I heard good things about this movie. We saw it last night, and now I don't understand why there was any positive buzz. The good things are that Adele sings the theme song, the colors are gorgeous, and Ralph Fiennes is brilliant in a small role. Unfortunately, there are a lot of god-awfully stupid things the characters do in the service of "plot".
Javier Bardem purposefully gets captured so that they'll try to crack his laptop so that it will hack their system so that it will open all the doors so that... he can escape from being captured??!!! so that he can go shoot M at a gov't hearing. Why can't Javier Bardem simply go shoot M? With nothing other than his freedom at stake, he doesn't have the pretext the Joker has for getting caught in the Dark Knight.
But no worries, Bond manages to stop Bardem, who flees the scene as reinforcements arrive. With the area secure, it's now vitally important for Bond to rush M away from this secured area to Wayne Manor (I mean, Skyfall) so that they can go mano-a-mano against Bardem, armed only with shotguns, while Bardem arrives on a helicopter and armed with minions, machine guns and explosives. Why he didn't bring these to his first attempt on M's life? Your guess is as good as mine.
But no worries, Bond blows up his ancestral home while M and Albert Finney escape through a priest hole. Bardem is totally confused as to where M went until he sees her torch! So the head of MI6 doesn't know not to turn on a light when hiding in the dark. Bardem catches up with M and coos over the wounds she received in the firefight with his henchmen, giving time for Bond to show up and throw a knife in his back.
Even though she didn't even appear to be in shock moments before, M then dies dramatically, because Dame Judi Dench chose not to come back for the next movie, and Bond returns to the "new" MI6, which appears to have gone back 50 years in time to a low-tech setting of leather-lined walls and Miss Moneypenny at her little desk because... it's been 50 years of Bond, I guess?
Alex, this was nearly exactly my take on the movie. I found the plot ludicrous and the bad guy a throwback to Roger Moore Bond days. The movie did have style, and I like Daniel Craig as Bond, but the rest of it was a big disappointment.
ReplyDeleteBardem's blond wig was giving me flashbacks to Christopher Walken in A View to A Kill.
ReplyDeleteagreed, and i did say in a post that i thought it was one of the better bonds... certainly recently.
ReplyDeleteoverall the movie makes about as much sense as a secret agent who introduces himself by his first and last name everywhere he goes. or as much sense as the guy with the metal mouth, or the flying razor hat, or the oil slick that comes out of the tiny sports car (how was it able to accelerate with all that extra weight?), or how a man who has only been outbedded by captain kirk has survived for so long without dying of an STD, etc. etc.
yeah, he could have just blown up M from afar, but thats not how villians work. they need to get dirty, and have long monologues discussing exactly how they are going to kill the hero while the cavalry come up over the hill or the hero figures out how to befriend the shark with lasers on its head so it turns against the villian.
all good fun though. it was slick and better paced than most bond films, save some of the classics...
Good points, though I think even the typical Bond villain's plan is at least coherent once you accept the silliness. Bardem allowing himself to be captured just doesn't make any sense.
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