Monday, November 12, 2012

Day 12: Movie: Skyfall

Bond. James Bond.

*makes giggling noises*

Okay. Got that out of my system for the next two minutes.

I have two confessions to get out of the way:

1) I am not a James Bond fan. I am a Daniel Craig - Bond fan. I've seen other Bonds and feel very 'meh' about them. So this is not a review from a die hard fan.

2) I continually get Judi Dench, Maggie Smith and Helen Mirren confused. Not when I'm looking at them on screen, but, for example, when we were leaving the theater my friend and I were talking about Judi Dench (who plays M) and I insisted that she was also starring in Downton Abbey on PBS. That'd actually be Maggie Smith that I was thinking of. *shrug* I have no idea why I have this issue. They look nothing alike.

Right. Now we can talk about the movie.

The movie opens up with Bond finding a fellow agent mortally wounded, a hard drive containing the names of all NATO nations' undercover operatives missing. I get the impression that the hard drive wasn't supposed to exist, meaning that M collected it without telling the nations she was supposed to be working with, but I could be wrong. Bond and a female agent give chase through...wait for it...

Istanbul.

Was there a discount on filming in Turkey this year? *shrug* Well at least in this case Istanbul was just an 'exotic location' and had nothing to do with the plot of the film.



The female agent, attempting to shoot the villain, accidentally hits Bond instead. I'm throwing that out there because it's in the trailer, so it's not a spoiler. Bond spends part of the movie dead, but returns to Britain when M and MI6 come under attack by the person who has control of the hard drive.

It's a fun movie, plenty of action and Daniel Craig looking good in a suit. :) bb!Q is just adorable and I want to pinch his cheeks.

But beyond the eye candy factors, the movie seems to me to be about the changing world. Much is made of Bond's age, his fitness to still be out in the field doing what he does. And also the necessity of it. There are also questions of M's way of running MI6, whether or not she's behind the times and clinging to old on the ground espionage when the future is in computers and cyber information.

I don't want to say which side of that argument the movie comes down on because it would give away too much. :)

Bottom line: fun movie, definitely worth the viewing in my opinion. It gave me thoughts about the inevitability of progress, the nature of power and the consequences of our choices, and the necessity of not losing where we came from even as we adapt to the future.

8 comments:

  1. I am not Daniel Craig fan but I liked his last movie "The girl with the dragon tattoo."
    If Lincoln is screened this weekend I will go watch if not I will watch James Bond.
    I wonder who Americans prefer to watch more an English spy or the president who ended slavery. The box office will talk :)
    I watched "The Conspirator" on Netflix and I liked it. The movie wasn't about Lincoln's life but about his assassination trial.

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    1. The American version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was very good, wasn't it? Have you seen the original Swedish versions of the trilogy? They're available with dubbing if, like me, you don't speak Swedish. :)

      I think Bond won. *checks* Yep. Bond came in at #1, Lincoln came in at #15. I made a purposeful, shallow choice. I think most people are just not history buffs.

      I saw The Conspirator in the theater. Excellent movie.

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    2. Yes it was. I actually added the Swedish version to my Netflix queue but didn't watch it yet.
      Wow, Lincoln is #15 I didn't expect it to be that low.

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    3. The Swedish version is different and people keep asking me which one I like better. I tell them all that they were both very good in different ways.

      People don't like history. It's a sad, sad fact of life.

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  2. Yay! This sounds very interesting, I think I'm going to enjoy it.

    Also, I'd kind of forgotten about Judi Dench, thanks for reminding me! I was so excited about Q it's like all the other people in the movie didn't exist.

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  3. I enjoyed your "bottom line" thoughts.

    The Amazing Race was in Istanbul this season. I watch that show mostly to see various parts of the world, their culture, customs and the people! It never fails that I am amazed by people in other countries.

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    1. There are things I'd like to say about the movie and about why it gave me those thoughts but I can't talk about them or I'll spoil the movie.

      I can never get into those challenge kind of shows. Unless they're about cooking. I'm all over Food Network's competition shows.

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