Skyfall movie review – Shaken, not stirred

After the mediocre and rather dull Quantum of Solace, Daniel Craig is back as James Bond in his third Agent 007 movie called Skyfall.

But don’t think for a moment that 007 has lost his touch. In Skyfall you’re brought to a blood-fizzing action scene from the get-go, reminding you what Bond is capable of. Luckily, this isn’t the only brilliant Casino Royale-like action sequence, the director Sam Mendes (Jarhead, Revolutionary Road, American Beauty) treats us to in Skyfall.

And that’s exactly what Bond needs in his 23rd movie, celebrating the half-century anniversary of Agent 007.

Before we go on with the review, check out the official Skyfall trailer (if you have, rewatch it – it’s still awesome).

So, the lives of all NATO secret agents are at stake and MI-6 has been put to its knees by what looks to be a job of someone familiar with the system.

Meet Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem) – the main villain in Skyfall, the mastermind behind all the horror and destruction brought to London. And all he is after is the woman in charge of MI-6 – M (played, as usual, by Judi Dench).

From the very first words coming out of his mouth, you and the standing hair on the back of your neck are convinced that this guy is both mental and is going to play the villain in Skyfall well. And he does – he is unstoppable, insane and ruthless in his pursuit of vengeance.

There’s a big but here though – it seemed to us that he tries a bit too hard to be a Joker (yes, the one created by Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight). A mental character who would prefer total destruction of his enemy over personal gains and driven by the dark moments in his past. Of course former agent Silva isn’t as chaotic as the Joker, but we still feel the similarities are just too many. And for all the effort Javier Bardem puts, he simply cannot come anywhere near the Heath Ledger standards.

As we said – it’s a good overall performance, but just pales in comparison (and we already explained why comparisons are inevitable). It’s just that at the end we were left feeling sorry that Bond didn’t get the villain he deserved.

Now is the time to say that the acting of just about everyone else in Skyfall was absolutely flawless. Daniel Craig does his job of a sophisticated bad ass agent as brilliantly as Judi Dench plays the role of an iron lady, who puts the national interests first. By the way M has far more screen time than usual this time and she really makes it count.

Even the bad taste that Olga Kurylenko’s acting left in Qunatum of Solace is washed away, thanks to the superb acting of both ladies that caught Bond’s attention in Skyfall – Bérénice Marlohe (Sévérine) and Naomie Harris (Eve).

Decent plot, mostly great acting and jaw-dropping action sequences – Skyfall seems to tick all the right boxes. Well, there’s actually one left – the soundtrack. For a movie of such caliber, the sound was just not up to scratch. In Skyfall, the classic Bond tunes are there to support the cool explosions and action scenes, but the villain introduction could’ve been further enhanced with a better music.

And don’t even get me started on the Adele’s song used in the Skyfall’s intro. Depending on your taste you might find it to be a decent song (we mostly agree it’s horrible) but it sounds out of place. It tries to be what Chris Cornell’s You Know My Name did for Casino Royale, but fails miserably. And to make matters worse it lasts for ages – the only good thing is that it’s at the start and once you are past that there are two hours of high-quality cinematic waiting for you.

Skyfall is a great movie that doesn’t have anything remotely common with the boring train wreck that was Quantum of Solace. It takes the viewer on a joyride of explosive action, drama and clever British humor with the expert guidance of Agent 007.

Source : blog[dot]gsmarena[dot]com

Disturbance in the Force: Star Wars MMO creative director leaves BioWare

BioWare loses another marquee member of its creative staff, as Star Wars: The Old Republic's Daniel Erickson resigns.

Star Wars: The Old Republic hasn’t had the rockiest first year an MMO has ever had. Age of Conan, Dungeons & Dragons Online, and many others never racked up the more than 1.5 million players BioWare and Electronic Arts’ years in the making game did when it opened for business last December. Few MMOs have lost players as quickly as quickly as Star Wars has though, with 400,000 players abandoning the game between February and May alone, forcing BioWare to redesign it as a free-to-play game. It is now, perhaps unsurprisingly, losing its creative staff almost as fast as its players. Creative director Daniel Erickson announced on Thursday that he is leaving BioWare.

“As part of leaving BioWare I’m officially starting a Twitter account for job hunt and design thoughts,” said Erickson.

He went on, clearly frustrated with the current cut throat state of the video game industry as the retail market dwindles, and other game formats take center stage in the quest to replace lost revenue. “When 90 percent of the industry is saying the exact same thing (social, mobile, FTP!) a huge number of people are going to lose that race. Job hunt thoughts: If you think a monetization approach is saying the exact same thing as a game idea, I don’t know why we’re talking.”

As recently as July, Erickson was discussing how he and the rest of BioWare’s Austin team were working diligently to improve The Old Republic to try and reignite interest in the project. “What we always say is, before the game came out it was out game,” he told Digital Trends, “As soon as it launched, it became the community’s game. [What] we’re saying now is we’re going to find any way we can to get the game in front of people. Because when people play The Old Republic, they like The Old Republic. If we can get people to get in there, play it, hang out… we’re really confident we’re going to get a bunch of new players from that.”

Shortly after that though, EA announced that the game would go free-to-play to level 50, and then went on to layoff a significant number of staff members at the Austin office, including executive producer Rich Vogel.

BioWare is bleeding these days. In addition to the exodus of The Old Republic’s staff, the company’s founders left the studio at the end of July.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Daniel Craig signs on for two more James Bond movies

Hopefully you're a fan of the latest iteration of super spy James Bond, because Daniel Craig is going to be occupying the role for a while.

Come October 26, James Bond hits the silver screen for the 23rd (official) time in Skyfall. Daniel Craig, who has been portraying the character since 2006, has proven a very competent James Bond, and many fans rank him just below Sean Connery as the best Bond of all time. Hopefully that contingent of Craig fans includes you, otherwise today’s news that Craig has signed on to star in the 24th and 25th James Bond films will probably not come as a positive.

Though Bond fansite MI6 offers no substantial information on the next two Bond movies, it does assure us that Craig has made some sort of official agreement with EON Productions to reprise his role two more times. Additionally, the MI6 piece claims that EON, Sony and MGM (who currently have a very circuitous agreement over the distribution and promotion of the James Bond films) have been hinting at a return to the days when new James Bond movies would enter production on a tight schedule and appear in theaters every two years or so. There’s no official confirmation that the studios will go in this route, but if true that would mean that Daniel Craig is our James Bond until at least 2016.

That said, MI6 also worries that this rapid production schedule might infringe on EON’s ability to create genuinely good Bond films. Skyfall, for instance, is reportedly excellent due specifically to the extended break the production company was given between this film and its last Bond flick. Likewise, Daniel Craig has made public his desire to take a bit of a break from the Bond character following the debut of Skyfall. Not a huge break, mind you — Craig’s stated many, many times that he absolutely loves the James Bond mythos and will play the lead role until EON opts to replace him — but enough to recharge himself mentally in preparation for whatever James Bond 24 might require of him as an actor.

Given Craig’s success with the character we fully support both his new agreement to continue working with EON and his desire to take some time off. Anyone who has seen any of Craig’s Bond films will recognize how physically and mentally demanding the role must be, and yet we don’t want to see Craig abandon his iteration of the super spy. Though we all had doubts as to how he’d turn out prior to his work in 2006′s Casino Royale, Craig has done an admirable job of silencing detractors. He’s not the suave, ladykilling, international man of mystery that Sean Connery portrayed, nor the bizarrely silly spy of the Roger Moore era; instead, Craig depicts a brutish, conflicted version of James Bond that is simultaneously more “realistic” and offers a more visceral, thrilling viewing experience. If it were up to us Craig would be James Bond until he’s physically incapable of lifting a Walther PPK.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com