Actors: Daniel Craig, Judi Dench
Director: Sam Mendes
James Bond has an identity problem - the world has not only has less tolerance for camp, it's broadened the definition of the word. I don't know if I want to call old James Bond films campy, but Diamonds Are Forever features: two female security guards named Bambi and Thumper, two seemingly homosexual assassins who work together and call each other by their last name, a woman named Plenty O'Toole, and an ersatz Howard Hughes. It's at the very least goofy, and risible in the way that film executives and modern audiences don't go in for now.
This is the other problem with James Bond films - they are critiqued not as their own thing, but as an ongoing series. As an action film without the Bond baggage, Skyfall succeeds tremendously. Director Mendes and cinematographer Roger Deakins bring an artistic touch to a genre too often lacking in that area - it's not that action films aren't well-crafted, but they're made with what I see as the wrong craft. There's silliness of course - the film's understanding of computer hacking portrays it almost as a divine gift - but what would James Bond be without silliness? Daniel Craig's humorless Guy-Ritchie-tough stares can't keep the sillies out of this series, even as the film relentlessly argues that James Bond has no place in pop culture anymore.
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