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SKYFALL

PostPosted: Tue Apr 02, 2013 4:45 pm
by Ben Chiu
Full Disclosure:
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OK, I'm a huge James Bond fan! I've seen every James Bond movie (several times each), my first narrative "talkie" movie I made at NYU was a spy flick, and one of my dreams was to shoot a James Bond movie (when I become a big-time director!). :o

...

Anyway, when I heard that Roger Moore and others had proclaimed that SKYFALL was the best Bond movie ever (although I think "they"--as in the marketing machine--have said this a number of times over the years), I couldn't wait to see it. Now that the whirlwind has died down a bit, I finally had a chance to watch SKYFALL without interruptions.

If I have my facts correct, this is the first Bond movie not based on an Ian Fleming work. To me, this isn't a deal killer. Knowing how much a director and writer influence a movie, and with the source material for a franchise such as James Bond--even in rebooted form--is been woven into the fabric of our culture, I never feared that the James Bond we all love and admire would be lost.

What I liked:
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- Cinematography: Amazing what else?

- Production Values: Top notch of course

- Set pieces: Wow! The chase on the rooftops. Never saw that before. Absolutely loved the sniper scene. The glass and neon lights--modern film noir. Amazing!

- The unexpected: Bond usually goes to the bad guy's place and blows it up. In this one the bad guys goes to Bond's place and he blows that up instead. (I realize that this new version of Bond is suppose to be pre-Sean Connery's bond, and perhaps blowing up his own fortress is what sparks his future thing of blowing up everyone else's places. :D )

I didn't expect the scene where Bond has to shoot the glass off the top of the girl's head either. Great stuff.

I also thought the backstory to the origins of Monypenny, the MI-6 office, and the male M we knew in Connery's Bond was satisfying as a Bond fan.


What I didn't:
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Don't get me wrong, I liked SKYFALL. But is it the best Bond ever?

No.

CASINO ROYALE is still the best of the Daniel Craig series and I think SKYFALL is better than QUANTUM OF SOLACE. But I do have some problems with story. Now granted, the Bond series, especially when Roger Moore was Bond, didn't pay a lot of attention to logic, however, I am of the opinion that the latest Bond is supposed to be more gritty and realistic than any of the other Bonds before it--which is why the story holes bother me.

In no particular order...

- When Bond is on the train and Moneypenny is about to take the shot. Bond, Moneypenny and MI-6 are all on the same COM link, yet he doesn't react when Moneypenny says she doesn't have the shot? Wouldn't you ask him to try and move? If you heard someone doesn't have a shot is may shoot you, wouldn't you try to move?

OK, I do understand what the writers were going for--Bond is "betrayed" and makes the decision to return, so he has to be shot and fall from the train and be presumed dead. And that it has to be viewed as Moneypenny's fault to question her character, but it's like Bond isn't thinking like the Bond (even the new Bond) that we come to know so far.

- As far as I can tell, no one suspects (M included) that MI-6 has been compromised. So why doesn't she only trust Bond for her security? With every double-oh at her disposal, wouldn't she at least get some help?

- Q, the genius of all things technical, plugs in a suspect computer to MI-6's network connected to critical systems. OK, you can say Q was just too arrogant, but even my kids know enough never to plug an infected computer into a network.

- The super villain, Silva, is so smart that he's blowing up parts of MI-6 and can infiltrate MI-6's secure network. He has minions and helicopters and a secret island base--but the culmination of his evil master plan involves 4 guys and handguns??

What did you think of SKYFALL?