Skyfall is the title of the latest installment to the 007 legacy. While that name lacks the panache of a The Spy Who Loved Me, it does deliver us James Bond, played here for the third time by Daniel Craig.
The studio has just released a new teaser trailer for the movie, which should be out sometime around Christmas…
Continue reading ‘Skyfall’ Teaser: Bond is Back for the 23rd Time…Officially
When remakes are done correctly, they’re a beautiful, glorious thing, like a beautiful piece of art or the birth of a beautiful baby. When remakes are done correctly, it makes me shed a manly tear of joy, because seeing something done better the second time around makes me happy, just like a great sequel.
In David Fincher’s adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, he takes what was a melodramatic and overall poorly made 2009 adaptation, and adds a new level of ferocity and stylishness to it that was otherwise lost on the original. I think this is due mostly to his familiarity with the source material, a novel of the same name by the late Stieg Larsson, and his unfamiliarity with the original Swedish film (he’s been quoted as saying that he’s never seen it).
By now the plot should be familiar to most, but I’ll run through it to give everyone a fighting chance. The story follows a journalist named Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) who’s been exiled by almost every news outlet and has been stripped of his credibility due to a story that he published that was “proven” false. On the other side of things, professional computer hacker Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) has gathered information on Blomkvist for a large Swedish family that is interested in hiring him for a job.
The job is to investigate the murder of Harriet Vanger (Moa Garpendal), the 16-year old niece of Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer), who is the head of a large corporation known as the Vanger Co. For the past forty years, Vanger has been investigating Harriet’s death with no luck at all. In his desperation, he hires Blomkvist, in the hopes that he might be able to crack the case. Blomkvist reluctantly agrees, but the only way that he can do it is to hire the same person who was hired to investigate him, Lisbeth. The two team up to solve the murder of what might have been the heir to the entire Vanger legacy.
David Fincher’s interpretation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is much better than the 2009 original, but in some respects it isn’t good enough. As a huge fan of the source material, the only way that this film could possibly live up to my expectations is by being four hours long, because that’s how long it would take to include everything that a film of this magnitude requires. But, from a strictly cinematic standpoint, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is an extremely fascinating murder mystery.
At 158 minutes, the film is a lot to take in, but it’s unfortunate because the first 80 minutes require Lisbeth and Mikael to be apart until they finally meet to work together on the case, which is far too long in my opinion. I say that because they only spend about 45 minutes solving the mystery together, with the last 35 minutes being dedicated to the aftermath of the ordeal as well as Salander proving Blomkvist innocent.
Though the build-up seems unnecessarily long, once the two finally get working, the film ignites. Their chemistry is sheer beauty. Who knew that mixing such an “alternative” personality as that of Lisbeth Salander with straight man Mikael Blomkvist would create pure magic? It doesn’t hurt that the performances by both Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara, especially the latter, are undeniably committed and mesmerizing. Similar to that of Justin Timberlake in The Social Network, I almost forgot that I was staring at two actors and not viewing the private exploits of such fascinating personalities. Lisbeth Salander is portrayed as much more personable and approachable to Blomkvist, turning their relationship from strictly physical and professional, to borderline romantic, an addition to her character that I’m actually glad they made.
David Fincher’s direction is undoubtedly stylish, but in comparison to The Social Network, which was steadily chaotic, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is chaotically steady. By this I mean that regardless of the amount of pulsating action that happens on the screen, the camera refuses to take the shaky cam route and is one of the few things in this movie that remains calm, which I’m thankful for. In keeping with the almost classy and dark style that the film seems to go for, remaining steady really helps set a tone rather than flopping all over the place, blurring everything out of view.
Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails and Atticus Ross, who also did the music for The Social Network, again compose the soundtrack. Whereas the music in The Social Network seemed to be a crucial part of the look of the film, the music in this film serves more as background filler rather than a key aspect, sans a dazzling credit sequence set to a cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song”.
Overall, as a remake, and even as an adaption, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo succeeds, but its sometimes obvious representation of the killer, as well as the dangerously slow first half drags the film down from great to good, which I’m perfectly fine with. I didn’t expect another Social Network, and I definitely didn’t get one. I’ve never been a huge fan of the adaptations of the books, because there’s just too much to adapt into one film, regardless of its length, but Fincher makes it much more watchable than the 2009 Swedish version, and that in itself is quite the achievement.
3.5/5 Grizzly’s
Filming began on November the 7th for the 23rd Bond film entitled Skyfall – quite frankly, a ridiculous title in my opinion, but eminently better than Quantum of Solace (Which despite terrible reviews, wasn’t that bad). This is a little round up of the facts…
In case you missed our last casting update, here is an overview of what we know so far. Daniel Craig is returning as Bond – his 3rd time – as is Dame Judi Dench – her 7th time as M. They are joined by director Sam Mendes (American Beauty). All three of these things are good news as they are all excellent.
Ben Whishaw will be playing master of gadgets Q. Skyfall will be Whishaws 4th film with Daniel Craig, appearing as he does in The Trench, Enduring Love and Layer Cake. This will be the first time the character has appeared since 2002’s Die Another Day – where he was played by John Cleese. It will also be the first time Q has been younger than Bond. Whishaw is an accomplished actor and I’m sure he’ll be great.
This will be French actress and model Berenice Marlohe‘s first international film. She will play Severine, who will be – according to the actress – “glamorous” and “enigmatic”. How good an actor she is I don’t know, but she certainly looks ever inch the Bond girl. Naomie Harris (perhaps most famous for her role in the Pirates of The Caribbean movies, and has also appeared in 28 Days Later and A Cock & Bull story) is to play a character called Eve. Early reports speculated that the character would be Miss Moneypenny, though this is looking less likely now.
Javier Bardem the brilliant actor from No Country for Old Men (as well as Collateral and Jamon Jamon) is to be the films main villain, which is something we know he can pull off. Helen McCrory, is most famous for playing ‘Narcissa Malfoy’ in the Harry Potter movies. But she was also ‘Cherie Blair’ in The Queen, and appeared in the Doctor Who episode Vampires of Venice. She is now set to play a character called Claire Dowar. Playing so far unspecified roles are Swedish actor Ola Repace (Wallander), the legend that is Albert Finney and self-professed Bond fan – and all round fabulous actor – Lord Voldemort Ralph Fiennes (Nanny McPhee & the Big Bang, Wallace & Grommet: Curse of the Were-Rabbit and Schindler’s List).
There has already been filming in London. Other locations are apparently going to be Istanbul, China and Wales. Skyfall will be released next year as part of the year long celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the release of Doctor No, and the start of the Bond franchise. It’s due to premiere in London on the 26th of October. General US release dates are currently said to be between 23rd of October and the 7th of December – the UK on the 26th October and the US the 9th of November.
I wanted to like this movie so much more than I did, but it just wasn’t happening. Not to say I hated it, but it definitely could have used some work. That being said, let’s get to the premise of the whole tale.
Basically this fella wakes up with no memory of…. anything really. This movie probably set the record for the most times that the phrase “I don’t know” was used. One of the things he doesn’t remember is the metal bracelet on his wrist. This bracelet, as we know from the trailers, has the awesome ability to deal out seemingly endless ass whoopings to both aliens and humans alike.
He makes his way to the town of Absolution, a little place run by the Cattle Boss Woodrow Dolarhyde and his imbecile son Percy. Percy doesn’t really run anything, he’s just a downright turd who bullies everyone in the town because of who his father is. Our mystery man as it turns out is really Jake Lonergan, a wanted man for numerous crimes. After he is taken captive by the local law enforcement is when the real fun begins, because that’s when the aliens arrive. Their attack results in Dolarhyde’s dumb ass son, and many other townspeople being taken captive by the invaders, with Jake’s bracelet activating in proximity to their ships. He manages to shoot one down and the wounded pilot is their ticket to finding the captives that were taken.
The group to go after the alien and their people consists primarily of Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford), Jake (Daniel Craig) and Ella (Olivia Wilde) who is a rather mysterious woman with a very keen interest in Jake’s past and missing memory. The tag-along company includes a Bartender named Doc who’s wife was taken, one of Dolarhyde’s cattle hands, and a preacher. Doc is played by an always excellent Sam Rockwell, and serves as a bit of comic relief as the man not accustomed to gun play or combat. Meacham the preacher is played by veteran of the screen Clancy Brown, who is a favorite actor of mine. Aside from Pet Semetary 2, Shawshank Redemption and the HBO series Carnivàle, this was the first extended role he’s had in a movie in a very long time, and it was good to see him in it.
I won’t explain anymore about the plot of the movie, so as to not give away any spoilers. The movie suffered from the many amnesia flashback scenes that Daniel Craig had. To me, the whole amnesia aspect only served the purpose of finding an excuse to put the wrist blaster onto Daniel Craig. If you look at it from a standpoint of trying to add depth to Daniel Craig’s character Jake it failed miserably. I like Daniel Craig and think he did a great job in the movie, but his character was just a shell that I really could have cared less about.
Even though Dolarhyde’s son was a complete nincompoop, I still felt more sympathetic towards him because of his past as a soldier and depth of care for his son’s well being. That being said, Harrison Ford did a great job in the role of Woodrow Dolarhyde playing his usual gruff and stern self, but this time with a twinge of crazy to it. As the movie went on I liked him more and more, especially towards the end when he starts to take charge. There was a particularly touching scene with him and a dying somebody. (You’ll know what I’m talking about when it happens in the movie.)
Hell, Even Ella’s background was far more interesting than Jake’s once you find out what it is, but like I said I won’t spoil it for you guys. Needless to say Olivia Wilde was a great actress once more, while also managing to be one of the hottest women on the planet.
Kudos to her!
The aliens themselves were kind of one dimensional, but I did enjoy them. They were definitely scary enough and kind of reminded me of the Independence Day invaders the way their set of little arms emerged from inside of their large outer body. Some people though (Doc Kronner) only thought of our little disgusting friend Kuato from Total Recall.
One thing that I did not enjoy about the aliens was their main reason for being on Earth. Most people would be fine with it I guess, but I just cringed when I found out. I was actually hoping that the aliens were going to have a translator of some sort so as to have some sort of communication with the humans, but they still worked fine as the more primal type of aliens who just like to kick primitive human ass.
I wish Jon Favreau all the luck in the world, but I’m starting to think he may have just got lucky with Iron Man. Iron Man 2 wasn’t that great of a movie, and Cowboys and Aliens was just a step above that. His movies – though shot beautifully – are suffering from something I can’t quite pinpoint. Perhaps the writers (Orci and Kurtzman) were still a bit rusty from writing the piece of shit we call a movie Revenge of the Fallen. So maybe it’s really their fault.
Either way I give the movie a 2 out of 5 bears. Great presentation and cast, but it fell flat on story and utilization of the material. It could have been so much more, because it took out all of the bad from the graphic novel aesthetically, but the story from the graphic novel would have better suited the movie.
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This is the Hero Express for July 18, 2011:
Sick of not seeing little Miss Moneypenny in the Daniel Craig Bond movies? Well then shut your face because she’s finally been cast in the form of actress Naomie Harris, known mostly for her role as Tia Dalma in the second and third Pirates of the Caribbean movies. For those of you not familiar with Moneypenny in the Bond films, she is the assistant to James Bond’s boss M. In the role of assistant, she is bombarded with all sorts of sexual harassment from 007 to no avail on his part. She may be the only chick Bond hasn’t banged. Will he finally make his dream a reality in this next spy escapade? Or will she perhaps play a bigger role in the movie, because that would be nice instead of a brief appearance so all of the Bond fans can laugh at the latest Bond sexual quips.
Naomie Harris as Moneypenny isn’t the only casting news to come out for Bond 23. Two heavy hitters appear to joining the film as well. Check out a small blurb from IGN below:
In addition to reporting Harris’ casting, The Daily Mail also says acclaimed actors Javier Bardem and Ralph Fiennes are set to appear in Bond 23, which begins filming later this year.
Unfortunately there is no mention of what roles they might be playing in the movie, though with Ralph Fiennes I would think he’d play one hell of a villain. I mean come on, he’s freakin’ Voldemort! Bardem I guess could go either way as a villain or ally to Bond. I’m just excited that filming starts this year and there is a strong cast. Anyone out there excited for more Bond? Or is 007 wearing thin on you?
Grizzly Bomb 