Skyfall

Released in 2012 under the direction of Sam Mendes and distributed by Columbia Pictures on a budget of $20 million; "Skyfall" is the 23rd movie in the James Bond franchise that has been running active since 1962, hence the year 2012 marks it's 50th Anniversary. For anyone who has lived under a rock, James Bond, or agent 007 as he's called, is a British spy working for an secret service agency called MI6 and works to defend the world from villains that threaten the safety of the world, all while drinking his dry vodka martinis, driving fast cars and shagging women. I've been a fan of the 007 films ever since I saw "Casino Royale" in 2006 and I had to get my hands on all the movies and see them. Hell, I wrote a retrospective on all the films (minus the unofficial "Never Say Never Again") but left "Skyfall" open as I hadn't seen it yet. Well, that's changed now, I've seen it and I can tell you that it's "the best James Bond movie ever" right? You wish.

Plot: After finally ditching the luggage of that Vesper bitch from the last movie, MI6 Agent 007, James Bond (reprised by Daniel Craig) pursues a hitman who has stolen the names of undercover NATO agents who are hidden in terrorist organizations. While attempting to retrieve the files, Bond is accidentally shot by MI6 agent Eve (Naomie Harris) and is presumed dead. Months after his supposed death, he returns to duty when he learns an explosion was set off at MI6 headquarters, all while his boss M (reprised by Dame Judi Dench) receives threatening messages from a cyber-terrorist/former MI6 agent Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem). Can Bond save the day and defeat this flamboyant terrorist? Well duh, Bond has been stopping insane terrorists since 1962, what makes you think this is any different?

The movie is a step up from "Quantum of Solace" as it doesn't deviate away from from this interesting premise of a super secret agency to focus on this one chick's issues with this evil general dude. But it does seriously have a complete shift in tone once we reach act 2. At that point, it becomes a different movie that stops being 007 and becomes a completely different movie. I've mentioned before that the newer Bond films took ideas from the Bourne movies to bring in new audiences, but the hardcore fans heavily criticized them for deviating away from the tone that most 007 movies utilized. This movie especially suffers from the same problem. [SPOILER ALERT! READ AHEAD IF YOU DON'T LIKE TO BE SPOILED!] Once Bond comes face to face with Silva, he captures him immediately only for Silva to escape so he can attempt to assassinate M while dressed as a police officer. After that, Bond escapes with M in the Aston Martin DB5 from "Goldfinger" that comes with forward machine guns and ejector seat and they drive away to Bond's childhood home where he preps the house for a big shootout with Silva and his mercenaries. [SPOILER OVER!]

These plot elements not only feel recycled from previous Bond films (an MI6 agent who goes rogue? "Goldeneye" anyone?) as well as other films, namely "The Dark Knight." A villain who is captured only to escape? You can't expect me to believe they came up with that by themselves. The elements of classic James Bond are here: the mad man villain, the gadgets, the fast cars with bond girls. Though these elements are here, it doesn't precisely feel like a 007 movie, but more like some different action movie altogether, but it's a good action movie I'll give it that.

Characters:

Daniel Craig:  Craig is fine actor and he does sell some of the more personal moments, especially around the third act. But he mostly seems to be acting from the Jason Statham level of "I really don't want to be here" acting. He's good, but he lacks the suave charm of Brosnan or Connery. 

Perhaps this is really stemming from my preference of viewing James as a heartless killer yet charming and suave lover to the ladies, but I wasn't really the most engaged to see James Bond's original home in the 3rd Act. That's not to say I'm not in support to see 007 fleshed out as a character, but fleshing out a badass and humanizing them, while it's proven to work before in the case of Sarah Conner from "Terminator 2" for a character like James Bond, fleshing him out kinda takes away some of the badassery out of him and only adds more mystery to a shoddy backstory. Oh well, to each his own.

Judi Dench: Yes folks, the rumors are true. This is Dame Dench's final performance as M, get over it. While I missed her hard-ass personality that she brought to the Brosnan films when she was brought on to be M, she brings a mother-like presence that's explored, but not as much that it could have been. Regardless, she still retains this strong presence that holds your interest and demands attention. The speech she gives in the second act about how their enemies being invisible and hard to define, is really a great throwaway reference to the last 50 years of 007 and his conflicts with the Soviet Union. It also reflects today's politics since we can't really label our enemies if we don't know who they are.

Javier Bardem: Remember when Javier Bardem was really creepy in "No Country For Old Men?" He's not that intimidating at all in this movie. The worst this guy seems to do is put his hands on 007 in a way that suggests he might molest 007. Other times, he seems to act like a cry baby "boo-boo! I was captured but you didn't come to rescue me so I decided to become a terrorist and get revenge on you! Nyah!!!" Funny thing was, his evil plan to use technology to rig elections and rob bank accounts actually sounded ingenious but just like the last movie, they bring up this ingenious idea and then screw it over by going a totally different direction. I find this guy to be an idiot of a bad guy, what bad guy orders his men to check an MI6 agent for weapons and yet they don't check his pockets for anything that looks like a small radio? I would understand it if Bond could hide it in his shoe like in "Goldfinger" but the fact he hid it in his pocket and NOBODY checked his pockets. What the fresh hell is this bullsh*t?

Ralph Fiennes: I'm glad that he's finally playing a more subdued performance when his career has practically been defined in the last few years as being so over-the-top evil for his roles like Voldemort or Hades. I liked that he actually was what M should have been, a no nonsense guy who will not take Bond's sh*t, you know, what M used to be before Daniel Craig took over. But that doesn't mean he sits around frowning. At a shootout scene, he took a bullet for M and despite the wound, managed to pick up a gun and shoot at some bad guys. THAT is badass.

Everyone else is just…meh. Naomie Harris is a poor Bond girl since she doesn't do much and she doesn't really do too much. Ben Wishaw may capture the vibe of Desmond Llewelyn, but he lacks the humor and appeal of him. I know Llewelyn is dead, but I missed his subtle and humorous persona. Albert Finney is good, but considering that his role was originally supposed to go to Sean Connery, it feels like they threw him in this role last minute, but that's not to say he's bad, just not too memorable.

Production: Every James Bond movie is famous for having 007 go to exotic locations and this movie seemed to get that down, for the first act. Sure, 007 goes to China and he goes to an extravagant casino that houses Komodo dragons just to have an obvious death scene, but after that, the movie seems to stick to the UK with the Underground tunnels, the streets and then some godforsaken place around Scotland. Yeah, exotic locations my ass; if "Casino Royale" did anything right, at least THAT showed more variety in it's locations. This is one of those Bond movies with the most unimpressive cinematography since "Die Another Day." Fight choreography is okay, it's still the Bourne style of kinetic fighting, but this one seems to go for the more ridiculous and unrealistic sense of tempting death that made the original Bond films fun to watch, problem with that though, when your previous films have tried so hard to be grounded in reality and yet you take this old style of tempting death, sorry 007, but you can't do that. If there is one thing that I have been admirably kind to that will get a safe pass from me is the opening song by Adele, which I have to say, she makes up for the last few artists chosen before and totally blows the doors down with this great song that heralds back the classic days of 007, which is what I think this film was trying so desperately to do to appeal the Bond fans demanding 007 return to his roots.

By the way, this has been bugging me for days, but the gadgets made by Q:

Gun with hand print identification: First of all, how is that even useful? Clearly, the only time it would even work is if Bond drops it and someone else picks it up and tires to use it. So clearly, Q designed it with the intention that would happen, yet he asks Bond to bring it back in pristine condition (oh please, like 007 EVER brings back anything in good quality).

Radio: the only gadget that actually seemed useful, but what bugs me more than anything is that Bond just left it in his pocket. I mean, he could have implanted it in his shoe, like a REAL spy would, but no, he just left it in his pocket where the henchmen didn't seem to bother to remove and show their boss. How f*cking lazy is that? I don't care if he wanted to get caught, that is just really lazy writing.

Bottom Line: I admit, I was one of those guys who wanted Bond to go back to his roots, but this was not what I meant by it. This feels like a confused mess of a film that's trying way too hard to appeal to the 007 folks who want to see Bond go back to his roots and yet stay to what grabbed the new fans that they make a film that barely feels like either, but a cold carbon copy of "The Dark Knight" but without the stylish direction and intense pacing from Christopher Nolan and try to throw in elements of "Goldfinger" and "Goldeneye." This movie just feels like it's going from one point to the next, giving little build-up to all this pay-off that doesn't feel very rewarding. It has a lot of things I did like, but the things I didn't like just outweigh the good in this regard. This film just felt like it was trying so hard to go through the motions of making a great Bond movie that they just didn't seem to look at the script and say "wait, this looks familiar…like, not really James Bond but more something else. Oh well, we need money, we almost went bankrupt you know!" oh, that's right, silly me, now I get why this movie ripped off "The Dark Knight," MGM had to announce Bankruptcy back in in 2010 but they were saved by Spygalss Entertainment. They needed money and they noticed that "The Dark Knight" had made a billion dollars worldwide while "Quantum of Solace" made only half that amount. It only makes sense to steal ideas from the movie that made more money that you.

But that's not what's bugging me the most; what's really bugging me that is that all the major critics are hailing this as "The Best Bond Movie" which is total bullsh*t. The best Bond film without debate is "Goldfinger," it invented the genre and created archetypes that influenced the spy genre that is still felt today. "Skyfall" just takes these ideas and tries to claim it's paying homage to classic 007, but if you really compare the this movie, you'll find this film really takes more from Batman. What, from a scene in Hong Kong up in a tall skyscraper smashing windows, capturing a bad guy just so he can escape, the bad guy and his henchmen dress up as police officers, the bad guys capturing a young brunette before killing her, a bad guy who has been scarred; all that's missing is Daniel Craig to put on a cape and cowl and drive around on on batpod. 

But if I had to pick between seeing this movie or "Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 2" again, I'd choose the former.

FInal Rating: 2.75/5

Also, How DARE you blow up the Aston Martin DB5 MGM, how DARE you. Is that your way of mocking the fans who have been watching these movies for 50 years?