by Sumner Strickland | staff writer

The Bond franchise has completely redeemed itself with “Skyfall”. After the embarrassing “Quantum of Solace”, it was assumed that it was only down hill from there yet the change of director has resulted in possibly one of  the best Bond’s to date.

The film begins with a minuscule mission, to recover a stolen hard drive, that takes a completely unsuspected turn and leaves Bond missing or presumedly dead. Back in London MI6 is under threat by the mysterious villain who has stolen the hard drive which contains the identities of all the MI6 agents including Bond, who shows up more traumatized than when he left.There are few movies where the opening sequence gives me chills, but this is one of the greatest opening sequences of any Bond film I’ve ever seen.

The movie is an absolutely remarkable triumph for director Sam Mendes, who before now had only directed drama pieces such as “American Beauty” and “Revolutionary Road”  which has helped him bring a certain humanity to all the action that takes place. Praise can not be over looked in Daniel Craig for giving us once again a superb performance as Bond. Although, who really outshines everyone in the film would be Javier Bardem, who completely breaks away from what Bond villains are supposed to be and makes it entirely his own.