I remember seeing an early Daniel Craig 007, Skyfall I think, and was so turned off by his lifeless character and the Hollywood scripting, that I gave up on the film long before it gave up on me. With the release in October of the final Craig and the final Bond flick, No Time To Die, I looked up lists of the best Bond films, to find that many consider Craig to be by far the best Bond ever. Are they kidding?
So I took another look at Skyfall, this time forcing myself to set out the entire ordeal, and here is my review:
Cold and gloomy, morose and leaden, the central character a faceless muscular void. Remember the humor, even the charm of the Bond films? Remember some scenes filmed in actual sunlight? This one is drenched in darkness. Remember how fun they could be? This is a Hollywood exploitation movie, tediously overwrought in gunfire, and here 007 dares never to crack a smile. As for the woman thing, he comes off looking frigid -- as if he has been lobotomized to prepare for the killing target ahead. And he is being called the best Bond ever? Am I insane? Judy Dench manages to get in a little philosophy a la shades of Mrs. Henderson Presents and the Exotic Marigold Hotels. The lunatic is the most interesting character of the lot, and it takes forever to run him back into the slime that renders Scotland a dismal wasteland of lost souls. i struggled to hold on, just to see how this turkey would finally be wrapped. I will not go near another Craig as Bond, for he could not be farther from the character. Any of the others are a joy to watch. You can have your Sam Mendez. I'll take a real James Bond.
END
And then I watched Timothy Dalton in Living Daylights, and Pearce Bronson in Tomorrow Never Dies and was reassured to have Bond back.
P.S. I looked up the reviews on Rotten -- an impressive 85%. Among the few dissenters, Rex Reed bombed it and the franchise in recent years. Good going, Rex!
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