Alright everyone, now it's time for the film that I've been going through 22 films to prepare myself for, the one that practically everyone really loves. Here at last is my review for Skyfall!
Plot: After Bond is believed to be dead when M tells one of the agent to take the shot what would injure both Bond and the person they were trying to catch, MI6 is being hacked and bombed by Raoul Silva. So when Bond eventually return to London turning out to be alive, M retrains him at another MI6 location and sends him to find Silva and try to capture him before he uses his knowledge about MI6 to reveal the identities of other agents that are out in the fiend thereby blowing their covers and getting captured or killed.
Yeah, I can pretty much see why people love this movie so much. In fact Jeremy Jahns described it in his review for the movie as basically The Dark Knight for James Bond. And I have to agree with him with not just Skyfall, but also Casino Royale and kind of sort of Quantum of Solace. Just from hearing his opinion about this movie I started to really realize part of what makes Craig's first and third movies so good. Just like with The Dark Knight trilogy, Casino Royale and Skyfall are darker takes of Bond that have gadgets that are not seen all that much and are also a little more realistic then what the previous films brought. It's also very story and character heavy in terms of development. The last two film seem to really build up to this film as far as the relationship between Bond and M. With this film their relationship is clear and more personal then it has ever been before. We also get a new Q with whom we also see get a little close with Bond. The only issue I had with the guy was that he didn't introduce the gadgets he gave Bond by saying "Now pay attention 007." like all the other Qs. But I digress. While darker this movie did slip in a very small amount of comedy into this movie. Now I know it seems like I'm completely done with comedy when it comes to James Bond after I said that I really wanted Bond to be more serious in my The Living Daylights review because of all the attempted comedy from most of Roger Moore's films, but this comedy works. It's not used a lot, it's not trying to get the main attention to the audience, it's just small jokes here and there to make us have a good chuckle here and there as the film goes on. We also surprisingly got into Bond's past which was cool...but kind of half done. I mean it was nice to see where he lived (even though it's a little questionable) and even learn itty bitty things about his parents, but I honestly feel that for the most part it was just thrown in and not really have any purpose aside from being the location for a good portion of the second half. Other then that, the villain was pretty good, the action of coarse was great, and the ending just left a lot of things open leaving you excited for the next film to find out what they do next. Finally the title sequence and the song was awesome. I didn't think too much about the song when I first heard it while watching the Academy Awards earlier this year, but when I heard it again during this title sequence with surround sound on Blue-Ray with a plasma screen TV in Blaine's room, I was left really seeing why it won an Oscar for that song.
And that's my review for Skyfall. despite whatever minor issues I had, it had an excellent story, spectacular characters, an awesome song and title sequence, and leaves you excited to see what they do next at the end of the film. It's one of the best Bond films, I recommend it like so many people did to me long before I did this marathon, it's a very good movie.
Whew. So there you go. All 23 movies of 007 a.k.a. James Bond seen and reviewed. And in conclusion, it's a very enjoyable franchise...but not what I expected in both good and bad ways. I mean I expected way more gadgets then I got throughout the franchise as I stated in my Die Another Day review, heck it was really surprising to find that there was some that didn't really have any gadgets at all. But at the same time, it can at times have interesting villains and Bond girls such as Goldfinger and Tracy (still wished they went a lot more into her character by the way.) It can be light and silly resulting in mostly being stupid, it can be dark and serious which can be awesome to me and other people but upsetting for everyone else, but it is probably best when it's in between ish and is very creative with its stories and villains. In fact, one of the biggest issues I have with this franchise is how a lot of the villains turn out to really be just robbers and smugglers. I mean I get that not every single film has to be about stopping people who are trying to destroy the world or cause World War III, but...seriously? Drug lords and diamond smugglers? That's kind of pathetic to me quite frankly. In fact, I think that's part of what makes Goldfinger the most memorable villain in the series in a manner that's...possibly too easy. While I didn't find him completely menacing or anything, he still was ruthless and in control and his evil plan was very unique compared to what you would more or less expect from a villain in general. Which is where it makes sense to me why AFI would rank him among the top 50 villains in film history. It just honestly seemed like they kind of gave up in giving us truly interesting and creative villains after that under the exception of Ernst Starvo and maybe Emilio Largo. But I feel there is hope yet after seeing the villain in Skyfall so we'll just have to see what villain they will come up with in the future. Top Bond girls would have to be Tracy, Vesper, and kind of sort of Moneypenny. My personal top 5 Bond films in order of when they came out would be From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, License to Kill, Casino Royale and Skyfall. As for Bond himself, I will rank the actors from best to worst: 1) Connery 2) Craig 3) Brosnan 4) Dalton 5) Lazenby and 6) Moore. But please let the record be clear that the only one that I actually dislike is Moore. Again, he's not a bad actor, he was just a guy who was really just a Bond impersonator and under two exceptions made decent to bad movies and overstayed his welcome because all of his films made an awful lot of money...or at least in my point of view. So the Bond franchise is an enjoyable franchise, but it definitely has its bad moments throughout the past 50 years. What other great adventures, villains and Bond girls they'll give us next, only time will tell. So thank you for reading as I went through all of these films and I'll see you in my next review.
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