I would have to say that it is many years since I have seen a James Bond film, and that the Austin Powers spoofs are far more memorable. I went to see this one with my brother, who has been following them more closely and feels that Daniel Craig is the most realistic Bond.
I suppose all these films are somewhat formulaic, but this one must represent a transitional phase and celebrates the 50th anniversary of Bond films.
The musical theme is reasonably attractive and sung in a "lazy lounge singer" mode by Adele.
The opening sequence is quite spectacular, involving Bond chasing a 'baddie' who has stolen a hard drive containing the names of undercover agents. The iconic Hagia Sophia is visible across the rooftops of Istanbul. A train-top wrestle results in Bond being shot during the tustle (on the orders of M) at the last possible opportunity prior to entering a tunnel and disappearing from view by a 'Foxy Lady' agent (who turns out to be Miss Moneypenny). Bond falls into the river below, and the villain disappears with the hard drive.
Just as an aside, there are two Swedish connections in this film. Firstly, Daniel Craig, with his impossibly blue eyes enhanced in this film, took the starring role of Mikael Blomkvist in the Hollywood remake of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo". The second is that the opening villain (Patrice) is played by Ola Rapace, (former husband of Noomi Rapace, electrifying as Lisbeth Salander in the original Swedish version of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”) who played the tortured detective Stefan in the Swedish Wallander series.
Bond goes "missing in action", relying on hot women and cool drinks near a beach somewhere to get him through the day. He eventually returns to London after MI6 is bombed, presumably by the person in possession of the hard drive. After this debacle MI6 moves to Churchill's wartime bunker under London, and Bond goes through a series of tests designed to assess his fitness for service. Unbeknownst to him he fails every test, but M tells him he is fit for service. He is assigned a new quartermaster ("Q"), who is a geeky computer nerd. In a break from the tradition of lots of high-tech gadgets, Bond is simply given a gun (programmed to his hand-print) and a radio homing-beacon.
M is called to answer some hard questions about how the bungle of the loss of the hard drive could possibly have occurred. Dame Judi Dench as "M" is simply brilliant in this film. She is tough, decisive and uncompromising in her belief that there is still a job to be done and that she is not going to be forced into retirement until the job is finished. M rightly makes the point that the people they are dealing with "live in the shadows" and do not play by the normal rules.
Bond eventually catches up with the villain in Shanghai as he is carrying out an assassination and after the villain falls to his death without spilling the beans he catches the eye of a beautiful and exotic woman in the building opposite where the assassination has occurred.
Predictably Bond by coincidence meets up with this beautiful exotic woman in a casino in Macau and ends up sailing with her to an island to meet her puppet master, who is the real villain of the piece. However, he finds time to get up close and personal in the shower on the way to the island.
The villain, Raoul Silva (played by Javier Bardem) is a talkative and twisted former MI6 agent, who reminded me of the Joker in Batman, and was equally annoying. He talks at length about cornered rats eating each other. The woman is insouciantly killed by Silva, and then courtesy of the homing beacon, reinforcements arrive and Silva is captured and taken to London. Not surprisingly, after a chat with M, whom he blames for all his problems, but hardly remembers him, he escapes into the sewers of London. He is pursued by Bond, who has a couple of unpleasant close encounters with trains as a result. It turns out his real target is the Houses of Parliament, where M is appearing as a witness in front of an enquiry.
Bond manages to get there in the nick of time and spirit M away in an antique roadster (one of the earlier Bond cars). Her trusty assistant is left behind in the rush. Bond drives M to his family home, Skyfall, in the glacial landscape of the highlands of Scotland. In the dour bluestone building he encounters the Kincade, the gamekeeper, who informs him that as he was presumed dead, all the contents of the gun cupboard bar his father's ancient shotgun have recently been sold. However, with a bit of imagination and some handy dynamite they rig the property in preparation for the coming invasion. There is a priest's bolthole which leads to the outside and escape across the moors to the nearby chapel, and this proves to be useful later on.
When Silva and his cronies eventually arrive in style on foot and by helicopter, the weapons in Bond's car prove useful and all three stage a handy resistance. However M is injured, and Bond orders M and Kincade to escape to the chapel, where he will meet them. The gamekeeper is a perfect gentleman, and he is very protective of M, and for a moment I felt some hope that they would all get out of this alive and that the widowed M would find happiness with the gentlemanly gamekeeper, but this was not to be.
Bond does a pretty good job of finishing off nearly all the baddies, but alas Silva has followed the torchlight across the moors and confronts M and Kincade in the chapel. Bond arrives and makes a comment about the last two rats left standing, and the villain meets his demise. Sadly, also does M.
In the graveyard of the chapel is a tombstone for Bond's parents as he was orphaned at an early age. They both bear the name "Bond", but wasn't that a code name?
Back in London, Bond is briefed by Gareth Mallory, the new M, a former politician who was initially trying to force M (Dench) to retire, but was also a soldier who had seen service, and played a handy role in the parliamentary siege and was wounded in the process. He is capably played by Ralph Fiennes, well-known for his role in Harry Potter (Lord Voldemort). Miss Moneypenny has decided to stick to a desk job (much to the relief of Bond) but there appears to be some "UST" (unresolved sexual tension) between them, so this is sure to play a part in future storylines.
This film has been promoted as "Bond getting back to basics", and there are strong performances from Craig and Dench, and I thought M's assistant was terrific. Ralph Fiennes (Mallory/new “M”), Naomie Harris (Moneypenny) and Albert Finney (Kincade, the gamekeeper) were also good supporting characters. It is a pity that the villain was so annoyingly 'over the top' as this detracted from the potential enjoyment. Violence and death are of course common bedfellows in Bond films, and it is ironic that in our desire for Bond to succeed we overlook the fact that he is a cold-blooded hired killer! It is a clever and visually spectacular movie, and Craig is convincing as a very human Bond seeking redemption through the thing that he does best. In a way it is also closure, as his family estate is pretty well destroyed by the end of the siege, and he simply says "I never liked the place"!
If you are a Bond fan you are likely to enjoy this one, but as an action adventure movie it probably occupies the middle ground - neither bad nor exceptionally good.
Through Twitter I was alerted to a really fabulous article on the ABC website by Jeff Sparrow on “Skyfall as a parable of reactionary generationalism” – well worth a read!
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4423982.html.
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