Best Bond movie? Most definitely.
Best Bond?
Daniel Craig is the most ruthless, fearless, cold hearted bastard of a Bond ever. He's everything a 007 would be as a trained assassin and killer. Yes, he's the best Bond and he would kill any of the other Bonds in a second for even thinking otherwise.
This is how you do a good action movie, with a good story line that doesn't get bogged down with insane megalomaniacs trying to take over the world, overblown action sequences that have no heart, or out of touch gadgets that have their foundation in a fantasy novel and not reality. This Bond movie gets everything right as it tears down all the structures of the old Bond movies and rebuilds Bond for a new generation. And builds a better mouse trap while it's at it.
If there's one movie that this Bond movie should thank it's Matt Damon's Bourne Identity movie because it uses a lot of the heart and soul of that movie to inject this new Bond with life. Not that that's a bad thing, because it isn't at all. I just wanted give respect the spy who helped Bond find his inner bad ass spy.
Where to begin? I'll start with the theme song because this theme song sets the stage for every reinvention of Bond that is to come in the movie. Forget having a woman sing the theme. They get a man to open the Bond movie. What better way to establish the changes that are about to come. And let me tell you Chris Cornell nails and sells this theme each second he's singing. Another indication we are going to get a different Bond this around is that the title of the movie is never once uttered in the song. Sacrilege, a lot of Bond fans might say. I say it's just the changing of the guard. It became my favorite Bond theme when I first heard it and every time since, and I really liked the Goldfinger theme song. And before this movie came out Goldfinger was my favorite Bond movie and Sean Connery was my favorite Bond. So, don't say I don't have an open mind.
I also liked how they opened the movie in black and white, adding a grittiness to Bond that was honestly missing in every Bond movie since this one. Subsequently the fight scene that follows between Bond and informant in the bathroom is a scene of gritty, brutal beauty as it shows the intimacy and time it takes to kill a man that's something never to be taken lightly or with witty comebacks. Killing is hard and destructive as this scene shows. The destruction they weave in the bathroom only hints at the destruction that Bonds going to go through in his professional and personal life and the scars both will leave in the wake as the movie goes on. Craig really seems to revel in this fight scene as it happens, proving the time and toughness it takes to kill a man is not easy as the sweat and blood on his faces shows. That's another thing that separates this Bond from those that came before, this Bond bleeds, get cut, and sweats like a real destructible man, giving weight and tension to the fight scenes making them not feel as choreographed as they really are but more improvised.
As much as the fight scenes are improved in this Bond it's the quiet acting scenes that are the real winners of this movie. Every time Craig and Dench are on screen together it's like they're putting on a class on how to act. They bring such life and passion to their roles. I will tell you this, I would work for Judi Dench in a heart beat. I really like her role as M. Then the movie really starts to boil when Eva Green finally makes her appearance and let me tell you she's the sexiest, smartest Bond girl ever, hand down. She can say more with her eyes and eye brows than half the woman in Hollywood. Her first scene with Craig (and really every scene with Craig) clicks on that train as her and him spar with words and observations of each other with neither winning as the scene ends. Only the viewers really win as we behold finally a woman to match this super spy, brutal killer (as the scenes before have showed us) Bond. One of the best visual scenes of them in the movie involves no dialogue and them sitting in the shower fully clothed (again this breaks every mold from the previous Bond movies) as he comforts her after she witnessed/partook of him killing (doing his job). I really liked the way his shirt started to soak through with the water as the scene progressed symbolizing the tenderness and emotion that was starting to soak through his hard armor. The biggest symbolic set piece of all is the last one staged in the old building crumbling into the water help up only by flotation devices. This old building represents all the old structures that held up Bond and as it crumbles into the water that represents the old Bond crumbling into the drowned as the new Bond is all that survives. I didn't see it this way the first time I watched this movie, but this time I did and most likely I'm reading too much into it.
What a way to end the movie with him simply saying his moniker line to the man who hand in a Veper's death, "Bond, James Bond."
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