Review: Skyfall

As people who read this blog are wont to know, Erik enjoys a good movie.  Heck, sometimes he even enjoys a bad movie.  But how do you, the viewer, know which ones are worth your hard earned dollars and which ones shouldn't be saved if they're on the conveyor belt leading to the fire pit from Toy Story 3?  Well, Erik will do his part to help out.

This time, it's James Bond's latest blockbuster: Skyfall!

So, uh, yeah, there might be mild spoilers after the cut, but nothing more than you'd expect from most reviews.




I've consistently said that a movie can be broken down into five categories: lead character, supporting characters, villain, setting, and plot.  However, that's not to say that those are the only things to take into consideration when looking at a film to see how it holds up.  As my recent review of a My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic review pointed out, you also have to have a respect for continuity and details.

This film does a great job with one, but leaves me extremely puzzled with the other.  But we'll get to that.  First of all, the basics.

The Hero:

Daniel Craig makes a great James Bond.  I had difficulty at first when we saw him cold, ruthless, and willing to sacrifice others and a bigger picture to get what he wanted.  He reminded me of a character from a comic book named Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (not to be confused by the underrated Val Kilmer and Robert Downey, Jr. movie of the same name).  One of the lead characters was, in essence, a James Bond-type spy, but one who was pretty much a bastard.  The comic opens with the bad guy holding a gun to the "Bond girl's" head.  The agent calmly shoots them both, saying "why would I save her when I've already had her?"

The James Bond in this movie feels different, however.  To be fair, I barely remember the previous film (as many people I know have claimed, and they're all much bigger James Bond fans than I am).  However, I remember that James spent almost the entire movie angry and focused on stopping the bad guy for all the wrong reasons.

I remember him more clearly in Casino Royale, where he was still raw, angry, and brutal.  In Skyfall, we get those touches of a more classic James Bond will still keeping what makes Daniel Craig unique present.  There's more weariness to him, but with it comes a knowledge that he didn't previously have.  His instincts are sharper, able to spot shifts in shadow or suspiciously open doors.  He's also more focused, having a determination that doesn't come from anger or revenge or a determination to prove himself, but instead it seems to stem from loyalty.

This isn't to say he isn't still brutal or cold sometimes.  But I found myself smiling more often in this film, such as a moment during a hand to hand combat scene at a casino, or during a getaway.  It's nice to know that James Bond is, actually, a human like everyone else, and I don't know if it's simple due to an experience at the start of the film that causes him to become softer, or if it was just scripted to be that way.

The Supporting Cast:

Good god, there's a lot of award winners (and nominees!) in this movie.   All of them do great, as expected, but some of them are more memorable than others.  Judi Dench, of course, could have had the entire movie focused solely on her character and how interesting she is.  The moments of politics, where old style spies are compared to a changing world, are just as gripping as the tension of a shootout.  This is all Dench's work, and she crafts her character and shapes the story around her like a master.

Ralph Fiennes does well in his role, but is slightly more forgettable since he always appears next to Judi Dench.  However, I think it's really telling of his skills as an actor that, at no point, was I going "James Bond, M, Q, and...Ralph Fiennes."  He fades into his character quite well.  

Overall, everybody's really good at their role, but I want to mention Berenice Marlohe (I have no idea how to get those accent marks over her name) as the villain's mistress, and Naomie Harris, as one of Bond's fellow field agents.  I always wonder if, when a woman gets a call that she's won a part in a James Bond movie, if she has to ask "great...wait, is this one of the films where a woman always dies?"  Which, as far as I remember, is almost every James Bond movie.  

The Villain:

Javier Barden is a great actor.  There's simply no doubting that in any way, shape, or form.  The fact he plays a character with a personal grudge against MI-6 adds that touch of darkness to the character. After all, when most Bond villains set up instances where someone "should" die, they usually actually want the target to die.  With this character, if the wrong person or persons die, it would ruin everything.

However, watching him, I had a few issues with the character and his methods, if not his motivations.    A lot of the villain's success seems dependent on characters either suffering from moments of bad aim, bad luck, or spontaneous bursts of stupidity.  For instance, relying on not being shot by a man who, for a living, shoots bad guys seems like a plan slightly more optimistic plan than "my plan relies on Batman not punching me in the face, especially after I kill a civilian in front of him."

I get the fact that, with the character's background and training, he would do best playing it fast and loose, and a few things that are viewed as "villain mistakes" are actually part of his plot, but one scene involving a ladder had me going "man, that's just dumb luck he didn't get shot in the stomach."

Overall, a good villain, but I can't claim right now that he's the "best" villain like some people I know have said.  Plus, to be honest, I was expecting a bit more "No Country" Javier adding sinister tones to even simple sentences.

The Setting:

A James Bond movie without great locations simply isn't a James Bond movie.  This one has some doozies including a casino only accessible by boat, a sprawling Chinese metropolis, and ... Scotland?

The stark shift from exotic locations to Scotland add to the film, though.  We go from places where money and opulence are the core of the modern world and deep at the roots of many villains (how many times has James Bond had to sit at a casino table where the stakes were ridiculously high?).  We then travel to a barren estate with a loch, a house, and a shed, and seeing how the "James Bond" character can adapt to either setting helps the character grow.

I will point out one thing, though.  You'd think that a casino that has fully grown komodo dragons under walkways would at least put a net over the entry, like museums and zoos do.  You're just asking for someone to get bit and die.  It was nice to see the komodo dragons get their moment, though.  As anybody who read my review of Far Cry 3 knows, those guys are not to be trifled with.

The Plot:

 There are a lot of layers in this plot.  We have classic spycraft bumping against new techniques, new technology, and new attitudes towards how enemies that no longer control countries are fought.  We have a contrast to older James Bond films and how techniques done then might not always work in today's world, but still have their nostalgic place in society.  We have a story about what it takes to get a difficult job done, and what sacrifices need to be made along the way.  We have a look at the origin of a man who travels the world, feeding bad guys to exotic animals and blowing up entire armies and advanced weaponry.

And, of course, we have the storyline of a villain trying to get revenge against an agency that once wronged him, and being willing to cut loose or destroy anybody who gets in his way.  It's this part of the story ("the main plot") that I had the most difficulties with.  Again, as I said above, it relies a bit too much on dumb luck.  

"Oh, I just happened to have explosives planted there because I expected that if a good guy was to chase me, this exact area would be where he'd catch up and shoot the ladder instead of me despite the ratio of its surface area facing him and my own."

"Oh, I just happened to know that a top class computer genius would connect an infected hard drive to a global network instead of isolating it, and my escape route would happen to take me directly to where I need to be to confront someone."

I can suspend a lot of disbelief (for instance, how is it James Bond gets shot more than once, but I never see a bullet wound when he's walking around shirtless?), but I needed a suspension crane to hold my disbelief off the ground this time.  Then again, it's not really any stranger than Moonraker.

As a whole, the parts fit together great, Adele's theme song finally makes sense when you put it in context of the film, and it really is a solid piece of work.  I still rate the new Casino Royale as higher, and a few other James Bond films have a warmer spot in my heart (again, nostalgia is key to many scenes in this film), and I love that they actually address the argument of "is James Bond just one guy, or do they give everybody who takes over the role that name?"

I solidly recommend it for a lazy day with a big bowl of popcorn and a warm blanket.  Don't expect a deep, emotional drama (though it has touches of one), but don't expect mindless action either.  It has everything you love and expect from a James Bond movie, but is willing to take quite a few chances with some classic tropes.