Well I figured I'd actually write something ... a review of some kind ... sorry for lack of coherency, SPAG issues etc.
Daniel Craig’s third outing as James Bond, the suave, sophisticated, and speedo-wearing 007 agent was simply put awesome – and this is meant in the original meaning of the word. Awe filled me from the beginning to end as I sat in the cinema, eyes drinking up the stunning visuals and the story line.
The film opens up – as many actions films do these days – with a high-speed car, motorbike and train chase through Istanbul. The direction is clear, the shots stunning and you know Bond is back – this one slightly older and more refined than the one we saw back in Quantum of Solace.
The entire film moves as this pace – its fast, it doesn’t lag, but it isn’t like Quantum where you are thrown into it and left no room to simply breath. Skyfall has had the fat cut out but it isn’t a energiser bunny about to smash into a wall - and looks damn fine for it. It has its quiet moments – the moment when Bond turns up in M’s home is one such. Dench and Craig give this feeling of time passing by, this easy rapport between the two of them.
Its this bond that I’ve love in the Craig films – Bond and M. There is some dislike about how M mothers, how is too much the ‘mommy’ to Bond’s teenage angsting and rebellious ways (as witnessed in Casino Royale and Quantum), but I love it. And incredibly fitting that this concern becomes central to the villain and his motive.
On that note: to put it simply Silva is a creepy motherfucker.
The way he’s played is slightly Ledger Joker, slightly Sherlock BBC’s Moriarty. It’s a popular trend to have the villain a little crazy these days – off kilter. Javier Bardem wears this well, not only getting up close in Bond’s face but also in ours. Its intimate this meeting of Mommy’s two boys, how Silva gently trails his fingers across Bond’s collar bone, runs his hands down his thigh – Craig’s acting here is slightly uncomfortable at the start, Bond is on edge, but he comes back with a quip, not letting Silva get the advantage.
This scene has raised a few queries on the sexuality of Bond. Silva I feel is bi-sexual at least, and Bond I can only assume is using pure bravado or maybe experimented a little at boarding school? Who knows. That is the thing with this film, all the characters have depth, have their own story, and I didn’t feel like I was being force-fed.
The other thing about Silva is his goal – is relatively simple, he wants peace and the only way for that to be achieved is to take out Mommy – my elder brother related to me afterwards how he loved this, instead of some ‘LETS TAKE OVER THE WORLD!’ this was a realistic goal – but off-set with Silva being larger than life. Did he really need to make Bond chase him through the underground? He had men already stationed in the bloody courtroom – he didn’t have to. But he did because he could. He was outrageous but believable and it worked. He was human but the other.
But leaving the villain aside lets discuss the Bond Girls: Severine and Eve.
Severine was a traditional Bond girl: the villain’s girl, sleeps with Bond, looks gorgeous standing on the staircase in the casino. She minds me a little of Lupe in Licence to Kill. It was a risky move on the writers part to make Severine a sex slave and while it isn’t uncommon to have damaged women in Bond, novels and films alike. But, at least in the film ‘verse, (please refresh my memory if I’m off the mark) I don’t feel we’ve had a Bond girl who is outright stated to have been a sex slave since twelve or thirteen. That immediately places her in a vulnerable place, at least for me. She has been forced into prostitution as a child – how valid is her consent? Or is it foolish of me to question it because she is a grown woman come Skyfall? But did she want to bed Bond? Or did Silva request it? He wanted to be caught in the end – so how do we know what her true feelings on the matter? I could go on.
And then her death: could Bond has saved her? Should he have saved her?
Mendes reminds us here that Bond does not live in the world of ‘exploding pens’ as Q puts it. The Bond films are largely escapist and a little ridiculous but this brutal reality is there – it is there in all the films. Bond’s world is a dark and solitary one amidst the fun we expect from the films.
And now Eve: can’t drive, can’t shoot, oh dear she’s a girl as well. No, in the end this didn’t diminish her, and it wasn’t a negative her ending – even in the courtroom scene she packed some heat, demonstrating she isn’t incompetent. I loved how they introduced her – I love how we saw her beginning, we saw how Bond and her start their little tit for tat. Naomi Harris rocked the part.
We also saw the return of Q. Despite the ‘old way is the best way’ theme I loved how they de-aged the character, giving Ben Whishaw a real chance to Q his own and not a copy like I always saw Cleese’s R. And also kept him relevant to the new era.
And of course Fiennes. The Aston Martin. The End - oh that end was simply perfect, how Silva broke down and that was crushing - I hope Bardem gets an Oscar or something out of this. All of those references were slipped in nicely, as was the product placement. Enough said.
So in short: Skyfall is a traditional Bond film in every right – it has the laughs, it has the action, it has the girls, it has a outrageous but believable villain, it has the elements shaken just right, and it’s a return to a new golden age.
A+
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