bond formula. I loved that there was a deliberate downplaying of ridiculous gadgets that plagued the series during the Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan eras. Ralph Fiennes will make a cool new M, although for me it was a bit startling to see how much he's aged since The Constant Gardener, a movie I will always associate him with. And I still like Daniel Craig as Bond, even though he's yet to be in a really good Bond film.
That being said, I hated the Western-style siege. Once we go to Skyfall, it stopped feeling like a Bond movie and it became a cliche of other movies. And I think Javier Bardem was as bored of his Anton Chigurh-meets-The Joker villain as I was. Also, I nearly wept when the iconic Aston Martin DB5 was needlessly blown to shit.
Highest grossing Bond ever, though. And everyone else seems to like it. Oh, well. I think my hopes for the franchise died when Tarrantino was ruled out of ever getting a crack at it.
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