THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY NOVEMBER 15.2012
PAGE 7A
HOTO
FILM
EXCESS HOLLYWOOD
Review
ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO
Agent 007 (Daniel Craig) resists the advances of the troubblingly coffed cyberterrorist Silva (Javier Bardem) in Sam Mendes's "Skyllal," released last Friday.
Building a better Bond
LANDON MCDONALD
imcdonald@kansan.com
Director Sam Mendes celebrates the Bond franchise's 50th anniversary by throwing the world's greatest secret agent off a train, blowing up his beloved Aston Martin and threatening all of MI6 with the specter of obsolescence.
The result is 007's most successful outing since "Goldfinger," a superior espionage epic that approaches the classic Bond formula with equal parts reverence and subversive ingenuity. Just as Christopher Nolan retooled the Batman mythos by deepening its thematic complexity and enlisting the help of a first-rate cast, "Skyfall" functions as both a victory lap for the venerated series and an incisive commentary on terror in the digital age — a reminder that yesterday's cloak-and-dagger has become today's point-and-click.
In a spectacular opening scene that will banish any lingering memories of "Quantum of Solace" and its mania for hyper-editing, Bond and a rival assassin (Ola Rlapade) engage in a bare-knuckled brawl on the roof of a speeding locomotive. Using his subsequent injuries as an excuse to go off the grid, Bond returns only after MI6 headquarters is attacked by Silva (Javier Bardem), a former 00-agent whose acts of cyber-terrorism are part of a long-gestating vendetta against M (Judi Dench), Bond's imperious boss and grudging mother figure.
After two movies and a televised rendezvous with Queen Elizabeth II at the Olympic opening ceremony, Craig finally seems at home in the role, blending Bond's bluntforce physicality with a sense of humor dryer than the martinis he now instinctively swigs. He even attempts a Connery-esque repair-
tee with fellow agent Eve, played with cleverness and warmth by the lovely Naomie Harris, and the new Q (Ben Whishaw), recast as an impish tech whiz who boasts he can do more damage on his laptop before breakfast than Bond can do in a year's worth of fieldwork. The other requisite Bond girl is Silva's mistress Séverine, played with smoldering guile by newcomer Bérénice Marlohe.
But a film like "Skyfall" is only as good as its lead villain, and Bardem's Silva is a freakish marvel. With a cold, expressionless face and a hairstyle borrowed from a demonic Wooly Willy toy, Silva is dead behind the eyes, a living disguise kit meant to mask something broken and cruel. His pathological obsession with M is wiredly endearing in its Oedipal ambiguity, and a scene where he appears to flirt with Bond has the same black-mirror intensity as the interrogation room scene in "The Dark Knight." After watching him embryo monolithic evil in "No Country for Old Men," it's a joy to see Bardem loose as a more flamboyant heavy.
Yet the performance of the movie ends up belonging to Judi Dench, whose 17-year tenure as M has made the veteran actress one of the fixed points in a changing franchise. Here she's allowed to leave her desk and take center stage, squaring off against an oversight committee led by Gareth Mallory (Ralph Fiennes) amid charges of intelligence leaks and fears that her boots-on-the-ground methods are becoming irrelevant. It's fascinating to watch her gradually take responsibility for Silva, the monster she created through a ruthless judgment call.
Like all Bond movies, "Skyfall" offers no shortage of exotic locales, as 007 tracks Silva from the rooftops of Istanbul's Grand Bazaar to the silhouette skyscrapers of neon-drenched Shanghai. Roger Deakins, the famed English cinematographer best known for his collaborations with the Coen Brothers, frames every sequence with the precision and elegance of a painter, making this the most visually arresting installment in a series known for exuding effortless cool.
Mendes and Deakins save their best efforts for the third-act centerpiece: the nightfall siege of a manor house in the Scottish highlands, a masterful sequence that elevates "Skyfall" into the realm of grand tragedy. Its outcome also points to what's become a recurring theme in the newer 007 movies: Why does the James Bond character endure? What place does he have in the 21st century? I believe the answer can be found in the Tennyson poem "Ulysses," which M quotes in part towards the end of the film: "Old age hath yet his honour and its toll, death closes all, but something ere the end, some work of noble note, may yet be done."
Agent Eve puts it even more succinctly. "Old dog... new tricks"
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Daniel Day-Lewis gives an uncanny performance as Honest Abe in Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln," set for a wide release this Friday.
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Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" is a lovingly crafted, deliberately superficial history lesson bolstered by one of the finest performances of this or any other year. Simply put, Daniel Day-Lewis slips into the skin of Abraham Lincoln in a way that falls just shy of resurrection. What emerges isn't a waxwork imitation or some idealized martyr but a fully formed human being, given new weight and vital dimension by the most gifted actor of his generation.
FILM
The film, originally envisioned by screenwriter Tony Kushner ("Angels In America") as a life-spanning biopic, wisely narrows its focus to the last four months of Lincoln's life, when the President risked prolonging the Civil War by pressuring Congress to ratify the 13th Amendment and end the scourge of slavery.
Spielberg, who's reportedly tired of directing big action scenes, made the conscious decision to make "Lincoln" less about the Civil War and more about the legislative process, meaning that long stretches of the film are largely dialogue-driven. This approach works fine as long as Day-Lewis is on screen, but the movie tends to suffer during the Congress scenes, where the pro-slavery Democrats are reduced to mustache-twirling revisionist caricatures. Tommy Lee Jones does his best to keep things lively as the ornery abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens, head of the House's Radical Republicans, while James Spader and John Hawkes provide comic relief as a lautish pair of political fixers.
We watch as Lincoln and his cabinet, including his loyal secretary of state, William Seward (David Strathairn), force the obstinate wheels of government to turn in their favor, employ tactics like corruption, ingratification and even bold-faced deception to ensure the amendment's passage. Politics has always been an underhanded business, and one can't help but admire Lincoln's tenacity in navigating a system where every vote is for sale and party loyalty is shed like snake-skin.
'Lincoln' belongs to the ages
Although "Lincoln" features appearances from noted character
The genius of a Day-Lewis performance is that it never quite feels like one. He finds the Emancipator's humanity without overemphasizing his flaws. There's a bone-deep weariness to his Lincoln, stooped and withered by four long years of war and the recent death of his son William. This solemnity is offset by moments of rascally humor, emphasized by his gentle, reedy voice and predilection for storytelling as a way to ease tensions among his staff.
LANDON MCDONALD
imcdonald@kansan.com
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actors like Jackie Earle Haley and Hal Holbrook, only a few of them stick around long enough to make an impression. The best supporting work in the movie comes from within Lincoln's family, especially Sally Field as the magnificently disturbed Mary Todd. Her scenes with Day-Lewis contain a grand melancholy that would require another movie to fully explain.
— Edited by Madison Schultz
"Lincoln" was clearly a labor of love for Spielberg, who spent 12 years researching the man and several more convincing the notoriously picky Day-Lewis to play him. The end result is a powerful post-election reminder that although our political system remains a source of frustration and cynicism, it still has the potential to be a lastling force for good, but only if we take responsibility for it. As Lincoln himself said, "If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide."
Joseph Gordon-Levitt makes the most of his brief screeetime as Robert, the oldest of Lincoln's children, who desperately wants to enlist with Ulysses S. Grant (Jared Harris) before the war ends, and young Gulliver McGrath's final scene as little Tad Lincoln will stay with you long after the lights come up. The scene in question takes place at a theater, but probably not the one you're thinking of. Here Spielberg reverts back to his roots, once again using a child's-eye view to describe the unimaginable.
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