Skyawful...kidding! it's Bonderful!

The latest, record-setting Bond movie came out this weekend, and there's nothing more I can add to all the hype it's already received. Skyfall, the 50th anniversary timed release and third Daniel Craig led Bond movie has pulled in the best opening for any Bond movie. With an amazing 91% on Rotten Tomatoes, I will not be dissagreeing with anything you've seen or read about the movie thus far.

First of all, the plot is so cohesive that I need to specifically mention it. I've never been big on Star Wars or LOTR, not because I don't enjoy them, but because I don't do well juggling many different and changing plot lines. I get lost in why he's going to a planet or why she's fighting that species. That usually is the case with Bond movies. Skyfall has a very straightforward villain and linear conflict. Much like my problem with Taken vs Taken 2: Taken Harder, the former has 1 established and direct plot while the latter bounces around between different villains and conflicts. Although Skyfall has mulitple acts, it's all cohesive. 

Bardem is a blond mastermind with one end in mind. I literally can't say more without giving away the tiniest bit of plot so I'll leave it at that. 

Stylistically, I very much enjoyed viewing this movie. This sounds lame, but the lighting and colors I thought were amazing. Each fight scene felt like it was filmed in a different style and with different colors being accentuated. The angles you viewed the shots at kept the movie feeling fresh, even with a run time of 143 minutes.

Two of the pivotal fight scenes

I saw it in IMAX, and without having seen it in regular, peasant-style screens I can't really compare. I would venture to guess that paying a few bucks more for the bigger screen is probably worth it. I know it was for The Dark Knight Returns.

Ok, here's my own little aside that I feel will hurt my street credit in the movie biz that I'm so much a part of... the movie felt very influenced by the Nolan Batman trilogy. There, I said it! It's very Bond-esq, don't get me wrong. But in light of the successes of Batman, I feel like there's some unconscious, maybe conscious, duplication. The villain was a madman that wanted to watch the world burn. The hero had to dig into his past to be able to beat the villain. The old vs new argument in age and abilities was brought up a lot between Bond, Q, M, and Silva (Bardem). Stuff like that. I don't think it was a copy or anything, it just was one of those things that I kept feeling like there were similarities between the two. It was like Batman meets Die Hard meets Bourne plus a lot of Daniel Craig shirtless (yes!).

Check out the opening credits while it's still up. The Adele song is even sweeter with the visual