If Hitchcock had ever ventured into 007 territory, this is the film he would have made. “Skyfall” is sleek, slithery, sensual.
It is also one powerfully solid movie.
If you’ve had your fill of independent, foreign-language, festival-circuit movies – what I call watercress films – you might need a big, juicy steak. Mendes and company have come up with the filmic equivalent of just that – a movie that in its bravura, near-orgasmic opening chase sequence lets us know that this is a Big Hollywood Movie, albeit one with prestigious British credentials. Here, we have Bond careening over rooftops in Turkey on a motorcycle and wrestling with one of the film’s resident villains atop a speeding train, a highwire stunt that plays like a choreographed sex act (what with the train speeding through one tunnel after another).
Daniel Craig has become the series’ invaluable star, somehow fitting his bruiser boxer’s mug and physique into the refinement of tailored suits and tuxedos. As a screen icon, he is both battered and beautiful, bringing an apt personal fury to the role. And he is ably abetted by Javier Bradem, witty and totally game as a rogue agent, and particularly Judi Dench who in this film shrewdly uses her curious combination of warmth and froideur to play M as both a bad mother and a most unexpected Bond girl.
All of this combines to make “Skyfall” the most pleasurable film of the year – a compulsively watchable movie-movie. A hearty steak indeed. Read this and other "Skyfall" reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.Com
"Skyfall" photos by Francois Duhamel/Columbia Pictures
10 comments:
Joe, I've been a fan of Roger Deakins’s work ever since his black and white cinematography for THE MAN WHO WASN’T THERE. The man is a master.
“Skyfall” is a rich film and it's immediate post-chace sequence of Bond on the lam in unusual in being a perfectly pitched comedy about despair.
I'm fascinated by both the film's faithfulness and lack thereof to the Bond movies that preceded it. I love how it keeps nostalgia in check while also honoring it. Quite an achievement.
I couldn't agree with you more. This film is a surprising triumph. But how on earth do the Bond folks follow up, let alone surmount, what they achieved here?
Craig would have made a great Hitchcock hero. I could easily see him taking on another Connery role - as Mark in "Marnie."
I've read that the movie gives us some back story concerning Bond's childhood. If this expanded Bond as a fictional character, did it diminish him as an iconic figure?
Yes, the film clues us in on Bond's background. It's handled very carefully and without pushing it. No, it does not diminish his iconic stature, in my opinion. In fact, it adds more shading to the character.
i found this movie a little too long. still entertaining though. i wouldn't go far as to call skyfall the best bond or my personal favorite but it is up there with the better ones.
Loved your Skyfall review. Rather than lose your touch in "retirement," you've gotten better. Well done!
a car that converts into a submarine, a car with skies, missiles, laserbeams, and a rocketbooster, a car that turns invisible, a car that can be controlled by cell phone, and a signature gun that can only be fired by bond. Hmmm...one word to describe skyfall,regression!!!
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