Entertainment Life

Skyfall: A Film Review

The movie starts with, like almost all other Bond movies before it- a chase after a bad guy. A list of undercover secret agents working inside terrorist organizations has been stolen. The ensuing threat is certain- lives will be lost with the exposure of this list.

Peppered with unexpected car smashes here, low hanging train tunnels there, and a breathtaking fight-to-the-death-atop-a-moving-train scene, it seems our hero (played by Daniel Graig) has met his match before the film has really begun. The pressure intensifies as Bond’s partner Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) is commanded directly by M (Judi Dench) to shoot Bonds opponent even though she does not have a clear line of shot. Bond instead is hit and falls to his death… no, not quite.

 

With M’s character very much under question by way of her failed mission three months before and the dubious shooting of Bond, M is asked to step down by the Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, Gareth Mallory (Ralph Fiennes). Being the tough old girl she is, M refuses to step down, instead telling Mallory, quite prophetically, that she will leave when everything is made right.

 

Bond resurfaces after seeing the attack on MI6 in the news and makes contact with M who then re-enlists him into service to catch Patrice (Ola Rapace); against Bond’s failed physical and psychological tests suggesting he is unfit for field service, further putting her motives into question.

 

As the mastermind of the opposing side seems to be a computer whiz, it seems only fitting that Bond’s new partner Q (Ben Wishaw) equally has intellectual muscle in the computing field. Bond is sent to Shanghai, China where he follows Patrice to an assassination of an unknown character where he sees Sévérine (Bévérnice Lim Marlohe) standing at the window looking back at him.

 

 Bond follows clue after clue taking him to the villain who, as Bond finds after his anticipated capture, is an ex-operative for MI6 turned bad, Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem), who wants payback for being betrayed by M.

 

If the theatre at Paradise Cinema I was in this weekend, was anything to go by with it’s full-to-capacity viewing attendees, clearly this box office hit was a much anticipated screening here in PNG.

 

 

Full of trademark fighting, one-night-stands with random beautiful women, all washed down with a vodka martini, shaken not stirred, Skyfall does not stray far from the iconic James Bond big screen legend.  There are a few things that are different though- Bond is older, slower and shaken by his experience of falling after being shot- skyfall. We also see a more sensitive side to Bond as he weeps over the death of M.

 

Although the film ran for 2 hours and 34 minutes; the beginning being well written, building anticipation and momentum fizzled out to a bit of an anticlimax at the end, leaving the viewer a little unsatisfied and wondering if the film was too short. However, sprinkled with lots of good humor, Bond, as always seems to have nine lives and it is comical to see the  expression of disbelief on his antagonists face as he escapes so many death traps. All in all, if you like fast paced action movies that take you into an edgy, dangerous but very glamorous world of secret service, this movie is for you.

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