First things first, let’s get this out of the way: go see Skyfall. It’s good, I recommend watching
it. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, we can look at it a little bit more
critically. There were things that I liked and things that I didn’t like about
it. Spoiler alert: there may be spoilers in this. It depends what you define as
a spoiler, so I’m just going to tell you that I’m going to talk about the movie
and some of what happens in it. If you haven’t seen it, come back to this after
you have.
What I Liked
Skyfall continues
the trend of the Daniel Craig incarnation of Bond being a bit more brooding,
gritty and dark. I like that. It gives the franchise more to explore as far as
“Who is James Bond?” Personally, I think this is an awesome question to ask and
one that we’re slowly answering. We went back to the beginning with Casino Royale, and now we’re starting to
go even further back into Bond’s past, literally ending up at his childhood
home. I really like origin stories, and it’s fun to see how Bond becomes who he
is as an agent while at the same time delving little by little into what
circumstances led him to this particular profession.
Javier Bardem plays the chief villain, Raoul Silva. Unlike Casino Royale, where we have a couple
antagonists and then we think Le Chiffre is the big bad guy but then he gets
killed and there’s the guy with the half sunglasses and then there’s Mr. White
but he never says anything, once we get to Silva we know he is the bad guy. And
what a bad guy he is. What makes him so great is that, as a former MI6 agent,
his mission isn’t just to sell weapons and make money (he does this, but it
seems as if he does it just because he can, more out of boredom than anything).
No, Silva is on a personal vendetta against MI6 and M, specifically. He tries
to connect with Bond and draw connections between protagonist and antagonist.
It’s a personal battle, which is much more engaging than just trying to stop
people from blowing up the world (but that’s also fun, too).
Other good things (spoilers definitely in here): Ralph
Fiennes as the new M (such a good actor, excited to see him in everything
upcoming), the visuals (hardly a frame wasted, absolutely gorgeous images*),
nods to the past in the 50th anniversary of the franchise, a look to
the future (new M, Q, Miss Moneypenny), opening chase scene riding motorcycles
on the roofs, Daniel Craig.
*3 favorite images from the movie (in no order): Daniel
Craig standing on the iced-over pond/lake, the orange from the flames of his
childhood home illuminating one side; Daniel Craig overlooking London from the
rooftop, British flags waving; Daniel Craig surveying the Scottish landscape.
What I Didn’t Like
The overall theme of the movie. “MI6 isn’t needed anymore,
James Bond isn’t good enough anymore, the days of secret agents in the field is
over. Now we’re proved wrong.” For one, it’s presented so heavy-handed. M and
M16 are on trial. James Bond failed his examinations. Q and Silva are computer
geniuses, and do everything by computer and don’t need to go in the field. Q
and Bond sit in front of a painting of an old warship being hauled in because
it’s broken or something AND THEY COMMENT ON IT. It’s all so obvious.
Thankfully they get off of it for the most part in the final act, while Bond is
busy being a badass and of course proving that everything they had said is
irrelevant.
Just as bad is the timing of this particular theme. In Casino Royale we see Bond earn 00
status. Then some things happen in Quantum
of Solace and then all of a sudden, two movies after he become 007, he’s
too old for this? It seemed as if it was going to be an “I’ll prove them wrong,
I’ll show them I am still capable” movie (which it is) but then also a “This is
my last go-round, I’m hanging ‘em up after this one” movie (which it’s the
opposite). At the end he’s handed a new mission, but now I’m wondering how much
longer he’s got left in the tank. I know Bond films by their nature aren’t—and
really can’t be—linear, but there’s nothing to make us think that this is at
the end(ish) of Bond’s career, especially when the previous two movies with
Craig are at the beginning.
Other things I didn’t particularly fancy: Naomie Harris as
Miss Moneypenny (really didn’t feel the chemistry between her and Craig), Bond
taking his second semi-retirement in three films (I liked it in Casino Royale, but here it seemed like
its only purpose was to give 007 an obstacle to overcome and prove the haters
wrong), Sévérine the Bond Girl (I’m all for seeing stronger women that aren’t
just there to be seduced, but Sévérine wasn’t that. She was cast to the side so
easily. Miss Moneypenny doesn’t count.), the title sequence (it was too busy, a
lot of foreshadowing references but only if you could remember them among
everything they showed, and they seemed out of place when shown at the
beginning with no context).
But again, I want to stress that I still think that it’s an
awesome movie. I really like the direction the 007 franchise is headed.
No comments:
Post a Comment