Release Year: 2012

Genre: Action, Drama

Director: Sam Mendes

Writer: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, and John Logan

Stars: Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Javier Bardem

Prior to Skyfall, every Bond film was based in some part on a work by Ian Fleming, who invented the Bond character. Skyfall thinks outside that box. It takes its inspiration from a little known children's story, rumored to have been written by Fleming itself. It stars a suave farmyard spy named Little. Chicken Little. With the help of the sultry Foxy Loxy, a Bond girl name if there ever was one, he sets off on a dangerous mission to save not just his farm, but the world.

Okay, we made that up. But you know what? If that existed, we'd watch it while eating a plate of eggs—scrambled, not stirred.

In actuality, Skyfall is an original story that sees timeless superspy James Bond match wits against a former agent named Silva. Silva has a grudge against M, the head of MI6, Her Majesty's Secret Service. The demented Silva will go to any lengths to make her pay.

Following Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, released in 2012, is Daniel Craig's third outing as secret agent 007. As always, his missions are guided by M. Words you can't spell without M: formidable, masterful, and Dame Judi Dench. Bond and M's nemesis, Silva, is played by Javier Bardem, a man we don't think we'd recognize without a goofy haircut.

Although M is in charge of doling out dossiers, the mastermind behind Skyfall is director Sam Mendes. A London theater director, Mendes garnered acclaim in Hollywood for his Oscar-winning film American Beauty. For Skyfall, Mendes blends together his penchant for British drama with a healthy dose of unhinged neuroticism. All that's missing is a plastic bag dancing in the breeze.

Bond may often get the girls, but he doesn't usually get the Oscars. That changed with Skyfall, and a lot of credit for that victory goes to Adele, the most important Bond girl to not actually appear on screen in a Bond movie. Her title song "Skyfall" won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, a first for the fifty-year-old Bond series. It also won a trophy for Best Original Score, and we don't mean the score Bond and Silva are settling.

The film grossed over a billion dollars—that's billion with B as in Bond—worldwide, making it the number-one grossing Bond film of all time. After successfully navigating Bond over the fifty-year hump, both Craig and Mendes, along with many supporting cast members, returned for Skyfall's sequel Spectre in 2015.

Daniel Craig's Bond films have been both throwbacks and modern looks forward for the venerable series. Bond can be moody and self-aware, yes, but who isn't these days? Even if you miss the campy carefree Bonds of the past, Skyfall still has fast cars, fast women, and a gadget or two—all you need to pretend to be Bond, James Bond.

For all the rest, we're Oop, Shm Oop, and we are at your service.

When the sky fell on Skyfall, the Bond franchise was fifty years old, with around two dozen films under its impeccably tailored cummerbund. Most franchises are dead in the water by the second or third sequel. (We love Anna Kendrick, but Pitch Perfect 3? Really?) So why should you care about a franchise with a leading man who might be using money from Her Majesty's Secret Service to hide his gray hairs?

Skyfall is important because it doesn't try to hide those grays—not that Daniel Craig has any. We've all seen men try to hide their age late in life. They buy fancy sports cars, hit on young women, and shoe polish their mustache. Bond, in a way, is the perfect franchise for these men. The Bond films—especially the ones with Grandpa Roger Moore—cater to this fantasy that a man of a certain age (ahem, old) can be suave, debonair, and desirable.

Skyfall, however, confronts Bond's age. In his third outing as 007, Craig's Bond is feeling a little long in the tooth. So is M. The two battle with the idea that they may be relics of the past. Does the public still need them? These are all ponderings we can have in a meta sense about the Bond franchise itself. How does it stay relevant for a new generation?

Watching the movie with these questions in mind, you can decide if Skyfall succeeds at its mission—one of Bond's most challenging yet.