And IMHO the actual dispatching of one of the villains, by an inexperienced assassin bent on personal revenge, was effectively done and avoided the formulaic feel of many okay-here’s-the-big-fight-where-the-villain-will-die scenes. (ISTM there’s a hint of the original short-story version of For Your Eyes Only in that subplot, for yet more movie mishmash.)
Skyfall (2012)
“Were you expecting an exploding pen? We don’t really go in for that kind of thing anymore.”
Skyfall is kind of – how shall I put this? – a movie about itself. Or perhaps more to the point, it’s about where we are in the Bond franchise. As M is subjected to hearings to decide if MI6 should even continue to exist, a former agent with a grudge is coming after her. Bond decides to take M “back in time” to deal with the threat. He takes his old Aston-Martin out of mothballs and lures the bad guys to his old childhood home.
But the messages are all a bit muddled. We’re already three films into Daniel Craig’s run, and now they decide to acknowledge the transition to a new era of 007? If the Aston-Martin represents the “old” Bond, then its destruction symbolizes a turning point, a move forward. Craig’s reaction in the moment captured that nicely, I thought. On the other hand, the foreshadowing of the knife being ultimately used to dispatch Silva came with Kincade’s line, “Sometimes the old ways are the best.” And the film ends with a sort of reset to how things used to be - a stuffy male M sits in his gilded library of an office with Moneypenney stationed outside his door.
So it’s almost as if we’re moving forward and backward at the same time. Or maybe they decided to self-correct a bit of the whiplash in tone that came along with the start of Craig’s tenure. Or maybe I’m way overthinking the whole thing. At least nobody got blown up with compressed air.
Oh, and by the way, where did that tricked-out Aston-Martin even come from? The introduction of Craig’s Bond kind of had a reboot feel to it; in Casino Royale it was mentioned that he was a relatively new agent. He didn’t seem to share the same continuity as Moore’s or Connery’s versions. And he certainly hasn’t been with MI6 for 50 years. So was the car from his own past, or a relic of the old days of MI6 that he somehow got his hands on, or what? Again, I’m probably overthinking.
And even though I’m nitpicking the themes and messages, I really enjoyed the film. It’s tense and exciting with a fairly straightforward plot (for a Bond film, anyway). The pre-credits sequence may be my favorite one ever. Just outstanding, edge-of-your-seat stuff.
Terrific performances all around. Javier Bardem was a great baddie. I absolutely fell in love with Naomie Harris (and we get to see more of her! Yay!). Ralph Fiennes, Rory Kinnear, and Ben Wishaw (the new, young Q) all pulled their weight admirably. Nice to see Albert Finney as the old groundskeeper, though I wish he’d had more to do.
And of course, Dame Judi Dench is absolutely superb. I read that she has had the most cumulative screen time of any supporting player in the Bond franchise. I can’t think of anyone who deserves it more.
I was less thrilled with Berenice Marlohe’s character, Severine. The actress did fine, I suppose, but I think the sexy henchwoman who exists only to sleep with Bond, betray her boss, and get killed is one element the franchise should very deliberately be trying to leave behind. And it seemed to me that Bond could have saved her; he saved himself easily enough after she was dead.
Finally, did anyone else think of Home Alone when they were booby-trapping the house?
Next up: Spectre
I suppose the plot is fairly straightforward, but Silva’s (Bardem) scheme to kill M is ridiculously convoluted. He gets himself captured knowing where MI6 will hold him, knowing they’ll connect his computer to their network, knowing the virus he planted will spring him loose, knowing exactly when and where he’ll make his escape, and knowing he’ll have henchmen and disguises meet him exactly when and where he needs them.
And even if you accept all of that, Bond catches him in the middle of his escape. Bond has him at gunpoint. There’s no reason to keep him alive, no information they can try to extract from him. And Bond has shown no hesitation to kill people before. Nonetheless, Bond and Silva start monologuing, until a perfectly-timed subway train comes along and Silva slips away. I just couldn’t take the movie remotely seriously after that.
Okay, I’ve been doing a little reading, and this may or may not be meant to be the same DB5 that Craig’s Bond won from Dimitrios in Casino Royale. They are clearly different cars, though. The one in CR was left-hand drive and not all gadgeted up. Perhaps James has been doing an extensive secret conversion for the past six years.
Silva’s plan is so convoluted and required such precise timing that the only way it could ever work is magic.
But even worse is Bond’s response. He looks like he’s going old school, with the Aston Martin. It looks like he’s going to lure Silva’s forces to Skyfall, where a trap (I would assume) will be sprung with a unit of SAS types that Silva never expects.
But no! Bond’s “brilliant” plan is to have him and M and his groundskeeper hold off a force of trained mercs, who have a helicopter gunship (!) with some old hunting rifles. Yes, that’s not very strategious. And then, oops, all the rifles were sold. Brilliant planing.
I know the cool kids all think Die Another Day is the worst Bond, but really, Skyfall holds that distinction easily.
Where do the bad guys in Bond movies get all the henchmen and attack helicopters, anyway? What’s in it for the henchmen? It’s not like Silva was fighting on behalf of some country and could get men and equipment from their military.
I largely agree with Wheelz on this one, particularly about the overall high quality of the film, but this point above by JAQ is exactly how I feel about the climax. Ok, fine, leave some ‘breadcrumbs’ to lure Silva to The Middle of Nowhere, Scotland. But why oh why actually have M there with you? Why not have half the British army waiting? Or at least not just an old man with a rusty knife and an even rustier rifle?!
That all being said, the whole thing is just so damn well made and looks fantastic, I can’t dislike it, indeed I enjoy it a lot. Silva’s death was unintentionally hilarious though, I can’t have been the only one in the cinema at the time who was trying not to laugh?
Ranked 9/25.
I thought the implication was that there was a previous Q who DID give Bond exploding pens and tricked out cars. He got the car when he went against Goldfinger.
The exploding pen was Goldeneye, no?
Yes but the point is, Craig’s Bond lives in a parallel universe to the others. In my head I have Connery, Lazenby, Moore and Dalton as the same Bond, Brosnan as a second and Craig as the third.
I agree that it’s a parallel universe. But even in the Craigverse, Q gave Bond a tricked out DB5 to fight Goldfinger. Just because it wasn’t a Craig movie doesn’t mean it didn’t happen to Craig.
Just curious, why? Brosnan seems to be to be continuous with the others. Q is the same guy. M is different, but acknowledged as replacing the prior M. He’s clearly already a veteran agent in Goldeneye, and the new M describes the established personality of the character to a T.
That is a good point and I’d not thought about it like that before!
I mean, it was clearly just in in-joke/fan service but it’s good to be able to explain it.
It’s a slight stretch but not outrageous to say that Dalton is old enough to have been 007 in 1962, ok maybe a few years too young but not a lot, and they reference him being married in Licence to Kill, so he is the same character to me as Lazenby, who himself goes through various gadgets or keepsakes in OHMSS from Connery’s films. Brosnan’s character has no callbacks at all as far as I can remember, other than a brief reference to a predecessor of M, as you say, but that could be anyone as we never see old M drink at work (which is what the reference is about). And Brosnan is certainly not old enough in real life. I think about this stuff way more than I should haha.
Not only Dalton referenced being married: Moore as Bond went to Theresa’s grave right before Not-Bloefeld picked him up in the helicopter in FYEO.
But Lazenby-as-Bond looked at the camera and said “this never happens to the other fellow”.
And in DAD, when BrosnanBond is going through Q’s lab you can see relics of all 19 previous movies. True, that’s fan service - they didn’t all have to have been used by Bond his current regeneration.
My theory is it is a BTTF effect. There is time travel, and the universe keeps getting reset. It’s just that the Bond movie with the time traveling villain hasn’t been made yet.
The Lazenby line was ad libbed and winds up Bond nerds like me because it lends credence to the crazy ‘code name’ theory.
I’d forgotten about the DAD gadget cupboard, but then that whole film references previous films constantly.
I seem to remember that Die Another Day was supposed to have references to all the previous films, but I don’t know what they all are. Brosnan, as he’s leaving a room, takes a grape from a bowl and eats it. That’s a callback to Connery in Thunderball.
Whether any of those establish that the movies are in the same continuity, and Bond is the same character, I can’t say.
With apologies to The Princess Bride
Bond Girl: Oh, thank you for saving me, the world, and killing the evil criminal mastermind! But you never told me your name.
JB: Bond. James Bond.
BG: Wait! My mother worked for Hugo Drax. She was there when they launched all those space shuttles back in the 80s. She told me that some British secret agent stopped Drax and saved the world. His name was James Bond.
JB: Yes, it was.
BG:That can’t have been you! And my grandfather worked for this guy named No, before he realized he was bent on world domination, and he told us how this British agent stopped No’s nefarious scheme. His name was James Bond, too.
JB: Yes, that sounds right.
BG: But, it couldn’t have been you! You’d have to be over 70!
JB: I’m not.
BG: But then, how can it be?
JB: Well, you see, I am not really secret agent Bond, 007. My name is Colin and I inherited the name from the previous 007. The man I inherited it from was not the real James Bond, either. He inherited the name, or, as he puts it, “assumed the mantle” from the previous Bond. The original Bond has been retired for years and is living like a king in Scotland.
BG: What?
JB: And actually, his name was not Bond, either. There never really was any agent named James Bond. MI-6 borrowed the name from some book about birds. They found out long ago that it’s the name that instills fear in the enemy. All new 007’s go by the name Bond. No one would be scared of agent Colin.
BG: How long will you be Bond? Do you do this forever?
JB: It’s fun for a while, but, well, you try to get out before you get killed. The reputation is both a help and a hindrance. People always trying to kill you for things the other guy did. And one guy got married on the job, but his wife was killed. He never worked again, poor bloke.
Oooh, well…
Diamond-powered space laser (DAF)
“Diamonds aren’t for everyone” (DAF)
Union jack parachute (TSWLM)
Falling out the back of a flying plane, in another vehicle (TLD)
Invisible car (Just kidding)
Villain assumes a new identity and becomes a millionaire through dubious sources (Moonraker novel)
Birds of the West Indies book (where Bond got his name)
Bond girl emerges from the sea in a bikini, with a knife strapped to her hip (Dr No)
The aforementioned gadget room
The grape eating is a good spot. I’m sure there are loads more.
And plastic surgery. Also DAF.