Skyfall

When a thief gets away with a list of undercover operatives in the middle east and Bond is shot by another agent, the ministry is left in a painful spot. An explosion at MI-6 brings bond back to London and M sends him out to find the computer mastermind who’d hacked their systems and has the list before he can sell it.

My Thoughts:

*Raises hand* I have a question. What is the point of the building in Shanghai where the floors are a maze of glass walls reflecting the psychedelic adverts and light show out the window? Is it just an homage to the bond opening sequences we’re all so used to? It seemed as though that building was there just to be used as a sniper’s vantage.

In all honesty, I have not spent much time watching Javier Bardem’s films. I do not seek them out. But he does have a gift for playing the criminally insane. Also, he seems to like parts that require him to adopt a gross hairstyle. The Cyanide (almost Gollum-like) face transformation was strange. It left me wondering what sort of dental implant would also hold up his skin and why removing it would make the surface of his cheek look suddenly stringy.

When Silva kills Severine and Bond does little to nothing for her, it kills emotional resonance with Bond. Especially the way Craig played it. There is no remorse, no sorry. Bond is apathetic to her death. Something that makes him all the more callous for the shower scene minutes earlier. In essence, it show’s Bond treating her exactly the same way everyone else is treating her: as a whore.

The introduction of the new Q was fun. I enjoyed the less than socially adept, but not completely bumbling around a legendary agent approach they took with his first meeting with bond. Sadly though, I felt that he quickly turned to a cocky little snipe. Which I suppose is what we all expected from him. I would have appreciated a different go. One where he’s brilliant because he respects the system, not because he’s never run up against a wall that made him step back and wonder if maybe he isn’t the biggest fish. And, I wish they wouldn’t have done the cliché “hooking up the comp/letting him in thereby ‘out’” thing. It feels remarkably over done, and a little lazy.

It’s a damn good thing they sold the house.

I have always found underwater fights in film to be unrealistic. It’s like when characters shoot a car until it blows up (though that effect in this film I was willing to over look, because who knows what incendiary devices were in that car) it’s a Hollywood contrivance. Bond  might have been able to kill that dude underwater and then be totally peachy for air under normal circumstances, but we’ve already addressed that he’s not at top shape. So I don’t think it’s realistic to think he’d be able to swim back down and find the flare gun to get himself out. (Also, why isn’t he shivering to death after he gets out? It’s cold enough that breath is a big white cloud, he should be FREEZING.

I was very happy to see Judi Dench in an augmented roll. I t certainly made what was going to happen more obvious, and I’m sad to see her go, but I am glad we got so much of her in this film

Moneypenny and the new “M” were rather predictable. I believe I called it as soon as Eve mentioned she’d be helping Mallory. Let’s be honest, Ralph Fiennes is too big a name to be relegated to a lowly role.  It almost feels as though they’re trying to connect things up to the Connery Bond films?