'Skyfall' - Movie Review

James Bond has a background - and it’s one Sean Connery can be proud of! I always assumed Bond was spawned in Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansion and was found one day ordering a martini at the poolside bar... shaken not stirred. Not only does this movie create a background for Bond but it continues to draw similarities to Chris Nolan’s Batman trilogy. Nolan went and got a bloke who could play a grittier and darker Batman and the Bond franchise followed in snagging Craig. And thank goodness they did because the two franchises really needed a spark of life! Nolan played on the Bruce Wayne orphan childhood, and now we discover that Bond was an orphan too. And if that isn't enough, in the final instalment of the The Dark Knight Rises we see a broken down Batman who has to prove that he still has it... and if we are to go off the 9,000 references to Bond’s age and digression then it's safe to say that Skyfall does the same.

Did Ian Fleming write from the grave to inform the Bond franchise that they needed to make Skyfall more British for the 50^th anniversary? And did the ladies write in to inform the franchise that there needs to be more topless Daniel Craig? In the first half of the film all we seem to get is pomp and circumstance and a topless bloke. Also if that’s the body of someone who has ‘lost a step’ then Lord (and ladies) have mercy. But it wasn’t the countless topless shots which annoyed me most, it was that stupid little British Bulldog desk thingy!

This movie is more British than Winston Churchill himself. 

The plot is this... James Bond chases a baddie through Turkey (wasn't Taken 2 set in Turkey for a chase too?), fails to stop the bad guy and finds himself in a pickle. Meanwhile the government is cleaning house within MI6 and we are introduced to the extremely young duo of Q and Money Penny (both fine performances!).

Q. He looks like a student from Hogwarts.

Q: What did you expect, an exploding pen?

Bond eventually resurfaces and seeks revenge, as he always does. Things take a twist and a turn and the villain seems to be after someone other than Bond... and you can take it from there.

Can I ask though, what's the point of the first half of the movie? I guess I'm asking because in screenwriting class last semester we kept being drilled with the question,

"Could you cut the first half of your script and not be missing anything key?"

Apart from the trademark Bond entrance, which felt like a rush and a half, I feel we can safely say yes. The first half seemed only to echo the question of whether Bond is over the hill. Target audience: senior citizens.

They say a Bond movie should be judged by its villain, and if that's the case, then the movie is decent. Casino Royale, which was the best of the Daniel Craig era, had a terrific villain, while Quantum of Solace had no villain but rather a whinging midget. Thus when the obsessive and slightly maniacal Silva (Bardem) enters the fray the story really picks up. Bardem's role as a disgruntled ex-agent echoes GoldenEye's 006, doesn’t it? This villain is softly spoken and laid back which only adds to his umph! We get the sense that he’s maniacal but he acts like he’s the kind of bloke you’d expect to be wearing a straw hat and a Hawaiian shirt to work on casual Friday. And like the Joker (another Batman similarity!) it all centres around his plan to get caught... oh but the suspense is thrilling!

They like exotic looking ladies for 'Bond girls' eh?

What was astonishing though was how quickly the Bond girl left the scene. Did he even shag her? Oh yes, the shower. Tick that one off the list – god forbid Bond doesn’t get laid! That would almost be as bad as how they’ve subjected women over the years. But here’s my curve ball, was M the real Bond girl? She does feature in the movie from start to finish... another sign of a senior citizen target audience.

The Julian Assange shot

Let’s get back to Bardem's performance. I liked it; he almost looked like Julian Assange - and had a complex similar to Assange! Although his entrance is a lot better than his exit (not Assange, he's still waiting for his exit).

[as Bond is tied to a chair, an elevator lowers in front of him, and Silva appears and walks toward him]
Raoul Silva: Hello James, welcome. Do you like the island? My grandmother had an island when I was a boy. Nothing to boast of. You could walk along it in an hour. But for us it was paradise. One summer, we came for a visit and discovered the whole place had become infested with rats. They came on a fishing boat and gorged on the coconut. So how do you get rats off an island? My grandmother showed me. You put an oil drum in a pit and hinge open the lid. Then you coat the lid in the coconut. The rats come for the coconut and plink, plink, plink, plink, plink, plink, plink; they fall into the trap. Then what do you do? Throw it in the ocean? Burn it? No. You just leave it. And then one by one...
[mimics rat munching sound]
Raoul Silva: They start eating each other until there are only two left. The two survivors. Then what do you do? Kill them? No. You release them into the trees. But they will not eat coconut anymore. Now they will only eat rat. You have changed their nature. The two survivors, this is what she made us.

 

So if we are to judge a Bond film by the villain then this is a success. 

Ah, the leg touching...

Sam Mendes is a strange choice for director. He's famous in my book for American Beauty and Revolutionary Road. Both are domestic dramas set in the suburbs of a disillusioned America... so I'm left wondering how they thought this would translate to 007?? Yes yes, he did Jarhead and Road to Perdition (which Craig stars in) but they still aren't in the same field as "Bond, James Bond". However after saying all that I do think Mendes makes the leap in fine style... and he still has the traditional Bond screenwriters in Neal Purvis and Robert Wade. Also don't forget that in Craig he has a legit actor who is much more than a warm (British) body in a suit. There are still a lot of traditional flashy shots and scenes which seem to take place just for grandiosity but at the end of the day the acting seems to be improving in each Bond movie.

So, does M's increased role go down well? I'm sure most blokes wanted to see supermodels in skimpy dresses rather than M in dreary oldschool suits... but would you rather compromise and have Dench in lingerie? Think on it ;)

Overall there's a lot of cheesy one-liners to go along with the loveable Bond wit. There's also enough nostalgia and British patriotism to make you think the Empire is making a comeback. Most importantly though there is enough action to sink your teeth into, and an Aston Martin to please the senses.

It's decent... though I was expecting it to tie in with the last two movies (did things come to a close at the end of Quantum?). And part of me does feel like they hit a six on Casino Royale and have been hitting singles and fours ever since.

7/10. 

Daniel Craig better shave or he'll lose his place on Grandma's fridge!