Skyfall — originally called James Bond Vs The Joker until legal decided that was a bit too on the nose, and then The One That's Quite A Bit Like A Christopher Nolan Film But Not As Good until Adele had trouble fitting that into a chorus — is not, sadly, quite as transcendent as all that hype would have you believe.
But it's still a very good action film, and a fantastic James Bond film.
Yes, it's easy enough to spot Sam Mendes' influences here, but although he's borrowed Chris Nolan's instruments, he's still playing James Bond's tune. The film is positively packed with fan service, as Mendes aggressively ignores the last two entries in the franchise in favour of firmly placing Daniel Craig's Bond at the end of a 50 year tradition. It's unclear if this Bond is the same guy who waged war on Quantum and mourned the death of Vesper Lynd just a few years ago, but he's almost definitely the same guy who strangled Red Grant and bedded Pussy Galore. Reboot? What reboot?
Mendes' desire to return things to the way they were is so strong that the film's very last scene virtually turns the franchise into a Mobius strip, destined to loop around endlessly. If Hollywood were to let the Bond series end here (hah!), it'd be a fitting enough farewell.
Normally, such regressive tendencies wouldn't be looked upon favourably, but this has never been a particularly progressive franchise. The bleeding edge doesn't suit 007, and Mendes wisely decides to leave that gritty business to Jason Bourne. Instead, he's thrown off the shackles and made an honest-to-Broccoli Bond film, loaded with exotic locales, decadent lives and random lovers. One fight sequence involves Komodo dragons, for god's sake, and another — the Shanghai silhouette fight, instantly one of the high points of cinematographer Roger Deakins' legendary career — is so lavishly staged you won't even notice your jaw drop.
Similarly, after the banality of Mathieu Amalric's evil in Quantum Of Solace, we get a villain as warped and flamboyant as the best of them. Javier Bardem is simply extraordinary as cyberterrorist Raoul Silva, and while the character does owe a significant debt to Heath Ledger's Joker (and to David Walliams, of all people), the end result is a terrifying spectacle all its own.
So why didn't I love Skyfall? Well, a lot of it comes down to Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and John Logan's script (yes, the writer always takes the blame when you don't like something and the director always gets the credit when you do — deal with it). It's awfully flat, and never sparkles in the way you'd expect it to.
The plot takes Bond's cavalier approach to stealth and telegraphs its intentions from a mile away, and the dialogue fails to charm. Most of the one-liners feel like they were intended as place holders until someone thought of something better (evidently, nobody did). Naomie Harris is particularly hard done by; most of her time on screen is spent wearing a sardonic expression while saying things that are not particularly sardonic (or interesting).
Annoyingly, the structure of the film's second act is almost identical to The Dark Knight (and The Avengers, for that matter), in a way that goes beyond mere coincidence and begins to hint at creative bankruptcy. What makes it worse is that Skyfall misses the point of the sequence it's blatantly copying. Rather than raising the stakes, it ultimately serves to make the antagonist feel a little bit less threatening, a misfire that carries all the way through to the somewhat underwhelming climax.
Despite these quibbles, though, I can understand why Skyfall has received such unadulterated praise. Mendes has crafted a heartfelt love letter to the character, and it's easy to get caught up in his passion. I desperately wanted to love this film, for it to strap into a Bell Rocket Belt and take off. I'm just not sure it ever really does.
4 Stars
