Tuesday, November 13, 2012

SKYFALL

Sitting in the theater, as James Bond drove a motorcycle across rooftops in Turkey, I got goosebumps.  Since THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS, I've seen every Bond move in the the theater.  It's one of those traditions I keep, no matter what.

In fact, I really can't rate a Bond movie until I've seen it more than once.  Something about the experience keeps me from being rational.  Hell, I even liked DIE ANOTHER DAY when I saw it in the theater.  I defended it when my friends said it was awful.  "They are trying to build invisible cars," I said.  "That's a realistic gadget."

Um.  Then I watched it again.

So, it is with trepidation that I talk about SKYFALL.  The fact that it's getting good reviews buoys my opinion. 

The fact that I could spot the plotholes from a mile away buoys me.

I feel confident in saying "This is a damn good Bond movie."

It's not the best.  It's not even the best Daniel Craig Bond film.  But it works in melding the grittiness of CASINO ROYALE with the Bond formula.  It works--sort of--as a revenge thriller.

And if there are plot holes, Craig, Judi Dench, and Javier Bardem make up for it.  They pull out all the stops for a great performance.  This movie does a great job of re-setting the deck chairs of the series.

I can't wait to see it again. 

So, yeah, as I sat in the dark theater, I got goosebumps.  Bond movies aren't just movies to me.  They're life experiences...  I can tell you I saw LICENSE TO KILL while on vacation in Florida, my parents worried because it was rated PG-13, and we weren't 13 yet. 

I saw THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH 2.5 times in the theater, because after I saw it the first time, my brother wanted to see it.  We went and had to leave because of a fire drill.  Had to go back to watch it the next week.

I saw this one with a friend Sunday morning on the IMAX screen.  And I couldn't stop smiling.

Bond is back.  Check it out*.

**All right, it made millions, odds are this post is redundant because you saw it already.

2 comments:

Thomas Pluck said...

Skyfall kicked ass. I admire that they are cribbing from the competition- Christopher Nolan and the Bourne films- because it keeps Bond relevant.
While the movies would like us to believe it's all the same man, it doesn't make any sense, does it?
They aren't timeless films. I prefer to think of 007/James Bond as a codename. They die or retire. I wish they would have acknowledged it, because I don't want to think that Moonraker was anything but a silly mistake. I wonder if they'd ever use the novel as source material again. I remember liking it.

angie Brooksby-Arcangioli said...

I can't wait to see it. The last time i saw a Bond film in the theater was Goldfinger, holy shit!