I hope that those of you in the U.S. had a happy Thanksgiving. I visited my in-laws in Upstate New York, where I fought a bad cold, ate too much good food, and watched my nephews play lots of video games.
Taking a step back, on Tuesday, 20 November 2012, I met Thomas K.Y. & Kai-Yin H. for dinner at Erewan of Siam on Waltham’s Moody Street. We then joined Beruk A. at the Embassy Cinema for Skyfall, the latest James Bond film. We all liked the British superspy’s latest adventures.
After a four-year wait, the movie launches right into action, with 007 pursuing a stolen hard drive in Istanbul. Bond fights an enemy agent atop a train and is shot, then Adele’s retro theme song plays amid the usual psychedelic images of gambling, guns, and dames. Skyfall reintroduces some of the franchise’s gadgetry and humor, paying tribute to its 50 years of cloak-and-dagger fantasies.
Blond and beefy Daniel Craig is still believable as the resilient man with a license to kill. Even if he wasn’t my first choice to inherit the role, in Skyfall, Craig properly shows the physical and emotional toll of being Ian Fleming’s master assassin (it’s hard to believe that he’s my age).
In Skyfall, Craig carefully balances the grit of Sean Connery and Timothy Dalton with the slickness of Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan, coming close to George Lazenby’s short-lived portrayal. Craig is still closer to Connery, but given current moviegoer sensibilities, that’s for the best.
Director Sam Mendes adds a good amount of character development while including exotic locales, one fight in silhouette and another with menacing komodo dragons, and even a glimpse of Bond’s ancestral home in Scotland, the titular Skyfall. (I find it interesting that, like Sherlock Holmes, another quintessentially English hero, Bond is actually part French.)
Skyfall‘s cast is a mix of old and new, young and old. Among the relative newcomers is Ben Whishaw as the new “Q” or quartermaster, now an impudent hacker. Naomie Harris is the winsome agent Eve, and Berenice Marlohe and Tonia Sotiropoulou are Bond’s stunning lovers.
By contrast, Craig gets seasoned support from Judi Dench as his boss “M,” Ralph Fiennes as ambitious bureaucrat Gareth Mallory, and Albert Finney as Skyfall groundskeeper Kincade. Javier Bardem, no stranger to weird haircuts and homicidal characters, chews the scenery gleefully as villain Silva. As with the best bad guys, Silva’s motivations are a dark mirror of Bond’s own.
I’m a longtime Bond fan, so I won’t give away any “spoilers.” Of the recent run, I’d put Skyfall slightly above Quantum of Solace, if a bit below 2006’s Casino Royale, which tautly and successfully rebooted the series in the post-Austin Powers and Jason Bourne era.
Overall, I’d give Skyfall, which is rated PG-13 for violence and sensuality, a B+, three to four out of five stars, or an 8 out of 10. I’d definitely recommend it to fans of James Bond and action movies.
Of the trailers we saw, I’m most interested in Quentin Tarantino’s over-the-top western Django, Stephen Spielberg’s Lincoln, and of course, Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit [Part 1 of 3]: An Unexpected Journey. I also plan to screen some remastered Season 2 episodes of Star Trek: the Next Generation and the unconventional Rise of the Guardians soon.
Gene's Worlds 