Review: "Skyfall"

As a Bond fan since I was kid (damn, Connery was sexy), I have had my share of yeahs and nays among Bond portrayals. George Lazenby - no. Roger Moore - meh. Timothy Dalton - lame. Pierce Brosnan - maybe. Brosnan was by far the best choice since Connery, as far as I am concerned. 

Then they announced the newest Bond - Daniel Craig in Casino Royale. Like many Bond fans, I was initially up in arms about Craig's casting. How could this lemon-sucking, squinty-eyed, bulb-nosed blond play the sexiest spy in screen in history? I joined the haters and vowed not to see the 2006 movie. But then the pictures of Craig in that blue bathing suit came out. And then the mostly excellent movie came out and almost all was forgiven. Of course, it helped that the movie was the best Bond film since the Connery era. Then came 2008's Quantum of Solace. The plot made as much sense as the title (granted, it was developed during the 2007-2008 Writers' Strike) and I lost faith in both Craig and the franchise. What a mess of a movie. Worse than even the worst of the Moore Bond movies, Quantum had me ready to give up on filmdom's longest-running franchise altogether.

Today, D and I finally got together for the holidays and saw a matinee of the latest in the 50-year old series, Skyfall, before exchanging our holiday gifts (more on those in a moment). And I am happy to report that director Sam Mendes (American Beauty; Revolutionary Road) has finally managed to create an exciting, entertaining and narratively sensical Bond movie.

Presumed dead after falling from a train in Turkey, Bond returns to MI6 after a terrorist attack kills six agents and destroys M's (Dame Judi Dench) office. Following a trail of murder, money and babes, Bond is eventually captured by the villain Silva (Javier Bardem). Thanks to the new Q (Cloud Atlas cutie Ben Wishaw), Silva is captured (after a rather homoerotically charged encounter with Bond) and it is revealed that Silva is actually a former MI6 agent intent on taking revenge on M because... well, see it for yourselves. When Silva escapes (via a rather contrived plot device), Bond takes M to his childhood home for safe-keeping and a final confrontation with Silva and his henchmen. Along the way, bad guys are eaten by Komodo dragons; exotic weapons are employed and beautiful women are used and abused by both good and bad guys. 

Craig, as a very stoic and far-less wise-cracking Bond, spends much of the first half of the movie half-naked, satisfying a good 2/3 of the audience while still managing to create the rather tortured Bond of Ian Fleming's novels. Bardem (his hair and eyebrows bleached, adding an extra-creepiness to his bug-eyed, lop-sided nose visage) is perfect and the always wonderful Dench gets lots more screen time than usual. Add Ralph Fiennes as the less-uptight-prig-than-he-seems MI6 administrator; the gorgeous Naomie Harris as Moneypenny and the (surprisingly still-alive) Albert Finney as an aging Bond family ally, and you end up with what is probably the best Bond film of the last 20 years.

As with every Bond film, the plot devises; action and sex scenes are ridiculous on the surface. But they are all redeemed by some terrific performances and a plot which actually makes sense for a change. D and I both enjoyed this latest entry entry in the franchise, though we differed on whether it was better than the last two films. I said it was, while he he thought it wasn't as good as Casino Royale. *** (Three Out of Four Stars).

As for our Holiday get-together, D gave me one of my favorite gifts this year:

I so love that those I love and those who love me, know me so well!

I am torn between displaying this gem at home or the Day Job. The folks at the Day Job already think I'm insane, while those who know me best know so.

More, anon.
Prospero

DVD Review: "Quantum of Solace"

Wow! It's been so long since I've rented a movie, I almost forgot how to work my DVD player!

When it was announced that British character actor Daniel Craig was going to be the new James Bond in 2006's Casino Royale, there was a furor among Bond fans like no other. I even found myself among the non-believers. How could this short, blond, sour-faced guy be the suave MI6 spy so many of us had come to love? But the film turned out to be absolutely terrific and Craig proved the nay-sayers (myself included) wrong.

Now comes the next Bond movie, Quantum of Solace, the first ever direct sequel in the Bond series. You may remember that at the end of Casino Royale, Bond's true love, Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) was killed, though it was made to look like a suicide. Quantum picks up almost immediately where Casino left off, with Bond seeking revenge for Vesper's death. Turns out that Casino's villain, Le Chiffre, was laundering money for a secret organization with ties so deep, they literally have people everywhere, including MI6. Even M (Judy Dench) isn't safe, as her personal bodyguard of the last six years turns out to be a member of the secret cabal. So, Bond is off to Haiti, where he encounters Camille (Olga Kuryenko), who turns out to be a Bolivian Secret Service agent, seeking her own revenge on the sadistic general who murdered her parents when she was a child. Camille has hooked up with one Dominic Greene (Mathieu Almaric), a supposed environmentalist who is secretly diverting Bolivia's water supply in order to create a monopoly for his company. The plot gets too tangled to go much further, and to be honest, I'm still not sure what the secret organization (apparently called "Quantum") is, who they are or what they want. Though I suppose (and hope) that will be explored in the next film.

But, as with most Bond films, plot is secondary to action, and there is plenty of that to go around. Starting with a heart-pounding car chase through the Italian countryside and moving on to a roof-top foot chase, the action sequences are everything we've come to expect from a Bond film. There is plenty of gun play, hand-to-hand combat and even an aerial chase between a clunky old plane and a jet-fighter.

Director Marc Forster (Finding Neverland; The Kite Runner and the up-coming World War Z) handles the action well, and the script by Paul Haggis (Crash) and Neal Purvis (The World is Not Enough; Die Another Day) makes as much sense as any Bond flick, though it ends leaving more questions than it answers. Craig is terrific, baring less of his magnificent body than he did in Casino Royale, though looking worse-for-the-wear after many fight sequences and bringing a darkness to the role that previous actors may have overlooked (his Bond is more Bourne and less Brosnan). Kuryenko is fine in her 'Bond Girl' capacity, though I still miss Halle Berry's Jinx. A few other fine actors waste their time here: Dame Judy Dench, Giancarlo Giannini and Jeffrey Wright reprise their roles from Casino Royale, though I also missed Q (MI6's gadget genius), most recently played by the incomparable John Cleese. There are a few one-liners that will bring a laugh and the Bond tradition of ridiculously-named women continues with Strawberry Fields (oh, Pussy Galore, where are you?). There's even an homage to Goldfinger.

If you're a fan of the Bond series (I have been since I can remember) or a fan of outrageous action and stunt work, you'll most likely enjoy Quantum of Solace (probably the worst titled Bond film, ever). But to be honest, give me Dr. No or Goldfinger over any of the more recent Bond movies, any day. There's just something about Sean Connery's Bond that makes me weak at the knees. *** (Three out of Four Stars).

More, anon.

Prospero