Skyfall
One thing that Sam Mendes’s phenomenal new Bond film, “Skyfall,” makes abundantly clear: I have to get my hands on the just-released Bond 50 box set, and get caught up with the longest-running franchise in movie history. Not because it’s important to appreciate the film, but because it’s unfortunate that, 17 years after my first Bond film (“Goldeneye”), the only “Golden Age” film in the franchise I’ve seen is “Goldfinger.” (As of this writing, at least.)
After a soft entry in 2008’s “Quantum of Solace,” the franchise, and star Daniel Craig, are clicking on all cylinders, as 007 is sent on the run of a criminal who has stolen a drive with the names of undercover MI-6 agents. Who is he working for? We won’t know that until more than halfway through the film, but what we see at the start doesn’t instill confidence that Bond will get the job done. In the gripping opening sequence, Bond and a fellow agent (Naoime Harris) are chasing down the perpetrator, and by the end of it, they have him on top of a train. But they’re about to lose him, so under directive from M (the incomparable Judi Dench, in her 7th, and finest, performance in the role), Bond’s partner takes a risky shot; Bond falls to the river below, and the criminal gets away. Bond is believed to be dead.
Don’t worry, the producers know better than to kill off their hero for some silly plot twist. It’s all part of the game that comes into play when MI-6 is attacked in a cyber-terror attack, and the words, “Think on your sins,” pop up on M’s laptop. Of course, with the names of MI-6 agents out there already, M is in hot water with the government, who has brought in a mysterious bureaucrat (the sly Ralph Fiennes) to transition MI-6 into, well, younger hands. The screenplay by John Logan and Bond vets Neal Purvis and Robert Wade gives Dame Judi some smart, emotional material, and the Oscar winner (already on the radar this year with the indie hit, “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”) nails every nuance, especially in a finale that takes some great left turns from cliche, and solidifies a deeper bond between M and 007 than we’ve ever seen before. Craig and Dench are electric in the roles, so comfortable with what they’re expected to do that they have great freedom to delve off into almost-unchartered territory for this popcorn franchise.
Of course, we can thank Mendes for that, who takes a break from thoughtful, Oscar-bait movies (starting with Best Picture winner “American Beauty” and continuing with “Road to Perdition,” “Jarhead,” “Revolutionary Road,” and “Away We Go”) to show off his chops with blockbuster escapism. But it’s not that simple; Mendes wants to not just create a great action movie (and “Skyfall” succeeds brilliantly at that), but also re-energize the franchise by turning his focus to character. The film’s villain, a vengeful ex-agent at MI-6 played by Oscar winner Javier Bardem (who equals his work in “No Country for Old Men” is off-the-wall evil with laser-focused pathos), is one of the best in the franchise’s history, especially in the ways he manipulates M and Bond psychologically, which is the deadliest weapon Bond has ever had to deal with. Like a good superhero movie, Bond rises and falls with his villains, and Bardem’s is one of his most challenging adversaries.
If you get a chance to see this movie on IMAX, I couldn’t recommend it more. The digital cinematography by Roger Deakins is some of his best, and continues in the evocative path he’s followed in films from “Revolutionary Road” (for Mendes) and “Fargo” to “Kundun” and “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford”; there’s a lot of competition this year for the cinematography Oscar, but I’ll be damned if Deakins– who’s been nominated nine times without winning –shouldn’t be the favorite. Same goes for composer Thomas Newman, another great behind-the-scenes talent who has, shamefully, never won an Oscar, and composes one of the best Bond scores in recent memory to accompany a great theme song by Adele. To be fair, the finale is stretched out a bit too much, but everything else comes together perfectly for not only a classic Bond thriller, but one of the best pieces of escapist filmmaking of the year. I don’t know about you, but I could go for 50 more years of Bond after this one.
