Last weekend I had the opportunity to watch Skyfall, directed by Sam Mendes. In the film, Daniel Craig returns for his 4th installation as James Bond and shows viewers a completely different side of the character. Skyfall is filled with plenty of girls, gadgets, and action scenes; and as expected, Bond takes on a new bad guy. The film tackles a well developed and simple storyline where Bond is portrayed in a whole new light. After reaching an all time low, Bond makes a major comeback which redefines his character, allowing both new Bond fans as well as veterans of the series to enjoy the action. During the course of the film, Bonds comeback is shown physically by changes in his characters appearance, attitude, and emotional state. At the start, Bond is struggling with substance abuse, while being completely removed from the only world he has ever known, and he is not doing very well to say the least. As the movie treks on, slowly but surely, Bond returns to his original self who is a daring and driven agent for MI6. On top of his obvious comeback, the film utilizes more subtle methods such as lighting key to help develop the plot. For example, towards the end of the movie, Bond returns to his childhood home in an attempt to flee from the stories antagonist. During the time he spent there, not a single scene goes by where there is nothing but dark gray light in the house. This symbolizes the dark past Bond had experienced when a child (along with the constant mentioning of his parents death).
Personally, I thought the movie perfectly executed James Bonds’ comeback. It is not only littered with explosions, fight scenes, stunts, and awesome cars, but also has an awesome storyline which I enjoyed from start to finish. As a person who generally gravitates towards watching action films, Skyfall really hit it home for me. Daniel Craig plays the part of Bond really well, and made it super easy to love his character. When speaking out the movie as a whole the story never dies down or gets boring. This is mainly because there is always a MAJOR event one after another to keep the ball rolling. Whether it was the explosion at MI6 or escaping an impending death by komodo dragons, there was always something new and exciting. Aside from the movie’s storyline and plot, one of the things that really stood out to me was being able to see Javier Bardem in another film, after having seen No Country for Old Men just a few weeks prior to watching Skyfall. Just as in No Country, Bardem is transformed into an entirely different person than his handsome movie star self. Bardem takes on the character of a murderous psychopath, and played the part perfectly. Overall, I just found it intriguing to see Bardem take on an entirely different part and still do so well with his character. All in all I really enjoyed the film and objectively it was spectacular which is why I would rate it as a 'Good Good'.
Great review, Jack! The objective section generates some great flavor that shows positivity without having to rely on "I think" or "to me." Great observations about Bond's character growth and the color symbolism of his shrouded past. The subjective section also has a lot of great flavor. The tone never slips into neutrality and so it's always evaluating. Love the observation about watching an actor that you had just seen in a film-- you frame it subjectively (which allows us to focus on your watching experience) but you certainly could have mentioned it objectively (to describe an actor's performance in comparison to another text). Great work! Also I love "Fond of Bond"-- I feel like that's a podcast waiting to happen!
ReplyDelete