SKYFALL

[4.1]

WARNING: LOADED WITH SPOILERS for those of you who care…

Yes, everyone is ranting that this is the best Bond film, and they may be right.  It is probably the best acted, most well-written, and most emotionally engaging film in the franchise.  But, I can’t say its the most fun Bond film.  Gone are the gadgets, slick one-liners, lustful affairs, and delightfully exaggerated villains.  This is a more realistic Bond, and the film never lets us forget that its taking things “back to the basics.” In many ways, this is an important step for the 50th anniversary of the character, a self-aware attempt to start a new chapter for the character: doing away with Judi Dench’s M (the one holdover from the Pierce Brosnan days), introducing the new Q and Ms. Moneypenny, and delving for the first time into the backstory of Bond as a human being, not just as 007.  While the film is delightfully intense and suspenseful, my one complaint would be that it is sometimes a bit too heavy.  The modern trend is to make our heroes emotionally flawed and oh so serious.  But, a part of me can’t help but miss the Bond who revels in sexual dalliances and delights in over-the-top car chases.  Did Daniel Craig even crack a single smile?  There’s no Bond Girl to speak of (although the pretty Bérénice Marlohe is effective in her brief appearance as Sévérine), and Q’s gadgets are limited to a tiny radio and gun that will only work in Bond’s hands (though the gun is quickly lost and forgotten after its first appearance in a fight).  Q humorously quips that MI6 doesn’t really go for exploding pens or any of those flashy gimmicks anymore, and while I loved seeing Bond resort to simply a shotgun and a knife, I still missed some of the flair of the old days.

That being said, the writers do an extraordinary job of bringing out a deeper, more introspective Bond.  He realizes, perhaps for the first time, just how expendable he is; a mere pawn, easily discarded, in the complex games of government.  When slimy villain Silva explains, fairly convincingly, that he is just like Bond, I almost wish Bond had been swayed a bit.  Silva was used and then given up to the enemy by M (in her defense, it was done in collusion with the Chinese to ensure a successful handover of Hong Kong), but somehow he survived the torture, but the cyanide corrupted his body and mind.  Bond is devoted to M, but Silva has a more hysterical attachment to her.  She becomes his surrogate mother (as she is for the orphan Bond), and we see how M time and again cleverly uses her matronly persona to command authority.  She does it with her agents (who all call her “Mum”) and she does it again in front of a board of government investigators, when she asks them if they really feel safe, implying that only her protective mother-knows-best decisions can safeguard the nation.  As M loses control and her secrets are revealed, she attempts to mask her desperate actions behind assertiveness.  It doesn’t end well for her.  While I enjoyed the sexual interrogation play between Silva and Bond, it was all too brief and too safe, especially since Silva resorts to typically Bond-ish dialogue afterwards.  I must say, the plot holds together incredibly well, with the surprise revelation of the meaning of “Skyfall” and its implications to Bond’s history.  So, while the film is a fascinatingly self-conscious strip-tease of its rich cinematic history, I hope this allows future installments to feel free to experiment more with the franchise and give us more of the spectacle and emotional resonance that this film demonstrates.