Skyfall (2012)

Bond in transition and bond for the modern age in one film.

"Skyfall" proves there is life in the James Bond franchise yet. Indeed, shouldn't these films have died a death already? It is remarkable they are still going, in the wake of the culmination of the Cold War; the initiation of the War on Terror; Britain's own changing place on the world stage as a super-power and the ever-changing tastes that cinema-goers have. Just where does Bond, as both a filmic entity and a character within his own universe, fit in to all of this? The spy thriller demands, when all is said and done, a narrative, but Bond is big-business and very much part of mainstream film culture, which of course isn't interested in narrative. When Daniel Craig sits, pensively, in a gallery staring at a painting of an old warship being tugged away, it doesn't require much thought to work out the allusion. The scene is somewhat spoiled by another character verbally confirming it to us, but there you go. Later on, a scene involving Judi Dench being asked by an obnoxious MP as to what the "point" of her division is anymore should strike us as probably the series' most existential ever moment.Beginning in Turkey, the film opens with an impressive sequence involving the infiltration of a building; a foot-chase through the dusty streets, which evolves into a car chase, before settling for a battle aboard a freight train as Bond (Craig) and Naomie Harris' Moneypenny strive to reclaim a stolen list of identities of undercover NATO agents. What is striking about this opening, aside from the somewhat awkward moment whereby Bond must 'take-over' driving duties from his female accomplice in order to properly land a fatal blow, is its pessimism - the heroes do not obtain the list; there is no win or quip after all the stunts, just a failure. This is due to Moneypenny accidentally shooting Bond with a sniper rifle (can she do nothing right?) - he falls from the train and a bridge into a river; director Sam Mendes cleverly transposes the sound effects of the running water whilst focusing on a distraught looking Dench in a wet London as rain teems down the window she looks out of. The first words of the title song we hear thereafter are "this is the end..." We sense then that there is something afoot, and everything thereafter carries with it a strange sense of vulnerability. Bond is not dead, of course, but utilises his time in the wake of his injury to bed women and engage in nefarious drinking games on a Caribbean island while, back home, M (Dench) is told she's being phased out of her role as head of the division. Intelligence is then hit by a cyber-attack. It is to the film's credit that is sets aside time for Bond's rehabilitation back into being an agent of some stature again instead of making the mistake of merely allowing him to be able to pick up where he left off before an alcohol-fuelled sabbatical. What is most impressive about "Skyfall" is its ability to be able to look back as well as ahead AND be able to systematically tell a decent story of espionage - Mendes has managed to make a Bond film with an opinion on its own status: it has time for the silver Aston Martin, but doesn't think much of the exploding pen gadget. The film is otherwise peppered with the imagery of our time: an exploding London underground train; characters utilising YouTube and has one eye on the dominant role computer run neural networks have in our world. The idea of 'hackers' as villains might have ended up as stale and silly, but the film pulls it off and it even comes across as quite original. A mention must go to Javier Bardem for playing the lead villain in the form of Raoul Silva, whose entrance is put to a long unbroken shot of the man entering a large warehouse on a long-since abandoned island that is therefore stuck in time and so clashes with all the tech-savvy equipment around him. As he talks about controlling the world via the Internet, his terminals begin to look like rolls of razor wire stacked up together thus inferring a sense of the impenetrable. If we are surprised that there are degrees of duality between Bond and Silva after a later reveal, we perhaps should not be - Mendes' had already introduced the pair of them at their respective moments in the same manner: with a long, slow pacing towards the camera.Certainly, after the nature of "Quantum of Solace", which I did not think terrible but appeared plastic and hurried in the wake of "Casino Royale", "Skyfall" brings narrative clarity; genuine excitement and, most importantly, heart back to the series which may exist now in a very different world to the one it was born into, but is nevertheless still able to pack a punch.

One of the best bond movies of recent memory, and of all time. The action is great, the cinematography is superb, and the characters and plot are written very well.

Skyfall celebrates a long running franchise that spans 50 years and staples itself as one of the best so far. After the misfire that was Quantum of Solace, Bond is back in a form we haven't quite seen before. Director Sam Mendes anchors a brilliant script and adds meaning to what was previously a character without much layers. Mendes doesn't shy away from giving us a splendid variation of visual flairs, making this Bond the most aesthetic yet. This time around we see 007 face his own vulnerabilities after having been accidentally shot down by his own team. Bond retires the life of espionage, inducing himself in alcohol, with no purpose, only to be brought back by a mysterious hacker who has targeted MI6, more precisely, M herself. After a rigorous regime to get James back in shape, the agent is back as he tracks down this new threat. Enter the villain. With a superb one shot introduction, we meet Javier Bardem's Silva, a blond haired, weirdly camp and psychotic-in-a-fun way villain that delivers right from the start with a monologue that couldn't be better written for him to chew off. Him and Bond bounce back and forth like a pro tennis match, each trying to gage the other, Silva sometimes sexually. This is where protagonist meets antagonist in a perfect symbiosis. The action remains thrilling, relying in more realistic sequences rather than bombastic set pieces often seen in the Pierce Brosnan era. One sequence especially serves as Bond's best hand to hand combat. The Bond girl here is Judi Dench, as she owns the role one last time. She is as much a Bond girl as he is M's guy. The relationship between Bond and M almost mirrors one of a lost son and a mother without one. All in all, Skyfall delivers in almost all fronts. Sam Mendes has crafted a beautiful, intelligent and relevant film that brings James Bond back as one of the most iconic spies of all time.