28 October 2012

An Explosively Good Birthday (Review: 'Skyfall')

The US doesn’t get to see Skyfall until 8 November. *Engages smug mode*

 

The last Bond anniversary saw Die Another Day, which is detested by many fans and would ultimately lead to the reboot that has put a certain Daniel Craig in the tuxedo. This one won’t get the same bad reputation.

 

I’m limited to what I can say to avoid spoilers (and there are some big surprises in this one), so I’ll just stick to ten bullet points.

 

·         There is a lot of action in this one – it’s a very loud film with a lot of explosions.

·         The stunts continue to be superb and the relative lack of CGI really helps in all of this.

·         Daniel Craig – great 007. He’s doing a great job with the action, a just as good job with the one liners and can certainly act, unlike a certain Bond we could mention.

·         Acting is generally superb throughout – Judi Dench in particular sound be nominated for another Oscar.

·         Some highly quotable dialogue throughout, with more than a few call backs to past films.

·         I like this new Q a great deal – I look forward to more exchanges with him and Bond.

·         Naomie Harris – very good. Bérénice Marlohe – seriously, Madame, smoking isn’t cool and your lady wasn’t a patch on the person you were trying to emulate.

·         Javier Bardem did a good-ish job, although I found one or two scenes a bit uncomfortable to watch.

·         Great modern plot, although the ending was a bit unusual – we’ve not had an entirely ‘traditional’ Bond film from Craig so far.

·         Do komodo dragons actually do that?

 

Conclusion

 

Not perfect, but one of the best Bond films of the lot. More like this please – but can we please put the gun barrel at the beginning next time?

 

9/10

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