Have to agree with Casino Royale being one of the best: incredibly well-written, produced, acted - it had just about everything and gave the franchise a new feel.

I skipped Quantum and am looking forward to "Skyfall".

Concerning Adele's song, does anyone have a good interview of the commissioning editors on Bond. The song certainly does have an impact. How have they managed this over the years?

Jumping sideways, the only thing that signals new Star Wars films as being part of the same series is the use of the incredible themes by John Williams. The rest has been overtaken by rampant CGI and terrible acting and could be any of a hundred other space flicks.

They're always so long! I'm sure they start out with the length and then work on filling it with whatever nonsense they can find. Hitchcock managed to create some clever, well-paced and absorbing thrillers that lasted less than two hours. Producing bloated and bombastic movies seems to be a badge of honour these days.

Michael wrote:
Concerning Adele's song, does anyone have a good interview of the commissioning editors on Bond. The song certainly does have an impact. How have they managed this over the years?
Really? Adele's song is good but not great IMO. It's very fitting though so it works well and is the best Bond song for a while. The worst has to be Jack White with Alicia Keys, absolutely dreadful:

Yes; agreed; Adele good not great; funnily enough I think amongst the Top 5 ever Bond themes (Goldfinger; We have all the love; From Russia; Nobody does it better) is McCartney's Live and Let Die - stunning.

JK2006 wrote:
Yes; agreed; Adele good not great; funnily enough I think amongst the Top 5 ever Bond themes (Goldfinger; We have all the love; From Russia; Nobody does it better) is McCartney's Live and Let Die - stunning.
Live and Let Die is practically perfection as far as fitting a song to a film goes. I've often wondered what the story is behind that song, not that I'm doubting Paul's brilliance but it's very different for him. Were there other writers, composers etc involved?

JK, it turns out n° 1 son had recorded Quantum to our box so I watched it last night.

It really is a mean-spirited charmless affair with no recognizable human emotions involved.

You're right about the editing. One of the hallmarks of Bond movies is that the stunts are actually performed, not coded in CGI. We can feel that as an audience. The choppy editing sucked the real drama out of the car chase at the beginning and what should have been a stunning rooftop chase in Siena.

Oh, and the theme song...

On the other hand, it was beautifully filmed; fantastic production values.