Bond 2012: SKYFALL

I remember when I learned that Daniel Craig was to play the coveted role of James Bond several years ago, my first reaction was: Daniel who? I never heard of the guy and when the poster was shown I shook my head and dismissed the actor and the franchise to ultimate failure.  Daniel Craig did not look like the former James Bonds. They all used to share Sean Connery's tall, dark and handsome features. All of them dashing, smooth, debonaire.  Daniel, on the other hand, is not even good-looking.  He is also shorter than the other Bonds, is bulkier and more muscular and has blond hair.  So as one of the earliest naysayers, my foot is stuck in my mouth as Daniel Craig rose up to the plate and became the most bankable James Bond in history, probably even outdoing the feats of Sean Connery, Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan. 

This movie, Skyfall, is set to become the highest grossing in the 50 year history of the franchise, and not surprisingly so.  The movie is great, the script intact and the cinematography superb.  I would like to commend its director Sam Mendes for doing a wonderful job at the helm.  The cinematography was also breathtaking particularly with the train crashing towards Bond in the tunnel and the fight scene on a Shanghai skyscraper. The actors themselves were very good at showing their vulnerability.  The script was almost flawless with a good injection of humor throughout the film.  This, in my humble opinion, is the best Bond film to date.

Since the first installment of Craig as Bond, the production behind the Bond series have intelligently transitioned to a more believable and more human depiction of the famous fictional English assassin.  They have done away with invisible cars, exploding fountain pens and weird disguises that fool no one.  Instead, the director has used Daniel Craig's eyes and sharp-lined mouth to make the viewers realize that Bond is not immortal.  Bond is a human being who hurts, who feels, who gets tired, who gets old.  It is with Craig that we have seen Bond tortured, wounded badly and almost die.  It is because Craig, despite not being good-looking, can pull off the hero-who-becomes-the-underdog-to-rise-and-become-hero-again stint. What's more, Craig is definitely believable to play the part.

The other cast members also performed very well.  

I am in awe of Berenice Marlohe, a French actress, who looked and played an Asian concubine/employee of antagonist Javier Bardem.  Not only is she stunningly beautiful, she was able to beautifully project deceit, fear, loathing and hope in rapid succession during her conversation with Bond at the casino.  Her hand trembled at the thought that Bond wanted to meet her boss.  She shook with fear, her mouth quivered as she told him: Be careful what you wish for.  And her eyes shone with hope when she asked him: Are you gonna kill him? 

Naomie Harris in the film, I think was confident and played the her role well as Eve a field agent who was mistakenly shot Bond as he struggled with another assassin on the train.  At the end of the movie, she is revealed to be the returning character Ms  Moneypenny, secretary to M.  In the Bond series though, her name is Jane not Eve.  I didn't think that she was as good as Marlohe in this film but yes she does have the better ass.  Yep, ass as in behind.  Go Ms Moneypenny!

Another great addition to the film is Ben Wishaw who played Q, a computer wiz who is at the helm of anything computer related within the MI6.  He played his character very well too, looking all dorky and unkempt but with the sarcastic verbose nature that all high-IQ nerds possess.  He was also able to project very well the short but plot-decisive virtual chess game with Javier Bardem.  

Judi Dench played her last role as M and will be replaced by Ralph Fiennes (aka Voldemort) in the upcoming films.  Both actors played their roles well although at times I felt veteran actress Dench looked stiff.  She did have to play a tough role though, to play an impassive and cold director of the MI6 who calls the shots and carries the burden of dead agents or failed missions at her behest all in the best interest of England.  I did expect more from her especially during her confrontation with Javier Bardem and during the opening scene when Bond was inadvertently shot by Eve upon M's command where she looked more lost than impassive. 

The most striking of all the actors though, including Daniel Craig, is Javier Bardem who was marvelous in his portrayal of Bond's nemesis as Silva, a former personal favorite of M, who was disgraced and eventually let go by the MI6.  He was portrayed as a power-hungry evil genius attracted to power and strength which birthed to his homo-erotic scene with Bond.  Silva returned as a devious and ruthless cybercriminal, fanatical in his desire for both revenge and acceptance from M.  His brilliance and cunning always put him a step ahead of Bond and the MI6 as he unleashed a wave of cyber and actual terrorism.  His portrayal of Silva in this film proves that his talent as an actor and his Oscar recognition is no fluke.  Plus, having a Penelope Cruz for a wife is a prize in itself.

This Bond movie has solidified the idea that in the world of espionage and covert operations, the concept of you-snooze-you-lose cannot be emphasized more.  This was also relayed by Liam Neeson in Taken when he confronted his former French friend at the dinner table with: That's what happens when you sit behind a desk for too long. You forget things! Like having a gun that's loaded and one that's not.  The skill and the instinct may be there, but the precision, dexterity and reflexes definitely slow down.  In this particular film, for instance, Bond retreated to seclusion and alcohol after his widely perceived death.  He returned a lesser assassin, who looked and moved like the shell of his former self.  And since I love David Morrell's (creator of Rambo) Brotherhood of the Black Rose book so much, I would like to imply again that between two equally skilled and deadly assassins in combat, the younger one always has a higher percentage of winning. The reason is the younger you are, the faster your reflexes are.  Bond, in this film, was shown as getting old with not-so-subtle hints of having him retired.  But, of course, like all protagonists, he persists and eventually triumphs over Silva and his goons but at the sad expense of M.  

As for the assassins themselves, it is clear that emotions and feelings are considered a great liability and bad for business.  The has been well-documented in the Bourne series and in Mr and Mrs Smith. Assassins are trained to kill without remorse, without doubt, with indifference.  But, no, like in all the Bourne series, Mr and Mrs Smith, Taken as well as the books of David Morrell, Daniel Silva, Frederick Forsythe and Tom Clancy, assassins are not without heart and at times risk their lives for that split-second moment of doubt or surge of regret or love.  This is the very first time in the history of chauvinistic, womanizing James Bond to have seen him at his most vulnerable.  For the first time since his parents' death, James Bond shed tears for his boss, M, Mom, the closest thing to a mother he had.  He openly wept for his love of country, his love of M and for his freedom from the dark memories of Skyfall.

P.S.  It seems that this movie can do no wrong.  Adele, the British vocal behemoth, who has inspired multiple eargasms with her soulful and bluesy vocals, has sung the hauntingly beautiful theme song of Skyfall, named as such.  Sometimes you just wonder if they made the movie just so she can sing its theme song.  It really captured the essence of the film.  I recommend that you watch it in theaters.  It will not do justice to this movie's perfection if you just download it and watch it on the small screen. 

The Bourne Legacy

Last year, when I learned that a new Bourne movie was coming out but Matt Damon was no longer the lead role, I didn't really care much for it.  But eventually, I wanted to watch the movie because it was shot in Manila, capital of the Philippines.  On the day it was released, I checked out rottentomatoes.com to see if it fared well with them.  It got a rating of 55%, not a really rotten tomato but not a red juicy one either.  It means that this movie seemed mediocre at best.

I just got to watch the movie today, more than a couple weeks since it was released.  For me, at least, it didn't disappoint up until the end when the conclusion of the film just came crashing like a sack of potatoes without warning.  I understand that they have to leave the movie hanging to keep the audiences expecting a sequel, but I really did wanted to have them pen a better ending. The rest of the film, though, was fast-paced, well shot and has gotten its act together so I highly recommend it.  

The new lead roles played by Jeremy Renner and Rachel Weisz were played very well.  It wasn't flawless but they did very well.  They also had the chemistry to match it with.  I did not understand why some critics say that their relationship was not established well in the movie.  I think they were able to develop the relationship at a good pace and did not seem contrived at all.

My main concern about the movie is that the plot is neither cohesive nor is it novel.  It almost resembled the first three Bourne movies without a new twist into it.  In the former movies, the CIA went after the tagged-rogue agent Jason Bourne and eliminate him to shut Operation Treadstone down.  Jason Bourne escaped and caused collateral damage in his path to save himself, his lover/wife and fight back against the agency he formerly worked for while discovering his identity and trying to stay very low profile to keep the agency off his back.  In this new movie, all Bourne-like operatives have to be eliminated inorder for a new set of Bourne-like-without-the-emotional-connection-aka-drama operatives could be set in place.  Renner, of course, survives the assassination attempt, was able to discover that he had his genes mutated by a virus to have permanent physical enhancement (increased strength, reflexes etc) and with the help of Weisz, travel to Manila to have his genes mutated again-- this time to have permanent neurological enhancement ( increase nerve regeneration, sensation etc).  Now, the CIA is tracking them down, wanting to kill them but because they are the stars of the film and there is a need for a sequel (with sarcastic rolling of the eyeballs), they manage to get out of it all, kill the lone Bourne-like-without-the-drama operative and in the end were sailing smooth along the beautiful lagoons of the Hundred Islands (this I am not sure of).  ---okay, just now I've been told it is El Nido, Palawan :-)

In order to keep the movie sequel interesting, Renner should have a real meeting or even a collaboration with  the real Bourne, Matt Damon in the movie.  They called it the Bourne Legacy, but Damon didn't even make a cameo appearance in the film.  I don't think the franchise will survive without Matt Damon, the face of the Bourne franchise, in the film at all.  

The shots taken in Manila was surprisingly very good.  It really caught me off guard.  I was expecting a less than savory portrayal of the Philippines as a third world country.  The film, however, managed to showcase a picture of what Manila and the entire Philippines is all about.  It is about a nation who is rising from the clasp of poverty and is getting ready to take center stage as a booming economy that could no longer be taken for granted.  The film showed the high rise buildings along with the simple, old, tin-roofed apartments and they even have a shot of Renner losing his footing on one of those roofs.  (I was wondering at first how Renner could have run on top of those tin roofs without having one of those roofs crash down.  Well, one of them eventually did.)  The movie also showcased the people traffic along the overpasses of EDSA, which was also accurate especially if you pass there at rush hours.  The portrayal of a woman screaming magnanakaw (thief) when she discovered a stranger (Weisz) in her home is also accurate.  The same could not be said of the ensuing events that followed.  In reality, the policemen will be last to answer the call for magnanakaw and God-forbid by the time they get there, Weisz would've been beaten black and blue by the townspeople. Hahaha! It was good though, how the movie portrayed how industrious our factory workers are and even that pharmacy lady who opted to give out medicine for free to the foreigner.  That would surely have escaped the eyes of all movie-goers except the real Filipino patriots like muah.

All in all, I would rate the movie a 7.5/10.  The storyline was legit and I don't think the movie would have gotten fairly harsh criticism if only it wasn't compared to the original Bourne trilogy which is a classic.  It's like  nothing was ever as good or nearly as good as The Godfather trilogy until GoodFellas came along (and perhaps none since).  Furthermore, it was able to project my country in a new light, something full of hope this time not of despair.  It featured the Philippines and its people with vibrancy and dynamism, an economy that is growing and healthy and it did showcase the beauty of its islands for which it should be known for as it should be.  Kudos to the cast and crew of the film and I am looking forward to its next installment.

(P.S.  for the Pinoys who were in the film [I googled them, of course] we have Antonette Garcia as the landlady, John Arcilla as the security guard and comedian Lou Veloso as the fisherman/owner of the fishing boat).

RED

I was most certainly entertained.  Red stars some of the biggest names in Hollywood: Bruce Willis, Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman and John Malkovich.  Red tells of a group of retired undercover agents who are ordered killed by the CIA.  They are tagged RED (Retired, Extremely Dangerous) and one by one they reconnect and decided to get back at the system, searching for the truth behind their attempted assassinations.  The movie was  very enticing, the action was great, the storyline believable.  The cherry on top is John Malkovich's performance playing a paranoid nut who is an expert on weapons.  I so enjoyed his performance in this film which was very comical, I almost forgot he played   Cyrus the Virus in ConAir.

My only concern is that these retired operatives can defeat younger agents in hand to hand combat.  That is not possible, or if it is, then luck should favor you all the time.  When two agents, both exceptional in self-defense and both with superhuman agility, intelligence and tactical strategies, the younger agent almost always wins.  Aging makes you a little bit slower due to slower nerve conduction.  That split second difference could spell life or death.  At least that was how I remembered it in David Morrell's book.  David Morrell is the creator of Rambo is one of my favorite authors.  If you get the chance, read the Brotherhood of the Rose.  That is one hell of a good book.

Nevertheless, if I were to rate RED I would give it a nine out of ten.  It has everything I'm looking for in an action film and the comedic timing of the actors were just perfect.  Go and watch it too :-)