Please note that this post contains “spoilers”.
Bond. James Bond. The British secret agent working for MI6, and the notorious fictional character created in 1953 by novelist lan Fleming. The first James Bond movie, Dr. No, stared the renowned Sir Sean Connery, and debuted in 1962.
The series currently has twenty-five films, with the most recent, No Time To Die, starring Daniel Craig, released in September 2021. It is the fifth highest-grossing film series of all time. Daniel Craig became the new James Bond in 2006, portraying the iconic British secret agent in five movies over 15 years. The latest No Time to Die brought Daniel Craig’s tenure as 007 to an end.
Since 2006, Daniel Craig has proven himself to be one of the greatest James Bond of all time. His performances as a spy are critically acclaimed as bringing the right amount of charm and heroics to the character. His movies have been ranked as some of the best James Bond movies of all time, with some of the most noteworthy action sequences and plot twists.
Casino Royale (2006) was the first film to star Daniel Craig as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. Casino Royale begins with James Bond earning “00” status and a license to kill. Setting out on his first mission, Bond must defeat a private banker, Le Chiffre, from funding terrorists in a high-stakes game of poker at Casino Royale in Montenegro, where he must win back his money in order to stay safe amongst a gathering of terrorists. The boss of MI6, known simply as “M” (Dame Judi Dench) sends Bond, along with Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), to attend this game and prevent Le Chiffre from winning.
Quantum of Solace (2008) opens soon after the events of Casino Royale, with Bond being pursued by henchman while he drives aggressively through Siena, Italy. After evading his pursuers and killing several of them, Bond arrives at an MI6 safe house where he and M soon uncover a shadowy international network of power and corruption. As the story unfolds, Bond descends into mystery as he tries to stop a mysterious organization from eliminating a country’s most critical resource.
In Skyfall (2012), James Bond’s mission is to keep a hard drive containing a list of British and NATO agents from being used against them. He chases the man who has it which leads to a brawl on speeding train. Moneypenny, an Agent sent to assist Bond, inadvertently shoots him, and Bond is presumed dead. Soon after, five MI6 agents have their identities exposed and three of them are executed. As a result, M’s authority and procedure become questioned by her superior, Gareth Mallory.
Emerging from hiding, 007 reappears and hunts down who’s responsible for the theft of the hard drive. He reaches Sévérine (Bérénice Marlohe) and uses her to find who’s responsible for the actions, the former MI6 agent Tiago Rodriguez, a.k.a. Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem), who had been betrayed by M, and is seeking revenge against the veteran MI6 leader.
With the new Bond universe established, it was time to bring back the franchise’s most famous villain, the SPECTRE (2021) terrorist organization’s head Ernst Stavro Blofeld, who hadn’t appeared in a Bond movie since 1971’s Diamonds Are Forever. After the events of Skyfall (2012), James Bond has come out a troubled man. His mentor, M, is dead. MI6 is crumbling under a newer, high-tech organization led by the mysterious Max Denbigh.
However, while in Mexico City, Bond finds an Italian hitman wearing a ring with an unusual symbol on it. Soon, he realizes that this symbol is showing up at terrorist attack sites all over the world, and so he must traverse the globe to find the truth behind the chilling organization known as SPECTRE, and his eery connection to its leader, Ernst Stavro Blofeld.
Craig planned to walk away from Bond after Spectre, citing numerous injuries he’d sustained in the role. But he was convinced to do one more movie, 2021’s No Time to Die. Having left active service, Bond is enjoying a tranquil life in Jamaica when CIA agent Felix Leiter emerges and asks for help. Their mission to rescue a kidnapped scientist turns out to be far more treacherous than expected, leading Bond on the trail of a mysterious villain who’s armed with a dangerous new technology.
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