November 24, 2012

Skyfall

2012 - 3/5

When it comes to the Bond movies, I’ve only seen 4 of the 23 before Skyfall (Goldeneye. The Living Daylights. Casino Royale. Quantam of Solace). So I can’t say that I know my Bond movies; so for what it’s worth [in your opinion], this is my review. I heard that this movie has a few throwbacks to previous Bond movies, but I’ll admit that I didn’t catch any of them.

Usually when I’m watching a movie, I write down things that stood out to me: the dialogue, certain scenes, something I thought, ect, but for this movie I didn’t write a whole lot down. I had written that I liked the fight that took place between Bond and the Assassin in the building (the one that was silhouetted), and I loved how part of the movie was set in Turkey and Shanghai (which made for great some shots). Aside from that, I really had nothing else written down, and I’m not sure what to make of it because the movie was almost 2.5 hours long. Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy the movie, but for the sake of transparency, action flicks aren’t my cup of tea.

I felt as if this movie had a dark tone to it and it was present throughout the entire movie. I wasn’t expecting that, but it drew me into the plot a bit more. There really wasn’t much to the plot other than someone hacking into MI6 and taking information that threatened the safety of several agents and a bit more about the villain who did that (but I’m on the fence about whether or not that could be considered a spoiler, so I’ll leave it out). I found that there was a fair amount of fighting (which was well choreographed) and action, but the main aspect of this movie was its characters.

I had heard the song 'Skyfall' by Adele when the trailer came out and I can’t say I was a fan. When the song started playing during the movie, I immediately loved it. I mentioned earlier that the movie had a darker tone, and hearing this song at the beginning, defiantly helped set that tone. I can now say I’m a fan of the song.

I am going to have to talk about the acting, and there were a lot of relevant characters, so here’s my short blurb on each:

-Daniel Craig is great as James Bond. I really liked how this movie addressed that he was aging and he wasn’t necessarily at the top of his game, but lets face it, the guy will still get the job done. Craig’s appearance and demeanor make him so stealthy and cunning and such a great fit for this character.

-I had always liked Judi Dench as M, and I don’t think there could have been a better actress for this character. I really liked the relationship that M had with Bond. You could tell that each cared for the other, even with all their bickering.

-The only other movie I’ve seen with Javier Bardem in it was No Country For Old Men. There’s no question that the guy is a great villain. I do think that his character was slightly over the top in this movie: if ‘dark eccentricity’ existed, Silva would have been it.

-I really liked Eve and her relationship with Bond. It was nice seeing a woman in a Bond movie that was apart of the action too and not just a Bond girl. Naomie Harris didn’t have a huge role, but the scenes she was added into worked well in the movie.

-I liked Q; the character and the actor who portrayed him. I thought it was cool that a movie like this incorporated the characteristics of the younger generation nowadays. It was nice to see a tech-savvy character that had nothing to do with stupid gadgets.

-I liked how the Bond girl in this movie didn’t have a huge role and whatever scene she was in, wasn’t cheesy. At the same time, the ‘relationship’ between her and Bond was very forced.

Overall, it was an entertaining movie: it had a simple plot, it had great acting and good characters, but I'm not in any hurry to see it again any time soon.

***SPOILER ALERT***
-As I said earlier, the connection between Bond and the Bond girl was very forced and I bring this up again because I wanted to say that when she was killed, Bond seemed to get over it very quickly.
-Did anyone else find it a bit ironic that Bond slept with a chick that was caught in the sex-trafficking world?

-I liked that Silva’s motivation was revenge; it wasn’t something cheesy or unrelated to the other characters. His role wasn’t created just for the sake of fitting a villain into the plot.

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