Skyfall Review

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Skyfall Review
By Darrin Jones / November 10

Ingredients: If you liked the tone of The Dark Knight, the action of Casino Royale, and countless homages to the James Bond franchise, then you will like this movie.

Rebounding hard from the previous installment, Skyfall had to rope the movie-watching public back into the series reboot and fast. Did it succeed? Oh yeah, and then some. Not only has Skyfall reintroduced the possibility for good James Bond movies again but it has surpassed expectations. After failing a mission and playing dead, James Bond (as played by Daniel Craig) snaps back into action when a computer genius terrorist sets his sights on MI6’s director, M (Judi Dench.) Silva (Javier Bardem), a former agent from M’s past, resurfaces to exact his revenge with only James standing in his way. It's a new game for the old boy and the rules have changed.

Skyfall, like the other Daniel Craig James Bond films, definitely sets a new mood for the franchise. While the old whacky shenanigans of Bonds past might’ve held up in the decades that birthed them, the new outlook on the future of the series has all the gritty realism audiences have been clamoring for; but still keeping true to it’s roots. And for Bond aficionados there’s plenty of callbacks to previous installments.

In the ingredients section, I mentioned elements of The Dark Knight and they went heavy on the seasoning in this one. The most telling sign of Skyfall’s popular inspiration has to be Javier Bardem’s portrayal of Silva who seemed to be channeling, among other villains, a lot of Heath Ledgers Joker. Now don’t go thinking “rip-off” because Skyfall is entirely it’s own movie. Bardem’s acting is a nice little mixture of campy and threatening which perfectly complements Daniel Craig’s portrayal of Bond. And Judi Dench plays a surprisingly much bigger role then she ever has in any of the previous films, making her a great balance between the two. And something else that really breaks the mold in comparison with the earlier films is that we get glimpses into James Bond and M’s pasts; elevating them beyond their stock-character beginnings.

For anyone that enjoys the Bond movies and would like to see them continue, I highly recommend seeing Skyfall. The series new approach to the franchise is something far more compelling then its predecessors. While the films of the past might’ve seemed more episodic -- nothing that ever happened in a previous Bond movie effected the following one -- here there is an actual arc connecting the plots. The series has grown, matured and changed, hopefully for the better. Personally, I think the franchise is back on the right track and it’s time for me to relax with a sophisticated drink. Maybe a martini? Shaken, not stirred. Or a banana dackery! I love those!