The Man Movie Encyclopedia: Skyfall

What’s good, beautiful people?!

Not much to say here in the preamble, just hoping you funky cats are having a great day.

Are there any requests for me to review that I haven’t already? Lemme know in the comments and I’ll see what I can do for you, the beautiful people.

We start off with Bond in Turkey in search of a hard drive that’s been stolen by some no goodknicks. Turns out it’s just one dude who apparently walks around with 10,000 rounds of 9mm ammo. Serious. First time we see him, dude has a 9mm with a two drum-clip attached. Man, you know his friends hate him.

Friend of Terrorist: Bruh, we’re just going to Costco, you don’t need 10,000 rounds of ammo.
Terrorist: You don’t know that! Better to have 10,000 rounds and not need them than need them and not have them! Besides, I’ve streamlined it, man! If you don’t notice the 15 fanny-packs I have strapped to me, you’d never know I had all this ammo. I’m practically invisible!

They hop on motorcycles, and naturally have to drive up stairs, because that’s why you chase people on a motorcycle, so you can drive up stairs and look sweet. Eventually it leads them to a moving train, where Bond showcases he went to Stone Cold University as he’s able to just fire up and operate a backhoe like it’s no one’s business. Again, at this point, this dude whips out a 9mm and with a 3ft long clip, and this fucker is full auto, too. He uses it to separate the train cars. Which I’m sure delighted him, as he’s clearly the type to want to find an excuse to use it all the time. Can’t find the remote? 9Mm with extended clip. Can’t find a spoon? 9Mm with extended clip. Girlfriend wants to go see her parents? 9Mm with triple barrel clip.
Anyhoo, while they’re on the train fighting, Bond’s fellow agent, whom I believe is Moneypenny? I dunno, it’s a woman, and because of this she ends up shooting Bond and causing him to fall about 500ft into a river. Of course. Now it’s 3 months later, and M, head director of MI6 is basically being pushed out. We then flash over to Bond, who’s been living on a beach, collecting 20%. Beyond that, he’s being the manliest man ever, because not only is he drinking heavily, but he does it in game fashion where he has a scorpion on his hand, and if you move too fast you get stung. Fuck yeah! What’s the point of drinking without imminent fear of immediate death?!

He sees on the news that MI6’s headquarters was blown up, or at least a floor of it was, killing many agents. So, Bond is back. Well, almost. He has to go through some tests to make sure he’s fit for active duty. He doesn’t end up passing, but M lies and says he did. Now that he’s back, he heads to Shanghai where the dude whom he chased in the beginning is going to be. He follows the dude to some building, where we can see he’s setting up to sniper a guy who’s in the building across the street. Bond actually lets the guy do his deal, before throwing him out of a window. Amidst the dude’s belongings is a coin with a casino’s name on it. He heads there, turns it in, and gets a big briefcase with money. He also speaks to a chick who apparently belongs to a crime syndicate. She tells him that he’s going to be killed by her bodyguards once their little meeting is over, and if he can thwart that, to be at her yacht in an owner, where she’ll introduce him to her employer.
Now, how does Bond show up at the yacht? Naked, and creeps up on her in the shower, and she’s just like “yup!”.

They arrive, and after a quick introduction, Bond is forced to attempt to shoot a shot glass off the head of the girl who brought him here. He misses, and Silva, the bad dude, just flat out shoots her, since she brought Bond to the island with intent to kill him. Bond than kills all of Silva’s guards, just as the back up arrives, and they take him back to Britain. While there, he tells M why he’s done all that he’s done. He was a former agent, who when captured, was tortured repeatedly and when he tried to eat his cyanide capsule that he had in his tooth. However, it didn’t kill him. We learn from M that the dude was a bad-ass agent, but started going beyond what he was suppose to, and the bad dudes were on to him, so M gave him up in exchange for other agents who’d been caught. Meanwhile, Q is trying to crack open the dude’s laptop, but it’s exactly what he wanted, as opening up the system gave him total access, and he’s now escaped. Bond gives chase, with Silva able to avoid capture by causing a subway train to come crashing at his face. It’s super ridiculous, over the top, and makes you wonder how on Earth he was able to pull that off. I mean, I can’t time cooking a damn Hot Pocket correctly, yet he was able to time when a train was going to come and have the foresight to plan explosives? Good on him.

It all leads to him crashing M’s hearing where it’s decided if she’ll keep her job. He almost gets her, but Bond shows up at the last second, and along with a few other folks help, she escapes. Basically, Bond has a plan to take her somewhere and use her as bait. It’s pretty sweet, because Bond ditches the company car and gets his old school ride, which is awesome. Turns out Bond is taking M to the place where he grew up, a huge estate called Skyfall. Welp, they decide to Home Alone this bitch, and outfit it with all sorts of awesome traps. Sadly, there are no Micro Machines.
The crew arrives, and are bombed and shot to hell. However, Silva was no slouch, and sent them as wave 1, as he arrives in a sweet helicopter, dumping clips with the mounted machine gun. He then runs around and throws incendiary grenades all through out the house, waiting for everyone to come out. However, there’s a tunnel underneath the grounds that leads to a chapel. Bond sets up a few propane tanks, and blows the entire place to hell, causing the helicopter to go down as well. Eventually Silva tracks M down to the chapel, and wants her to kill them both, but just before she can, Bond kills him, and then M dies from a bullet wound she suffered earlier in the shoot out. Really, a pretty anti-climatic ordeal, I wanted to see those two go at it.
When all is said and done, there’s a new M, and Bond is ready to get back to work.

MAN MOVIE TALLY:
1-Liners: 1
Guys Beat Up: 2
Guys Killed: 28
Swear Words: 1
Boobies: 0
Explosions: 8
Chase:2
Broken Bones: 0
Fight/Shoot-Out At Motel?: No
Guy Get Girl? Yes
Guy/Girl Smoke?: No

MAN FACTS:
Because Daniel Craig ain’t no chump, he performed as many of his own stunts as possible, including fighting on top of the train.

First time the word “fuck” was ever used in a Bond film.

At one point, Bond shaves with a straight razor, and apparently, sales of those bad boys went up around 400%.

Daniel Craig had bought some sweet gloves he thought would fit with Bond for the casino scene. However, it made no sense, because of the dragon pit scene. The dude can’t use Bond’s gun because it’s encoded with his palm print, which would mean Bond couldn’t use it either with the gloves. So, instead of reshooting, they just gave it the ol’ CGI treatment.

C’MON BENNETT, LET’S PARTY!:
After the mess that was Quantum of Solace, the Bond cats had to get the train back on track, and sure as shit did. Skyfall is on par with the best of Bonds. The action is top notch, the location, the sets, all beautiful. The scenery in China is especially gorgeous. Silva’s character is great, because he doesn’t want to take over the world or anything, he simply wants revenge. No plot easier to take in than revenge. Although, I wish we’d seen him do more, and view him as more of a threat. We heard what a great agent he was, well, let’s see it. Would have also been nice to get a big ol’ showdown at the end. A hell of a movie that’s a lot of fun, definitely should be near the top of your list of Bond films to check out if you haven’t already.
****1/2 Head-Butts out of 5

Any questions, comments, drunk-ramblings, feel free to send them my way, I always dig hearing from you, the beautiful people.
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