Skyfall Review
Something is falling.
I saw this movie last night and can see why everyone is gushing all over it like it is the Earthly manifestation of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. It is a good film, but all day something about it has not been sitting well with me. It has all the elements of a great Bond film: a really good Bond actor (Daniel Craig, the best since Connery IMO), an excellent director (Sam Mendes-American Beauty, the Road to Perdition (a very underrated movie)), some hot chicks, a budget big enough to create anything the director really wanted, and Judy Dench. All the pieces were there to make for a great movie, but something about it bugged me like a high pitched tone in the background that you don’t really notice but will drive you nuts and then, once you do notice it, you can’t here anything else.
There are some obvious things for me to bitch about. The story is at the same time extremely simple yet labyrinthine. It frog jumps from plot point to plot point in random directions and every time they need something to propel the story along it just manifests itself out of the ether. I guess it fair to lay a lot of that on the writers (Neal Pervis and Robert Wade) neither of whom have written a Shawshank Redemption. They were both in on Casino Royale, which is to their credit, but they also did Quantum of Solace and were involved in the abysmal Johnny English Reborn, so I guess the need to get paid supersedes the need to create amazing. However, I have seen many movies with weak stories and I can say my current disquiet is not really from that.
I suppose another obvious thing is the fact that it goes a big 143 minutes yet seemed like 400. The action scenes are great, but in between them there are a lot of very slow expository scenes and long shots of car bumpers. Cloud Atlas went 172 minutes yet honestly this one seemed significantly longer. This issue I can lay at the feet of the editor and director, but I have seen badly paced movies that don’t bug me like this one did.
No, what I finally realized was bugging me was the fact that this movie isn’t really about James Bond. James Bond is a smooth, sophisticated, sexy, well dressed guy we could all aspire to be. His life is awesome and I could only dream of living it. The Bond in this movie is conflicted, alcoholic, unshaven, in terrible physical shape, and dressed like he shops at the Walmart outlet store. His love interests are limited at best and he spends more time playing out his Oedipal issues with Judi Dench than chasing tail. His character would actually be really cool if he were doing a Die Hard movie or anything starring Jason Stratham, but calling him James Bond is like calling the whino the local mall got to play Santa Claus Saint Nick. 
The problem bugging me is the same problem I had with the whole Star Wars prequel: Lucas took one of the coolest, most bad ass character in the history of film (Darth Vader) and remade him as a whiny little bitch with daddy issues who you know deserves to get his lunch money taken every day at school (Who’s Your Daddy image courtesy of the Star Wars T Shirt category). This isn’t the James Bond I was looking for.
Actually, now that I think about it this is exactly the same issue I had with the last Batman movie. Bruce Wayne is not supposed to start the movie off as some kind of invalid. It bugged me then, and I guess it is bugging me now.
I know. My issues. I will give massive props to this movie for calling out a lot of classic James Bond moments, including the original car with the machine guns. Very cool. The action was generally good, especially the opening chase sequence. Honestly, I’m not here to dump on this film, and realistically it is the best of the Daniel Craig Bonds thus far. I just have some problems with the character.
It starts off with James Bond (Daniel Craig-the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Layer Cake, Casino Royale) chasing a guy with a MacGuffin (in this case a hard drive with a list of every secret agent in the world or something. Why does it always have to be the biggest thing ever every time? How about one where it is the secret ingredient in Coke?) in Turkey and assisted by a very hot girl (Naomie Harris-28 Days Later, Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man’s Chest). He fights the guy on top of a train and his assistant accidentally shoots him in the chest. He falls hundreds of feet into a river and down a waterfall. Then, with no word of how he survived and hid away from the greatest secret agency in the universe looking for him (remember that mention of plot stuff just being ignored? Turkey is not uncivilized. If some local fisherman pulled a guy out of a river with two bullet wounds in him they would call an ambulance, not nurse him back to health in secret) and spends his time drinking on a beach. Meanwhile, M (Judi Dench-J. Edgar, Casino Royale, the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) is being called to the carpet over losing the list of all the secret agents in the world. She has her office blown up and it looks like there is someone with something personal against her.
Bond travels back to England and in spite of being recently shot and on an alcoholic binge is approved for duty by M, who seems to want to see him killed or something. I want to go on a little tangent here, and since this is my blog I will give myself permission to do so. About this time he digs out fragments of the bullet in his chest with a pocket knife and has them analyzed. They turn out to be made out of depleted uranium and since there are only three guys in the world who use them (how exactly does MI6 know that?) that leads him to the guy they are looking for. Here’s the deal on this ball of stupidity. DU rounds are generally made in 30mm or larger, mainly because they are used for anti tank rounds. There is no advantaged to using them in a hand gun, unless you want the gun you wear under your arm next to your heart and lungs to be radioactive. Oh, yeah. They are radioactive, which means that if James Bond has had them in his chest for three months I hope he has made peace with God because there isn’t a lot to be done for radiation poisoning. Also, if you were a bad guy and had enough depleted uranium to make a bunch of bullets you could become insanely rich selling the material to terrorists to make a dirty bomb. Sorry, but I expect smarter from a Bond film.
Anyway, James is on the case and travels the world. Eventually he comes face to face with the bad guy and, in another move that actually gets my approval and appreciation, it is a Bond villain cut from the same cloth as Goldfinger and Oddjob (well, cut from the scraps of cloth left over from the great villains and then stitched together with dental floss, but still). I don’t want to get too much into him or the rest of the story as there are some spoilers I could be dropping and won’t be responsible for that. I will say he pulls the old classic by not shooting Bond first chance he gets. Awesome. Bond beats up guys, shoots guys, blows up guys, and has bitchy, passive aggressive arguments with M.
The stars. Daniel Craig has definitely inhabited the role of Bond, and has made it his own. He is a very good actor, and it shows here. Two stars. The rest of the cast pulls out some great acting, especially the new villain and Judi Dench. Two stars. A lot of the action was really good and believable. One star. Naomi Harris is very easy on the eyes, as is the other girl. One star. Bond film. One star. The classic Bond car. One star. Generally entertaining. One star. Total: eleven stars.
The black holes. The reinventing of James Bond into John McClane. One black hole. The massive skips in plots in order to make the writers jobs easier (Hey, coming up with connection plot points is hard!). One black hole. Pacing alternated from fast and exciting to excruciating and dull (I literally had to struggle to stay awake at one point, and I stayed alert through the entirety of Cold Light of Day). One black hole. The whole depleted uranium thing, and a few other plot holes. One black hole. The new Q should have a flashing sign over his head that says “I’m a hipster duechebag inserted into this film in order to appeal to moronic young adults.” One black hole. The only character who really qualifies as a Bond girl is M. One black hole. Total: six black holes.
A grand total of five stars. Worth seeing in my opinion, but don’t go expecting to see the Bond you have always know. If you were to treat this as a stand alone spy movie I think you would get a lot out of it. Nothing on the screen screams for huge, so if you were so inclined I don’t think you would miss anything by seeing it on NetFlix. Date movie? Sort of. Nothing here to really turn an average woman on except for Daniel Craig, and odds are you are going to suffer badly in comparison. There is better out there for you (Wreck It Ralph). Bathroom break? Any scene were James is not actively shooting or chasing anyone will do just fine. The scene where M is being lambasted by Ministers stands out in particular, but it is kind of short.
Thanks for reading. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu for valuable insights into my personality (or just notifications every time I write a review). Feel free to post any comments on this movie or my review here. Off topic questions or suggestions email to [email protected]. There’s a bunch of movies I have let slide by I might go see like Flight or Silent Hill. Of course, Breaking Dawn is coming out on the 16th and you know I am rigid in eager anticipation for that one. No way will that drain my desire to keep on living.
Dave
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