Even though Skyfall is the latest and highest-grossing installment in the 50-year-old 007 movie franchise, it is not the greatest.
When the franchise got a much-needed reboot with Daniel Craig as James Bond, alias Agent 007, in 2006’s Casino Royale (based on creator/author Ian Fleming’s first 007 novel), creators wanted to get away from the over-the-top action sequences and the proliferation of gadgets, and minimize the bad puns. Casino Royale and its 2008 sequel Quantum of Solace (a vastly-underrated 007 movie) did just that and it worked very well.
However, the exception of the gadgets, Skyfall regresses. It’s full of over-the-top action sequences (as opposed to the visceral action sequences of Royale and Solace) and has more than its fair share of bad puns. A former MI6 agent named Raoul Silva (Oscar winner Javier Bardem) feels M (Oscar winner Judi Dench), head of MI6, has betrayed him and wants revenge. His vengeance scheme is multi-layered. He has a hard-drive with the names of undercover secret agents infiltrating criminal organizations all over the world and starts disseminating their real names on the Internet. This results in many unpleasant deaths. So it’s up to Bond (Craig in his third appearance as 007), who’s MIA and presumed dead, to save the day.
Standard stuff for a 007 movie, right?
However, there are a lot of plot points that aren’t addressed. For instance, an MI6 agent named Eve (Naomie Harris), armed with a high-powered sniper rifle, is ordered by M to open fire on a bad guy battling 007 on top of a moving train. She’s worried about hitting 007, but M orders her to take the shot, saying there’s more at stake, which Eve does. However, she misses and nails 007, who falls about 100 feet into the drink.
If the gunshot didn’t kill him, the fall surely would’ve. So how does he survive? It’s not revealed because at that point, the opening credits begin with Adele performing the title song. That’s not as unbelievable as Batman getting punched in his lower lumbar region to fix his broken back in The Dark Knight Rises, but it’s no prize. When we next see 007, he’s on a tropical island with a nameless woman drinking Heineken (in a bit of blatant product placement). How did he get there? These head-scratching questions aren’t answered.
Director Sam Mendes pursued Bardem for the role of Silva. He’s been hailed as the greatest 007 villain ever. No, he’s really not. Bardem, rocking a funky frosted blond ‘do similar to 007 villain Christopher Walken from 1985’s A View To a Kill, is a generic, cookie-cutter bad guy who’s pretty over-the-top and homoerotic (there’s a cringe-worthy scene between him and a captured 007 as the double entendres fly fast and furious).
In three different scenes, Silva has 007 or M dead to rights, so does he shoot them? No, he stops for a chat and reveals his plan like it’s some bad comic book. If 007 and M had any brains, they would’ve taken advantage of him doing his monologue and stopped him, but that would mean cutting the movie short by an hour. We can’t have that.
It’s revealed that Skyfall is the name of 007’s childhood home, where he takes M. There, he meets up with Kinkaid (Albert Finney), Skyfall’s groundskeeper. A little more is revealed about 007’s parents. Not much, just a little, including their names (Andrew and Monique). That’s it. It’s not an origin story by any means. It is at Skyfall, where these three make their final stand against Silva and his team of thugs. However, one of the good guys doesn’t make it out alive (as to who, see the movie – no spoilers here).
At the end, a supporting character from the 007 mythos is reintroduced as the super-suave spy gets his next assignment as Craig is signed on for two more movies. Let’s hope they’re better than this one.
GRADE: B–/C+