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Skyfall (2012)
0023 misses essential Bondish elements
After this year's long-awaited and much-acclaimed superhero summer blockbusters (Whedon's 'The Avengers' and Nolan's 'The Dark Knight Rises'), Sam Mendes' 'Skyfall' was to me the first in the row of cinematic adventures (Spielberg's 'Lincoln' and Jackson's first part of 'The Hobbit' still to come) that didn't quite live up to its preceding hype.
The third installment with Daniel Craig as our favourite MI6 high-profiled agent turns out to be a decent movie, though. After four years 007 resurfaces (quite literally in this instant) in a motion picture. And, let's face it, all hail to the 44-years old British actor. Craig is my favorite Bond, ever since 'Casino Royale' (2006); acting cold, emotionally detached, calmly sarcastic, distant, yet also vulnerable, both mentally and physically. He delivers once again a thorough interpretation on the character in 'Skyfall'. Also, cinematography and production design are top-notch throughout the entire film, contributing beyond any doubt to a sweeping visual spectacle. Colours, light, interiors and exteriors, they all add up.
After a thrilling and promising opening, the iconic and unique gun barrel sequence is strangely absent. However, Adele's title song and the animated stunning though repetitive credits even the balance soon enough.
With Bond presumed death after being shot by a colleague (Naomie Harris, who lacks certain depth in acting) and a classified ultra-secret list gone rogue, M (the always magnificent Dame Judi Dench) becomes subject to a personal vendetta in London. MI-6 HQ gets blown sky-high and the intel on operatives gotten from the stolen and decoded list is put online. Luckily, Bond rises from the death and returns to Britain. (Otherwise we would have had the ultimate daring take on a Bond film: one without Bond.) The audience is left clueless on this resurrection, one of 007's self-proclaimed hobbies. Director and writers would seem to have thought hobbies like this are instantly clear to worldwide eyes and would require none contextual footage. First unnecessary plot hole.
The reinvented Q (Ben Whishaw) is a whizz-kid who equips 007 with a Walther PPS coded to the spy's hand print. And that's about it. Oh, and there's a tracker, which one shall hardly call inventive. The plotwise important gadgets, having had great influence in defining both book and film series, are prominent in their nonappearance. Apparently, the nerdy Quartermaster relies more on his computed algorithms ('We don't do explosive pens anymore'), even when they're continuously hacked into miraculously and unexplained by the main villain, the dyed- blond Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem). Second unnecessary plot hole there. The positive fair note I should jot here on Q, is the comical dialogue he and Bond share. They constantly outmatch each other in their witty use of language. Kudos, script writers, for this one.
Bond tracks the list, after rigourous yet insufficient training, all the way to China. 'Skyfall' is the first in the series having been shot there and that brings some awesomeness to the screen. Bond fails to reclaim the list his boss so desperately wants, but does find his Bond- girl. The list is never again referenced to in the movie, since there are now far more attractive things to chase for our protagonist. Third unnecessary plot hole. In a not-so-brilliant turn of events, Severine (Bérénice Lim Marlohe) takes her new-found lover to Silva, because that's what Bond-girls do. Happy cliché. Marlohe actually is quite a good actress and should've gotten more screen time, which now amounts to a total of twenty minutes max.
All James Bond-films are only as good as the villain who nails them and there's no exception on the rule here. Bardem gives a fine take on Silva, who comes across tormented and revengeful. Even so, he never reaches anywhere near a nightmarish, lasting impression. His motives and past stay shrewd in darkness and are only hinted to, which makes him somewhat hard for the ignorant viewer to relate to. Unfortunately, the script writers themselves had to cope with these consequences of their own negligence, as none of the characters except M are believably interacting with the bad guy either. Just too many spots and dots are left in their respective clouded and unconnected states. An ovation for this fourth unnecessary plot hole shouldn't be unfit.
The last forty minutes or so came as a huge surprise to me. Nothing in teasers or trailers had given away any of it, so I won't here. It's arguably the best part of the last decade in 007 films, shared with the Madagascar crane scenes from 'Casino Royale'. Albert Finney hands a solid performance in a terrific role. The several plot twists near the end, hailed as climactic by both critics and audiences, were, despite their unpredictability, totally unconvincing to me.
And then, right before the end credits, the gun barrel sequence appears. Comes just two hours too late. Bummer.
Other reviewers have already noted the similarities between 'Skyfall' and Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy. To the sharp eye they're overabundant, though I guess they are not disadvantageous to any viewer who still has plans on seeing the aforementioned trilogy, since 'Skyfall' plagiarizes only the best elements of it. Bond without a Batsuit is no Bruce Wayne and never will be.
Concluding, I'd say 'Skyfall' is action-filled eye candy, despite the obvious and numerous plot holes. However, it suffers tremendously from deliberately leaving out many crucial elements to a Bond film. There is basically no Bond-girl, there are basically no Bond-gadgets, there is no pre-title shooting icon and there is basically no explorative interaction between the main characters.
5/10. If it weren't titled, marketed and hyped as a Bond movie, I'd probably rate it 7 or maybe even 8/10.
The Confession (2011)
Excels in almost all ways
'The Confession' is a web mini-series, and very mini it is indeed. Whereas the episodes of most conventional series, be they on TV or launched in the Blue Nowhere, last 45 to 60 minutes, in 'The Confession' we come to see 'Chapters' that are no longer than 10 minutes max. I think that this is one of the main strengths of the series; every second of it completely grips your attention and makes you long for more.
The storyline and dialogue are equally great. Some of the confession's content proves to be very insightful and thought-provoking, especially when it comes to guilt, forgiveness and choice or free will. Only the major plot twist, revealed in Chapter 8, was too clichéd to me. Certainly one of the script writers could've chosen a more credible ruined relationship between the Confessor and the Priest.
The acting is simply superb. Though Sutherland gives a solid performance as a ruthless but suffering assassin who seeks understanding with a priest, the really extraordinary portrayal of this priest comes from John Hurt. His exquisite talent for drama and the transfer of human emotions just explodes from your screen. A rare and unique actor.
Reoccurring flashbacks keep the chapters tight. The shift from the confession booth to witnessing a murder just finds the right balance between action and the ever so important dialogue. I should remark though, that the action scenes with Sutherland do not create any extra tension (except for the one with the little black boy), for all of the series is drown in tension. The dialogic scenes in the church contain as much of it as, or maybe even more than the flashbacks.
One of only few minor flaws I found was the unoriginal soundtrack. Some choral elements in the in-church sequences are great, but the suspense near the end of each chapter fails to build up so that it be remembered. In fact, the same and clichéd technique of a short crescendo is used over and over again, which left me with little impression regarding the series' accompanying music.
I can not yet imagine how this story should evolve for a second and third season, but I do hope cordially that the writers keep their brilliance in addressing the heavy themes that surround redemption and revenge. If they succeed, 'The Confession' could easily become the best drama series we have ever seen. And I do mean ever.
Crank (2006)
What should've been crank, turns out to be crap
'Crank' (Neveldine, 2006) is a hyperkinetic action movie I should've avoided. The trailer looked sufficient though, and the average rating on IMDb actually pulled me in.
To put it straightforward: 'Crank' is a movie where you won't get any hold at all of the story, because basically, it doesn't have one. In this GTA-like and abundantly violent film, Jason Statham (who is usually quite a good actor, see for example 'Snatch' (Ritchie, 2000) or 'The Mechanic' (West, 2011)) plays Chev Chelios, a ruthless assassin who doesn't seem capable of pronouncing more than five words without swearing (with my sincere compliments for this to the highly intelligent script writers) and certainly does seem capable of pulling a malfunctioning see-how-I'm-the- tough-guy facial expression. The underlying idea is honestly quite interesting, and what's more important, imaginable: 'The Beijing cocktail' is a poison that slowly causes one to die, only epinephrine (which is not, by the way, 'artificial adrenaline' as stated by Chelios, but simply the often-used Greek name of the same hormone) keeps the heart rate at a tolerable level. When an unconscious Chelios gets drugged with this dangerous liquid, he must literally run for his life. Challenging enough for any filmmaker, I'd say.
So far, so good. However, what goes on for the next one and a half hours might easily account for the worst mainstream action film I've seen. The acting part is not much more than hysterical shouting and grunting (the exception to the rule is the restaurant scene with Chelios' girlfriend, which is unfortunately broken by yet another fast-paced flashback), the editing part makes it even worse to watch: over-saturated colours with the camera angles chosen precisely so, that you always wonder for longer than two seconds what you're actually looking at and maps with on screen fonts so incredibly ugly, that even Comic Sans would have been a better choice. Never become any of the scenes unpredictable, not one twist event happens and not one time I was in awe of anything in the film.
The dialogues (or, perhaps should I state f*-logues) are staccato and without wit, and Amy Smart, who plays Chelios' naive girlfriend, is portrayed rather dumb than sexy (okay, maybe she's both, but the latter is obviously where her true potential lies). And eventually, guess what, the bad guys all die! Except for Chelios (whose acting makes him the true bad guy), who - amazingly! miraculously! stunningly! - survives a half mile free fall from a helicopter after bouncing off a car. An instant liquidation of his body had been more accurate (but hey, accuracy doesn't seem to be an entry in Neveldine's dictionary anyway) and had also satisfied me just that tiny little bit more. Also, this ridiculous ending opens the way for a sequel, of which the foresight alone horrifies me enough to leave me in a cranky state.
I'm rating it three stars: one for the idea behind all the fuzz, one for Statham's always enjoyable accent (even when all he 'says' lacks volume restrains and self-control) and one for that one funny scene in which a lost bullet kills a random woman's house bird.
3*/10