Skyfall-- A Review

Picked up the Missus from work Sunday and met the parents over at Sycamore to go see the latest Bond movie, Skyfall. Daniel Craig's third outing as 007 more than redeems the perceived letdown that was Quantam of Solace (I really need to watch that again. I remember it being sort of OK but not much else.) and lives up to the hype and then some.

It's interesting because since the end of the Cold War, James Bond has been struggling with a sort of existential crisis that floats around the franchise- with the Soviets swept into the history books, Bond's been looking for an enemy and in the modern workplace, his innuendos and sexually harassing behavior didn't really work as well as they once did. In her debut in Goldeneye, Judi Dench's M makes it clear she considers Bond to be 'a misogynist dinosaur' and a 'relic of the Cold War.' And all the movie since then seem to be hellbent on proving that assessment wrong. In that respect, I think the Bond franchise mirrors a debate that's going on in the world of intelligence itself- do we need spies anymore?

Skyfall is the first Bond movie that takes the question head on and answers it decisively- all of which opens up interesting possibilities for future Bond movies that follow it. Skyfall opens with thrilling white-knuckle chase through Istanbul, with Bond and his partner Eve (Naomi Harris) in pursuit of a list of deep cover MI-6 agents that they can't let out into the open. They aren't successful and Bond gets shot and plunges into a river, presumed dead.

He enjoys himself for awhile, drinking and popping pain meds on a beach somewhere. (I love the beachside bar he parties in. Would love to have a bar like that someday. Maybe.) But the list is out in the open and after someone targets M (Judi Dench) by attacking MI-6, Bond comes back from the dead and is soon back in the action.

With MI-6's intelligence compromised, M finds herself under pressure as political enemies circle and Gareth Mallory (the always excellent Ralph Fiennes) is preparing to force her into retirement but M is determined the finish the job before retiring and figure out who is attacking them- and with Bond on the case, they quickly make headway as Bond finds himself in Shanghai and then in Macau (at another fabulous casino that would be fun to visit/own) and eventually on a deserted island facing down the cyber-terrorist, rogue agent, blond haired villain Silva (Javier Bardem.)

With his performance, Bardem elevates Silva (with his blonde hair and exposure of secrets, there's a strange parallel to Wikileaks' Julian Assange) to the rank of iconic Bond villains and after a climactic showdown in London, he's lured north by Bond and M for one, final showdown that proves to be the most satisfying and intense conclusion to a Bond film in years.

Sam Mendes was a brilliant choice to direct this movie... the cinematography stands out, especially when Bond is in China- the brilliant colors of the brightly lit Shanghai form an eerie dreamscape and Macau springs to life just as vividly. He also manages to pay homage to the past history of the franchise while bringing some familiar figures (such as the new young computer hacker Q played wonderfully by Ben Whishaw.) He's created a back-to-basics type of Bond but one (as the symbolism of the final showdown makes clear) won't be tied down by the past either. Daniel Craig's performance as Bond brings the best of Roger Moore's wry humor and Sean Connery's grittiness to make his interpretation of the role unique, iconic and entirely his own- and as the movie points out, it's getting harder and harder to figure out who the bad guys are these days and when one man can do so much damage with such relative ease, sometimes, as a character says, a trigger has to be pulled- so as the closing credits promise, James Bond Will Return.

Overall: **** out of **** James Bond is back, baby and the future is brighter than it's been in a long time for 007. Never mind four more years- 50 MORE YEARS!

P.S. Father Cigar raised an interesting point over post-movie martinis last night. With both Bond and Doctor Who turning 50 has our creativity stagnated and become so moribund that we have to keep franchises like Bond and Who going so long? I'd give that a cautious maybe- after all, to go so long, you'd have to be able to produce material to keep people watching. But it's an interesting question to ponder.