SKYFALL

Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer

Rated PG-13

Running time: 143 Minutes



Click below to watch the Skyfall trailer.



In Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer's Skyfall, based on Ian Fleming's James Bond series, Daniel Craig as James Bond must protect M, Judi Dench, from becoming the victim of blond terrorist Javier Bardem.

With 2012 as the Fiftieth Anniversary of James Bond films, the relocation of MI6 headquarters to The Churchill Bunker System, and adding several new characters to the movie like Naomie Harris as intelligence officers being introduced in Skyfall - the movie will take the James Bond films into a new generation.

After Craig/Bond has been injured on an assignment to retrieve a computer drive, Dench comes under fire politically from Ralph Fiennes and Parliament when the drive was lost - as the drive contains a list of undercover agents embedded into terrorist organizations around the world. Watching an ousted agent being executed because his identity was released was rather sad. It was fortunate Craig was not on the list. Dench is also pursued by Bardem from Dench's past and wants revenge against her, targeting her office in one attack.

Dench finally gets to act in a Bond film as half of the movie is about her, thus making Dench one of the Bond girls. I have always felt that the Bond movies were wasting Dench's talents and this movie more than makes up for it. In Skyfall, Dench acts more like a Mother/authority figure to Craig/Bond as the movie explores their relationship. Young Ben Whishaw as the new Quartermaster is appropriately young and geeky enough to be the new Q. With more and more of technology going into information technology, as well as being more of a realistic film, there seems to be less need for gadgets in the field. As is tradition, Bond's gadgets are basically only used once in the movie and these are basically essential gadgets - like Bond's traditional Walther PPK gun, this time a PPK/S gun with palm-print encoding is given to Craig/Bond. The move toward signals intelligence espionage is a major issue for MI6 amongst Dench's inquiry after the lost of several human agents - as well as MI6 being hacked. But to paraphrase Dench, human intelligence is needed to fight in the darkness. While there are typical action chase scenes, having the first responders respond to terrorist aspect in London - such as the London Tube - gave rise to that fact of terrorism. The terrorism gives a more realistic feel - especially with real life newscasters from CNN and the BBC reporting on it - to the movie than other films in the Bond series.

While Craig drove several cars and motorcycles in Skyfall - it was great to see Bond's Aston-Martin DB5 car again, referring to Bond's roots as well as hearing the Bond music sting when you see the Aston-Martin, just as Skyfall refers to Bond's roots. With the first James Bond played by Scotsman Sean Connery - and with Ian Fleming's family once owning a Scottish estate, and Fleming loving the countryside of Scotland - having orphan Bond having Scottish roots seemed quite appropriate for a United Kingdom series. It was also nice knowing the names of Bond's parents. Skyfall is the third film in the unofficial trilogy of Bond's ancestry. As a tribute to the late Bond music composer John Barry, Judi Dench's house in the movie was the home of John Barry. It is funny that Fiennes is now part of two big franchise films, Harry Potter and James Bond. It was also cool to see the Agusta Westland Merlin AW101 helicopter used during the 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremonies with Daniel Craig and the Queen Elizabeth II of England and their Skyfall used in the movie Skyfall.

With Craig/Bond being injured, the movie plays up to the fact both medically and physically that he is not up to the role of being a 00 agent physically as he was before - with Fiennes questioning Craig's/Bond's fitness. This ties into Craig aging as Bond, in that he may not be able to physically play the role of Bond much longer. There is also a scene where Craig/Bond, recovering his health, is having a drinking contest with a scorpion. I could barely watch this scene because of the scorpion - especially when my mother was bitten by a scorpion when she was a teenager, and her leg is still swollen by it.

Skyfall is a non Ian Fleming James Bond title used for a James Bond film. As there are very few Bond titles left, I would not be surprised if the producers start using original titles for the start of the next 50 years of Bond movies. As it is, Skyfall does not connect to the previous Daniel Craig Bond films.

The film was influenced by the Batman Dark Knight series, and this was most obvious to me during some of the music score. Both films are very complicated films, although there were a couple of plot points in Skyfall that did not make sense. The Asian element of Skyfall is the most obvious element of being opposite of the English world, especially since Shanghai is basically on the opposite side of the world to London.

The opening title credits sequence, while connected to the themes and story of the movie, is perhaps the darkest Bond title sequence that I have ever seen. The title sequence was very macabre and made me think that Skyfall was going to be a voodoo movie like Live and Let Die.

As stated during the end credits -

Bond Will Return.

Rated PG-13 for violence, sexual situations, language. Running time: 143 Minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

Pancho's Movie Reviews