Oh boy, James Bond. Loved these films as a kid. Then again, I used to love George Lucas and Seinfeld re-runs, too.Skyfall begins like any Bond – a wonderful multi-vehicle chase sequence extended by James Bond (Daniel Craig) manipulating a backhoe to board a speeding train. That’s the stuff we come to see, sure. And then a curious thing happens – Bond gets shot. Not just grazed. Fully-punctured-heavy-blood-is-he-alive? shot. And without notice or hesitation, Skyfall transforms into a real film, not just the standard Bond playground of global domination,
gadgetry and smirks. Bond himself is suddenly fragile, vulnerable, fallible. Some will see this as a triumph of growth and development – why it’s about time our fictional paragon of the guy world showed at least a y-axis in personality. I see it as the disintegration of fantasy. Nobody bothers pointing out that we’ve been giving the Bond formula a pass for decades because we value the stalwart kitsch of the institution so much more than the execution of the tales. We have lived through some truly dreadful Pierce Brosnan shtick and given it all a wink and a nod.
So you wish to give us a modern take on Bond? You want to give us an M (Judi Dench) who has thoughts and feelings? Maybe a plot with real death and real blood, too, huh? I admire this. Go right ahead – but with the increased sensitivity to more realistic notions of spydom comes increased responsibility as well. No, Skyfall doesn’t open with naked models in babushkas jumping on trampolines, nor does it have a henchman with a lethal bowler, nor exploding utensils, nor even a scene in which a cello case is used as a bobsled; well, there is a lethal komodo dragon attack (yes, that’s silly, look it up), but it means you can’t scrimp on the real; that’s not fair.
Ok, here’s real — MI6 headquarters in London blows up. Wow, good stuff. Wait. This was done by computer hacking? Really? That doesn’t make sense. For plot, once again we have spies chasing a stolen “list of agents.” This particular McGuffin is overused and tiresome. Hey, spy people: stop making lists of your agents and their aliases. There, problem solved. Then Bond, about two years shy of maturity, shows up back in London and is cleared for duty by someone who quite clearly doesn’t give a rat’s ass about anything besides desperation.
Speaking of rats, Silva (Javier Bardem) actually attempts to seduce 007 with an anecdote about rodent cannibalism. Yes, this happened. And much as we all enjoyed Bardem overstepping the comfort-level boundary between adversary and lover, I was kinda left thinking, “ok, when do we get to the good stuff?” As Silva literally undresses Bond while displaying a combination of sympathy and admiration, I realize that without the gadgets or tongue-in-cheek hyperbole, this IS the good stuff. Oh. In that case, I wish the good stuff were better. Hey, why stop? Is the inference that Bond is bisexual? Why not run with it? While channeling the spirit of Hannibal Lecter, Javier Bardem is so over the top as the Skyfallguy, the way has now been paved for a future sequel Tyler Perry’s Madea Meets James Bond.
Skyfall is an excellent title for a film that delves into the Chicken Little world of paranoia. With relative frequency, this movie screams, “no matter who you are or how you’ve protected yourself, the bad guys always know how to find you and hurt you.” Yes, MI6 can be infiltrated and taken over by a tiny island somewhere in the Indian Ocean powered entirely by post-nuclear fallout radiation. Did I mention the orchestrator can be in solitary confinement when this happens? I am tired of the “deliberately getting caught” ploy. And if you’re gonna show somebody breaking out of an isolation tank, you actually have to show it, because this can’t happen in real life. The fear mongering is disgusting here — it is simply irresponsible to imply that British intelligence can be taken over by one lousy hacker, that Bond is the only trustworthy government employee or that the bad guys will always outnumber the good guys. The actors involved are the only thing that separates Skyfall from yet another balled-up scrap tossed into the landfill of James Bond mediocrity.
Maybe you’ll like the Home Alone climax.
The semi-usual Bond tricks
They blew up MI6
With a denouement in the stix
There ain’t much left to fix
Rated PG-13, 143 Minutes
D: Sam Mendes
W: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, and John Logan
Genre: Bond
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Boys who secretly imagine themselves to be James Bond
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Gizmo lovers
James – yet again our antennae are similarly tuned. I will go on record and say that I am a fan of the Daniel Craig Bond films. He has a great presence and force for the role. Love the Dench and the cast of MI6. I enjoyed Skyfall and will watch it again when out on DVD or HBO.
However, I had similar reactions to yours and also felt that this Bond had a Batman-like quality (Nolan not Schumacher). We all knew that Jimmy was an orphan, mostly an afterthought. In this episode, we hear that “he was there when both his parents died”….hmmm. Then we encounter a villain who has no regard for human life, who blows ups major public institutions, and whose hair color is clearly not his own, and who allows himself to be caught only to escape and unleash his own version of terror (Dark Knight and Silence ‘o the Lambs…I am looking at you). Then we are introduced to Skyfall (Bond Manor?) where it becomes a low tech vs high tech battle that also results in the estate being burner to the ground. I kept looking for Ra’s Au Gul but he may have been busy with Taken 3.
This feels like a director decided to take hold of the film and make his statement on Bond..