Date Night Movie Review - Skyfall

Atala - I'm not really a James Bond fan - that's more Myne's department - so I was very lukewarm about going to watch this. Still, I like to keep an open mind, as Myne's choices have turned out to be very rewarding experiences (e.g. Cloud Atlas, which I reviewed a while ago). So I went along with this, hoping I'd be charmed by the Bond magic.

The film opened with a thrilling chase as James Bond (played by Daniel Craig) is in hot pursuit of a man who has stolen a hard drive with information that could compromise the safety of MI6 agents, and it ends with him getting shot and apparently falling to his death. Unfortunately, for me, that was the high point of the film - while there were several other reasonably compelling action scenes later on, none of them came close in making my eyes pop open in astonishment.

In fact, I found the plot of the film rather weak - the villain of the piece is a disgruntled agent who wants revenge on Bond's superior, so he launches an elaborate plot involving computer hackery and subterranean tunnels. And the ending which - in the tradition of all thriller movies - should have ended in a titanic struggle between Bond and the villain was very flat and left me feeling "so that was it?"

Perhaps you have to be a Bond fan to get Bond movies. But as for me, Myne will have to work some James Bond-like charm to get me to try again next time.

Myne - OK, I'm a James Bond fan so Skyfall wasn't as bad for me as it was for Atala, but it was not good either. I have been struggling with Daniel Craig as James Bond since he was selected, and this movie doesn't make it easier. After Casino Royale, I decided to watch the movies as simply action movies and forget the Bond tradition of a slick assasin who likes his martini and his women and will do anything for his country. I think it works better for me that way.

In Skyfall, Bond is accidentally shot on the orders of M, his superior and spends several months licking his wounds. When he discovers that MI6 is under attack, he goes back and is put in charge of finding out who is trying to expose and destroy several agents by releasing their names and locations on Youtube. It turns out to be a bitter former agent whose main goal is personal, he wants to kill M who betrayed him in the past.

For me, the movie began to go down when this goal was revealed. I want villains who want to take over the world, blow up a space station, release some biological weapon, or start nuclear war! So yeah, I felt kinda bored after a while, and as though the movie was just over-padded. One highlight was when M read Tennyson's poetry at a government committee hearing to support the use of spies and assassins.

That said, there is enough action and explosions overall in Skyfall to keep me happy, and I really liked an abandoned island used as a setting which gave my curious side some gratifying homework.

3 out of 5 stars.