Skyfall

Directed by Sam Mendes

(PG-13)

***

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The 23rd entry in the James Bond franchise proves to be “a thrilling addition,” said Lisa Schwarzbaum in Entertainment Weekly. “Cool cucumber” Daniel Craig is solid in his third outing as agent 007, and here he faces “one of the most complexly unhinged villains in Bond history”—a fey, twisted Javier Bardem. Oscar winner Bardem portrays a cyberterrorist in possession of sensitive information that threatens Bond’s boss M (Judi Dench) and puts their entire spy agency in jeopardy. Director Sam Mendes’s lone misstep is a large one: He and his screenwriters try to inject Bond with a Jason Bourne–like pathos by adding an emotional backstory, said Xan Brooks in The Guardian (U.K.). Don’t they understand that Bond is most effective when “serving as a blank canvas for macho fantasy?” None of this takes away from the film’s “elegance and intelligence,” though, said Joe Neumaier in the New York Daily News. Skyfall is a “notch below” 2006’s Casino Royale, when Craig joined the franchise, but it “follows that reboot’s lead, making a now-50-year-old icon as cool as when he began.”