So, I know I’m behind the times on this one but tonight I went to see Skyfall before it disappeared from the cinemas. I’d heard a lot of mixed things about the film and I honestly wasn’t sure if I was going to enjoy it at all but decided to go because, heck, there would still be lots of Craig gazing if nothing else!
The rest of the review is a bit further down the page just in case you don’t want to be spoiled … and there is a BIG spoiler in what follows:
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I’m extremely glad I went.
There are some films that need to be seen on a big screen and this is one of them. The chase and fight scenes were properly epic (I do so love the way he straightens his cuffs after jumping through a hole he made in train roof with a digger, not to mention riding motor bikes over roof tops, running around inside the London tube network and blowing up old Scottish mansions ) and there were plenty of details that you wanted to see in larger than life detail (like Q’s scrabble mug, the computer coding graphics and the deeply delectable Aston Martin).
But what really got me was the script. There were nods to practically all the Bond movies that had gone before but it was so much more than a typical Bond film. For one the villain had a reason that wasn’t basically “I want to take over the world” and then there were the glimpses of Bond’s past, meshed with the collision of the old and new methods of espionage and the brilliant pastiche of a government enquiry – the brilliance being that it really wasn’t much of a pastiche at all.
And then there was …. M. Or rather M’s death. I really hadn’t been expecting it at all (I’ve been quite good at avoiding spoilers) and even after she got hit by the bullet I kept thinking “No, they won’t kill her. Bond will sort it out.” And then she died in his arms and it was so right. It was a modern day, real Bond; the good guys win but they win at a very high cost.
I can see what upset the traditionalists and there were a few things – yes he did drink Heineken at one point and yes, there were a few a scenes you could have cut if you’d been desperate to make it little bit shorter – that meant it wasn’t perfect but it still outclassed all the other bond films for me.
It was most definitely worth the price of the ticket and I’ll certainly be getting the DVD when it comes out.
Kizzia Mildmay 