Skyfall

It has been a while. 4 years since feeble Quantum of Solace, 6 years since solid Casino Royal, and finally, Bond is back on the screens, just in time to celebrate 50 years of Bond franchise. And it delivers, despite it not being, strictly speaking, a Bond movie. It is actually totally different from what has been done with Bond before.

Now, meet the biggest innovation in Skyfall: Bond movie finally has an atmosphere. Even though the film still is not even remotely as atmospheric as, say, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, it is a giant leap for a franchise that has been infamous for the lack of real, believable characters and presence of cardboard environment. At last, you can see human beings in Bond movie, vulnerable, intimidated, desperate to survive, and this makes wonders: it actually forces you to follow the plot, rather than watching from fight to fight. It is possible to empathise to not-so-perfect Bond on his losing streak, as opposed to some flawless guy in tuxedo.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

This English-language adaptation of the Swedish novel by Stieg Larsson follows a disgraced journalist, Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig), as he investigates the disappearance of a wealthy patriarch's niece from 40 years ago. He is aided by the pierced, tattooed, punk computer hacker named Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara). As they work together in the investigation, Blomkvist and Salander uncover immense corruption beyond anything they have ever imagined.

This was probably the most waited-for movie of this winter, and you can quite understand why. David Fincher, the director behind the Fight Club and the Social Network, took on the bestseller detective by Stieg Larsson and invited Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara to play the lead roles. On every account that should have been a good movie.