By BEN DAUBER
Contributing Writer
Rarely has a film energized me like Skyfall, the new addition to the James bond legacy, was able to do. I came out of the theater ready to punch everyone I saw in the face, and as soon as I got into my car it was impossible to go under 65 miles an hour.
The new addition to the James Bond legacy, Skyfall breaks our expectations along with all of the rules. With its combination of groundbreaking layers of sophistication and Bond’s typically high-caliber action, this film is the real deal.
To dismiss Skyfall as just another entry in a long line of tongue-in-cheek spy films would be downright foolish.
This brilliantly-crafted movie is simultaneously an homage to past Bond films as well as an introspective look into the mysterious background of Bond himself.
Skyfall is not simply Hollywood’s next espionage vignette or a mediocre flick they thought could bring in some money. On the contrary, this film is truly innovative, transforming inexperienced film fans into die-hard Bond fans.
Daniel Craig is more than a superb actor: he is literally the only man I want to see play James Bond, until either he’s dead or I’m blind.
As for the rest of the cast, they can be summed up in one word: reinvention. They are actors you have seen before, but never in such a way. The boundaries of Bond archetypes are expanded by characters such as Moneypenny, the seductive and flirtatious assistant Bond can’t quite get his hands on.
Apart from superb performances any well-informed audience member would have anticipated by Daniel Craig (Bond), Judi Dench (M) and Ralph Fiennes (Gareth Mallory), Javier Bardem (Silva) indubitably stole the show.
He incorporated the classic aspects of a Bond super villain with a startling, inescapable creepiness. Bardem managed to be amusing, enigmatic, exaggerated and frightening, all at once. I legitimately could sit down, watch that man eat breakfast and be marvelously entertained.
Skyfall is so much of a good thing, even people who have never eaten meat in their life will go out into the woods, find a tree, chop it down, make a spear and kill a wild animal by hand—just for shits and giggles.
So much history coupled with so much innovation made for a transforming and rich experience. Just go see it.
