Skyfall (2012)

**/****
starring Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes, Judi Dench
screenplay by Neal Purvis & Robert Wade and John Logan
directed by Sam Mendes

by Walter Chaw For me, the James Bond films are the literalization of a very particular Conservative fantasy in which a suave, quippy, emotionally-arrested sociopath battles Cold War foes, beds beautiful women without consequence, always has the latest technology, and engages in the endless murder of foreigners. Just suggesting a "license to kill" reveals a certain level of arrogance; and it's their confrontation of the noisome wake left by those attitudes that makes On Her Majesty's Secret Service and the more recent Casino Royale the powerhouses that they are. Skyfall, the latest in the decades-spanning series, tries but fails to do the same. A good part of the problem can be traced back to non-action director Sam Mendes (superseding Marc Forster, non-action director of the disastrous Quantum of Solace), who, in trying to honour the visceral requirements of the genre, finds himself unable to produce either a meaty melodrama or a capable action vehicle.

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What's left is a movie that engages in hackneyed, hollow, pocket psychoanalysis of our brooding hero. It's tempting to compare it to the regressive introspection of Christopher Nolan's operatic Dark Knight trilogy, but Skyfall lacks the feeling that it's accessing myth. Because of this, it also lacks that crucial element of archetypal resonance. Neither contemporary nor timeless, it is, in other words, neither fish nor fowl. Trace the rest of its problems to a sledgehammer colonialist/misogynistic ethos that self-identifies in the picture's closing moments with a mission statement that it's done "playing" around with the complex, ambiguous groundwork laid out in Casino Royale and ready to "get back to work" at the destructive, brute, un-reflective, and incurious pastimes of little boys.

Bond (Daniel Craig) is presumed dead after a curiously lifeless prologue edited with far greater skill and intelligence for the trailer. The victim of a stray bullet from a ditzy colleague Biblically-tipped as Eve (Naomie Harris), he spends his time in self-imposed, Bourne-like exile until a terrorist plot takes out part of MI6's London headquarters, sending him back under the auspices of department head M (Judi Dench)--whom Bond calls "bitch" in one of this unpleasant film's more unpleasant moments--in an effort to stop evil ex-agent Silva (Javier Bardem, deserving an Oscar or something). The disappointing dearth of screentime for Silva goes back to Skyfall's dedication to the idea that Bond's worst enemy is his shitty childhood, and that once all totems related to that childhood--including any surrogate mother figures he may have picked up along the way--have been exorcised, Bond can stop being such a moody bastard and start molding the world in his image without conscience. It's a troubling thing handled as a triumphal return--very much the ending of The Silence of the Lambs where a serial killer is cheered for a little pun that promises the death of an undesirable.

Q (Ben Whishaw) appears for the first time in the reboot series as a computer hacker who hands out the film's lone gadget (a gun coded to Bond's handprint), leading to an encounter with a digital Komodo dragon that is unbelievably stupid. Q's role, like Eve's (like M's), is essentially as further belief that the reimagining of this franchise as a serious one instead of an essentially escapist one is akin to feminization and to be suffered no longer. Skyfall is motivated not by vengeance or duty, but by "stop acting like such a fucking pussy." It's reductive to the extreme. It's an old-fashioned Bond movie--or at least promises the next one will be--and that's good news for many.

Skyfall additionally introduces British war hero Mallory (Ralph Fiennes) and Bond girl/cannon fodder Sévérine (Bérénice Marlohe), the latter given backstory as a child-whore saved from her fate of forced prostitution by mad Silva only to be summarily executed by him in a sequence cruel mainly for the total lack of interest anyone shows in her passing. That's par for the course in Bonds past, granted, but it lands with real impact in Skyfall for all the attempts to present the psychic damage of the male leads. Here, Silva, Bond, and a long list of dead agents are the orphaned children of Shiva-like M: the progenitor and the destroyer; Eve's decision to step away from field work to be a receptionist and the complete marginalization of a woman's role in this universe mean that the picture is best read as a bitter portrait of threatened masculinity. I love the pregnant moment beneath the surface of a frozen pond where Bond has to light a flare to find his way to the surface. What is it about if not regression and denial? In its way, it's the ideal counterpart to Julia Loktev's The Loneliest Planet, which likewise examines the toll that upholding a masculine ideal takes on men (as well as the directions this tension takes in our relationships with the opposite sex), albeit from a woman's perspective (Loktev's) as opposed to through the lens of the most testosterone-rich franchise in the history of film.

To that end, Skyfall's action sequences are more metaphor than kineticism. Mendes, stuck on a theme, predictably has no idea how to shoot an exciting chase and even less understanding of how to use Craig's craggy profile as iconography, making the picture's ending something like an apology for two-and-a-half hours of shallow character development. Skyfall isn't a disaster, but it is small and spiteful, maybe, and not nearly exciting enough to excuse its sins of simplistic self-justification. If only the movie were about Silva instead.

Comments

[Simon Fallaha]

Stephanie:

Glad you agree. Royale did more than re-invent Bond in a post-9/11 world; it brought Bond as close to the essence of Fleming as he had ever been, something Dalton's admirable efforts couldn't quite do (The Living Daylights was too Moore-esque; Licence To Kill, commendable though it was, was obviously capitalising on the success of Die Hard and drug dealers as villains). Your comment about Moore also reminds me why a lot of '80s entertainments wouldn't work today; as good as they might have been, they were products of their time. Then again, retro ain't necessarily retrograde, as Super 8 and The Artist have proved - but the directors of those films understood the essence of what make Spielbergian entertainment and silent films WORK, regardless of the era they were placed in, something that Mendes just couldn't manage.

Walter:

The first two paragraphs of your review sum up exactly how I feel about the film, and also why I rate OHMSS and Royale so highly. (Though the sublime From Russia With Love also deserves a mention.)

[Stephanie]

You were dead-on about this. One interesting action sequence and a couple of good character moments from superior actors. Regression from Casino Royale, for sure. It was sentimental and nostalgic in all the wrong ways. Like an homage to the Roger Moore era (which, don't get me wrong, I'm fond of Roger Moore, but it's been done).

[Simon Fallaha]

Paulgill Bcn:

I would have watched Royale for longer than that - the denouement was the emotional centre of the movie! But that's a good point about Royale and Quantum; as praiseworthy as they are for their timeliness, focus and grit, maybe they were just a little TOO timely. You could easily criticise Nolan's Batman for the same reason. But anyway, I found both Royale and Quantum to be a compelling saga about love, money and trust; films that knew what they were doing and why they were doing it. Popular films that had something to say. Skyfall didn't fall into this category at all. It was just a... hodgepodge, really, an uneasy hodgepodge. And I'm with you about Javier Bardem, I was shocked at the lack of true menace in Silva.

Ah well. At least the rest of the cast and Roger Deakins did well, right?

[Paulgill Bcn]

I turned off Casino Royale during the torture scene near the end, and turned off QoS very early on when M said to some hapless detainee, "Nobody knows you're here. We can do whatever we want to you." There was something really objectionable to me about how the Bush admin's torture policies seeped into the popular culture. A five-star review in the London Times led me to the cinema to see Skyfall. I sat there pondering my decision to come in spite of the fact that I've never liked Sam Mendes' films. I thought about getting up and leaving but stayed put because I thought Javier Bardem might redeem it. I can't agree with the posters here who think he was brilliant. There's nothing more off-putting than having to watch a non-English speaker tiptoe bring all his concentration to bear on producing his lines. It takes somebody really really proficient with the language to use the word "gorged" in a line and Bardem's English just isn't that good. I have to wonder at why they insist on bringing in these foreign baddies when there are plenty of brilliant native-English speaking actors who could do the job ten times better simply because the language is effortless for them. Vincent Cassel in Black Swan is, I think, another case in point. Anyway, thanks for articulating more intelligently than I could many of the things that are wrong with this film.

[DJ Becker]

I just saw Skyfall and couldn't agree more with this review. I was so disappointed and disturbed by the attitude toward women, as well as the misuse of Bardem (who was brilliant). I also found myself bored through much of the movie's action scenes. I don't understand all the love this movie is getting. Casino Royale was head-and-shoulders better.. (Love the Home Alone comparison!)

[NotALittleWhineyBitch]

A very poor angry, angry woman wrote this review. I find so pedantic that women like this harp on the so-called 'fragile and constantly threatened male ego' yet fail to realize that this veiled attempt to marginalize traditional masculine traits is simply the result of the need for these women (these pathetic women) to desperately feel superior and more powerful.

[Mike]

I think most audiences and critics have low expectations so they'll just give it a 9 or a 10 because it's better than most hollywood drek. But it squanders so much potential that I can't do that.

The opening is great, one of the best ever. The middle section is good but soggy in parts. And the entire third act feels like it's lifted from a whole other movie and just got grafted onto the end (ala Casino Royale - the movie ends. Then we get another half hour of...stuff).

It had great promise. The opening 45 minutes or so were superb. And Javier Bardem (who doesn't show up until about 70 minutes into a 140 min film) could have been a great villain (if they'd given him more scenes and a better endgame plan). But the movie just lurched along from plot-point to set-piece.

And don't me started on the whole Moneypenny fan service or the Not-Sean-Connery role played by Albert Finney.

If audiences and critics think this is a 9 or a 10, either their expectations are too low or they're high.

[kdringg]

HOME ALONE

That is where this, the GREATEST BOND MOVIE ever!!!! steals its ending from.

HOME Freaking ALONE.

Weak, weak sauce.

I am so glad that there are finally people calling out this rehashed 80's action movie. I hadn't see a Bond movie since Clinton's first term and if this is the BEST!!! it can do? No thanks.

[Diana]

I noticed the wide stance as well - no less than 3 times, if I recall correctly.

Half of me enjoyed the film, half was confused and disappointed.

What troubled me most is the unneccessary, overly complicated plan of Silva's to get inside MI-6 headquarters to assasinate M.
Ahhh, he already hacked into their system, it stands to reason he knew where she lived, what her precise schedule was ... he could've snuck into London and plunked a bullet in her head while she bathed, for crying out loud?
But instead we are treated to a pointless and boring waltz through the tunnels.
I realize this intricate "clever" plan of evil geniuses is a staple of this franchise, but isn't it a cliche that is lampooned by the likes of Austin Powers and his lazer sharks?

At any rate - I enjoyed the idea of learning about Bond's childhood and family... but although Skyfall's deteroriated mansion was fascinating, we learn scant little about what the heck happened to his parents, and how he ended up recruited by country. Nothing, really. Just a quip by M that "orphans make the best recruits". Duh.

The new politically correct Moneypenny is a terrible idea. They intentionally change the original, awesome dynamic of the pining secretary who can go toe to toe with Bond verbally, but is never bedded. Now, she has to be "empowered" by having had field experience, and is the one sexually turning down James' advances. Sacrilege. Don't fix what isn't broken, Mendes. Their flirting is all about keeping Moneypenny at bay while never belittling her. Plus, Ms. Harris and Daniel Craig have zero chemistry.

I wish they had nailed the conflict of M weighing her decisions to let agents die. Clearly they were wanting to explore that, but I felt I didn't get inside M to see what she was thinking at any given time. Dench played it toooo close to the vest. As riveting and emotionally gratifying as her final line to Bond was "I got something right" - we don't know if she had complete regret on her role overall, if she felt she failed utterly ... or what. Gah.

[Chris]

I just saw the movie and was astounded by how poor it was. I went to see how the reviews sat on Rotten Tomatoes when I got home and am so surprised that so many are complimenting it. It was so generic and blunt. I could go into detail, but what's the point. Every review that's negative seems to hit it on the head, though. It's nice to see some agreement from some, but with ratings going this well, I guess it will just continue this way. I won't be following it anymore. I felt like I was watching Batman with Mr. Freeze or MI:2, or how those Pierce Brosnan Bond films struck me after Goldeneye. I also noticed the music. I kept thinking of House and was wondering if they were actually using some average Fox weeknight TV show soundtrack.

[Stephanie]

Thanks, I wonder if anyone else saw this perspective? Or is sort of bothered, but not quite sure why. Sounds disappointing on many levels.

[KayKay]

SPOILER ALERT!!

What annoys me, apart from the unforgivable 2.5 hr running length (for a Bond flick????) is this urge to shade layers into a Guns, Girls and Gadgets franchise whose concern once upon a time was to provide 90 minutes of pure escapism.

In its relentless insistence on tacking an Origins Tale onto a Bond flick, Skyfall is merely hewing to the current established Template for all Superhero Series , but it's key failing is in taking so freaking long to tell it!! 3 movies to let you know how Bond met Q, Moneypenny, why he dicks and discards women and how M came to be the one we know in the pre-Brosnan era. Spielberg merely required a 30 minute prologue in The Last Crusade to explain how Indy got his hat, whip, chin scar and pathological fear of snakes. And 1 movie to link the effect of absent parents to it's hero's unquenchable thirst for thrill-seeking.

[sabine]

Yep. I can't recall female M ever having been portrayed as such a hollow functionary, humanly defeated and done away with in the end. Eve too, I don't get the joke, or rather I get it and feel sick. But ever since Sam Mendes pimped out Annette Bening for facile jokes on "American Beauty" I am wary of his work. (People loved the character which I never understood. You show your characters but don't show up their dignity. Question of a director's integrity.) Did "Road to Perdition" have any women in it? I don't even remember.

Javier Bardem, on the other hand - perfection. I am surprised no one ever mentioned the visual closeness to Ghaddafi, the képi, the strange mullet, the marriage of military power and unhingedness.
Gay (there must be a better word, only I don't find it)-Ghaddafi-Frankenstein-zombie-genius. If this guy is Bond's evil twin - and for the first time the villain really is -, what does the story do with that? What happens when the shadow's destroyed/integrated? When people crawl out of their underground tunnels/caves/wombs?Bond returns to service under an understanding ex-military guy "with pleasure, sir, with pleasure." A very unpleasant ending and no more Mendes for me.

And what's up with the superhero stance Bond and assorted others adopt from time to time? See picture above, legs far apart.

Sigh.

[Chris]

Wow, no comments yet?

Very well-written review. I don't know what my reaction to Skyfall is going to be yet, but certain aspects of the story sound... troubling. I will say I don't share the pessimistic outlook on the future of the franchise, just because so many filmmakers get to take their shot at James Bond that I find it hard to believe all of them will carry the same "regressive" torch through the better part of a decade. Then again, John Logan just signed a contract to do two more of these things.